Using Your Computer Webcam for taking photos

Did you know you can use your computer’s webcam for taking a quick snapshot? This can come in handy if you need to take a quick photo of something you can get within range of a built in webcam (usually at the top of the laptop screen) or a webcam plugged in externally.

While the pic won’t be anywhere near the professional photographer quality, with the correct lighting and a bit of practice you can come up with something suitable for the internet or emailing to your contacts.

The instructions below are for computers running Windows XP with a webcam already plugged in. Not sure what Windows XP means? Click here for a very simple way to work it out!

1. Open the Camera within your computer’s control panel by doing the following

• Click on Start, then Control Panel
• Look for Scanners and Cameras and double-click on it
• You will see a selection of your scanners and cameras, select the webcam (look for something like USB Video Device or the brandname of your external camera)
• Double-click on your webcam from within the list, the Scanner and Camera Wizard should start up

2. Take a picture using the Scanner and Camera Wizard

• You should now see a screen with a Preview of what the webcam sees in the left half, and any pictures you took in the right half.
• Play around with the lighting, your hair, wardrobe changes until you are happy with what you see in the left part of the screen, then click on the words “Take Picture” under the preview Window.
• Your picture will move to the right side with a tick box in the right corner, you can repeat these steps (in section 2 here) as many times as you want to try different angles, hairstyles etc
• Click on Next and we will save the pictures.

3.  Saving the picture(s) for later use

• In box 1. type a name for the group of pics, or you can type in All Pics or similar
• In box 2 click on browse and choose the place on your computer where you would like to store the pics. (Make sure to remember this location for later use)
• Click on the box to delete the pictures after copying them so you don’t end up with the same pictures in multiple places
• Then click on Next, and click on Nothing and Next in the next screen.
• You will then see a screen with the final location of your pics, you can click on the link within that screen, come back later and click on Finish.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!