Digital photos and videos made easy with Windows Live Photo Gallery
From getting photos and videos off your camera to sharing them
with others, Windows Live Photo Gallery makes working with your digital
memories a snap. In this article, you'll learn how to get photos and videos off
your camera and on to your computer, add tags for organizing them, fix those
not-so-perfect shots, and share them with others.
Windows Live Photo Gallery
is part of Windows Live Essentials (the suite of Windows Live programs for your PC)—you can download and install it for free.
Plug it in
The first step (after taking the photos and videos) is getting
them from your camera to your computer. Here's how:
-
Plug your camera into your computer using the USB cord.
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In the AutoPlay window, click Import
pictures and videos using Windows Live Photo Gallery.
The AutoPlay window shows options for importing your pictures
and videos.
Photo Gallery looks for new photos and videos on your
camera. You can choose to group the new items by date and time, and import them
into separate folders. Organizing your photos and videos as you import them
makes them a lot less work to organize later. But if you want to do
all the work by hand sometime later, you can group all new items into one
folder instead.
You can import photos and videos as groups into separate
folders...
...Or you can just import all your new photos and videos without
organizing them into groups.
-
When you're done, click Import.
Tag it!
Photo Gallery lets you add two types of tags to your photos and videos to make them easier to find later. You can use descriptive tags for things like places, events or collections (such as photos you want to mark for a book or calendar). You can use people tags to mark people in your photos.
To add descriptive tags
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In the gallery, click the photo or video you want to
tag.
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In the Info pane, click Add tags.
You can either enter a new tag in the box, or select from the
list of tags you've already entered for other photos and videos.
Add descriptive tags to your photos and videos to make them easier to
find later.
-
Press ENTER.
Your new tag appears in the list of tags for that photo or video.
Tip
Another way to add tags is to drag a photo to a tag in the Tags
list.
To add tags to more than one photo or video at a time, hold down
the CTRL key and click all the items you want to tag. You can see lists of tags
shared by your photos and videos in the Info pane. To add a new tag, click Add tags, and then enter a word or phrase.
Tip
Make your descriptive tags specific—for instance, with a specific location
(Seattle) or event (Molly's 40th birthday party). It'll make finding your photos later much easier.
You can also add people tags to your photos. People tags make it easier to find all the photos of a certain person later.
Adding people tags is similar to adding descriptive tags: select the photo or photos you want to tag, and then click Add people tag. Click inside the box and a list of your contacts is shown. Select the person who appears in the picture. If that person isn't in your contact list, type their name into the box. When you're done, press ENTER.
Find photos of your favorite people faster by adding people tags. Browsing
your photos and videos
You can browse photos and videos by date and by tag, even if they're
organized in different folders.
To browse
photos and videos by date
-
Click Date taken.
-
Click a year, and then a month to see photos and videos
taken that month of the year. If you took many photos and videos that month,
you can click a day to see only photos and videos taken on that specific day.
Browsing by date taken can help when you're looking for
photos or videos from a specific event.
To browse
photos and videos by tag
-
Click Tags.
-
Click a tag to see all the photos and videos that have
that tag.
Browsing by tag can help you find photos and videos that
include the same subject or were taken at the same place.
You can also sort your photos and videos using the Name, Date,
Rating, and Type buttons, or search for photos using the search box.
Fixing
photos
Red eye? A little out of focus? Colors not quite right? It's easy
to fix photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery.
-
To fix a photo, click the photo, and then click Fix. Photo Gallery displays a variety of options in the Fix
pane.
Tweak your photos to make them look exactly the way you want.
-
Click an option to see the adjustments you can make.
When you're done making changes, click Back to gallery.
The changes are saved automatically in a new file. You can always revert back
to the original file. When you open the file again, just click Revert in the Fix pane.
Create
panoramic photos
Windows Live Photo Gallery can help you stitch together multiple photos of a
scene to make a panorama. Here's how:
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In the gallery, select the photos you want to stitch
together by holding down the CTRL key while you click each photo.
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Click Make, and then click Create panoramic photo.
Creating panoramic photos is easy—Windows Live Photo Gallery stitches
them together for you automatically.
Your photos are stitched together into one! You can crop the
photo, make whatever adjustments you want, and save.
It's fun to try this too with photos of different scenes, or even
photos of people (you might get some hilarious results).
Share
the memories
Windows Live Photo Gallery makes it really easy to share your photos and
videos with friends and family—on the web, in e-mail, or by printing.
Sharing on
the web
From Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can quickly share your photos (on Windows Live or Flickr, for example) and your videos. Select
the photos or videos you want to share, click Publish,
click where you want to publish the selected photos or videos, and then follow the
instructions.
Sharing photos on the web is easy from Windows Live Photo Gallery.
If you want to post your photos or videos to other services, you can download and install plug-ins that work with Photo Gallery. Click Publish, point to More Services, and click Add a plug-in to go to the Windows Live Photo and Video blog webpage
that lists the available plug-ins.
Sending
in e-mail
If you'd like to send photos or videos as attachments,
you can add them to an e-mail message right from Windows Live Photo Gallery. Just select the
photos or videos you want to send, and click E-mail.
Select a photo size for your attachments: select smaller sizes if you're
concerned about filling your friend's inbox, or larger sizes if the recipient
wants to print the photos. Click Attach. Photo Gallery
prepares your photos in the size you indicated, and your default e-mail program
prepares an e-mail message containing the photos or videos you selected.
Windows Live Photo Gallery automatically sizes and attaches your files to an e-mail message.
Add recipients to the To: line, write a personalized message and
subject, and click Send.
Making
prints
There are two ways to print photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery: with your
own printer, or by sending them to a photo printing company. Both options are
available by clicking Print, and with both you can select
print sizes, quantity, and other options.
Back
them up
It's a good idea to back up photos and videos that are important
to you. From Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can back them up to a CD.
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Select the files you
want to save to a CD (to select them all, click File, and
then click Select all). Click Make,
and then click Burn a data CD.
-
Insert a blank CD into your computer's CD recorder
drive, and follow the instructions. If you have a lot of photos and videos, you
might need more than one CD.
