Photographs are meant to be enjoyed so a screensaver slideshow is a great way to see them and let them be seen. It is easy to show a single folder of images as a screensaver using Windows but if you want something more advanced you'll need special software. One shareware program that does a good job is Screen Paver.

Download a fully featured 30-day trial of the program from http://www.screenpaver.com. If you decide to use it beyond the trial period it will cost $US12.95 ($14) to register it. Screen Paver is a tiny download (762KB) and it installs direct into your Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2000/XP or Vista screensaver tool.

To configure your new screensaver, right-click the Windows desktop, choose Properties, Screen Saver tab. Look for Screen Paver in the Screen Saver list. Select it and click the Settings button to show the Screen Paver dialogue. To select your photos, click the Picture Selection tab and click Add Directory. Select a folder of photos to display. You can repeat this to add multiple folders if desired. You can also use photos on a shared drive on another computer on your home network. If you add multiple folders you can enable or disable them at any time.

Click the Effects/Overlays tab to configure the transition effects that play when one photo transitions to the next. All the transitions in the list are enabled by default and you can disable any that you don't want to use or just select one or two to use for all your images.

To add a text overlay, click the Message On button and type a message into the dialogue. If your photo file names are meaningful - for example, they describe the image contents - you can display them by clicking the Filename Captions On checkbox.

To play music with your slideshow, click the Music Selection tab and select the Music Directories option. Click Add Directory and select one or more folders of music on your computer to play along with your screensaver slide show. Test that the music plays by clicking the Play button and adjust the volume using the Volume slider. You can also select to play a music CD in one of the drives in your computer.

Use the Picture Settings tab to configure how photos are displayed on the screen. You can set the duration of the image display, play them randomly, alphabetically or by date. To configure the size of the images, click the Proportional option and choose Screen from the Limit list so the images are shown at a large size without distortion. If your photos are smaller than screen size, you can use the magnification options to enlarge the images to better fill the screen.

To set the screen background colour, click the Color button and select a colour to use. When you're finished, click OK and click Preview to see the slideshow setup. If you have selected to show very large images across a network, it will take a few seconds for the first images to display. When you close the Display Properties dialogue, the slideshow will play as configured on your computer when the machine is idle for a specified time.

To stop it, move the mouse or tap a key on your computer keyboard.

A screensaver tool such as Screen Paver is a great way to display your photos without having to learn an entirely new program to do so. Built into the Windows Screensaver application as it is, it's easy to find and easy to customise so you can spend more time enjoying your photos than you do configuring the program.