Windows Live Photo Gallery – All You Need to Know to Get Started

Windows Live Photo Gallery is an upgrade to the version of Photo Gallery that ships with Vista. Because it’s a Live service, it’s web-based and thus images can be published to the Internet more easily than non-Live applications. Also, because of its ties to the Internet, it’s upgraded often with new features and functionality. This makes it a better solution for photo management than Vista’s Photo Gallery.

With Windows Photo Gallery you can:

* Access a familiar Windows Photo Gallery interface. This allows you to access photos on your PC easily, and publish photos to the Internet with only a few clicks of the mouse.

(It helps if you use other Live services like Windows Live Spaces. For more information on Windows Live Spaces, refer to the links at the end of this article.) [See Image 1]

* Display photos as screensavers and create personalized slideshows.

* Organize, manage, import, edit, and delete photos and videos.

* Create panoramic views by combining multiple like photos.

* Fix photos with auto adjust features, and crop or fix red eye in photos. [See Image 2]

* Send photos in an email and resize them with a click of the mouse. [See Image 3]

* Print photos using your own printer or order prints online. [See Image 4]

To get started:

1. Visit http://get.live.com/photogallery/overview.

2. Click Download.

3. Wait while the download completes.

4. Open Windows Live Photo Gallery.

5. Pictures on your PC will automatically be added to Windows Live Photo Gallery’s library.

6. Use the trees to expand folders. [See Image 5] Select any image to open it in a larger view.

7. Hover your mouse over any picture to see a large thumbnail. [See Image 6]

8. Select any picture or set of pictures, and click Publish.

9. Note that you can publish on Windows Live Spaces, MSN Soapbox, or Flickr.

10. Continue experimenting as desired.