HomeDiscover WindowsProducts
Windows 7Windows VistaWindows XPInternet ExplorerWindows LiveWindows phone
ShopDownloadsHelp & How-to
Windows 7Windows VistaWindows XPInternet ExplorerWindows LiveWindows phone
Windows CommunityContact Support
Windows Vista Help homeTop solutionsUsing Windows VistaCommunity & forumsContact support

Applies to all editions of Windows Vista.

Compare editions

See also

Tag pictures so they're easier to find

Finding a picture on your computer can be very difficult, especially if you have hundreds of pictures. Using Windows Photo Gallery, you can make it easier to find your pictures by applying tags and ratings to the pictures. Later, you can use the Navigation pane or the Search box to filter the pictures by tags or ratings.

To add tags to pictures

  1. Open Windows Photo Gallery by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, clicking All Programs, and then clicking Windows Photo Gallery.

  2. Click the picture that you want to tag.

  3. If the Info pane is not displayed, click Info on the toolbar.

  4. In the Info pane, click Add Tags, type a tag name, and then press ENTER.

    Picture of Info pane in Photo Gallery displaying tags for the selected pictureThe Info pane in Photo Gallery displaying tags for the selected picture

Tips

Tips

  • In the Info pane, you can also add a caption and rate the picture. You can rate pictures with one- to five-star ratings.

  • You can apply as many tags as you want to each picture. You might want to create separate tags to represent the location, people, or event represented by each picture.

  • After adding a tag to a picture, the tag will be displayed in the Navigation pane.

  • To add an existing tag to a picture without additional typing, drag the picture to the appropriate tag in the Navigation pane.

Organize your tags by nesting them in groups

If you add a lot of tags, you might discover that it is difficult to keep track of a long list of tags in the Navigation pane. If you have groups of related tags, you might want to nest them instead. Consider, for example, this set of tags, which you might use to organize pictures of your family:

  • Family

  • Children

  • Grandparents

  • Relatives

Because three of these tags belong to a larger set ("Family"), you can nest them in the Navigation pane. This has several advantages:

  • You can expand and collapse the top-level tag as if it were a folder with subfolders. This lets you hide the tags that are nested under the top-level tag and simplify the view when you don't want to see all the tags.

  • You can click the top-level tag to see all of the pictures that are tagged with both the top-level tag and any of the nested tags. If you want to see only pictures with a tag that's nested under the top-level tag, click that tag instead.

A set of nested tags looks like this:

Picture showing nested tags in Photo GalleryThe top-level Family tag (left) and the top-level Family tag expanded to show the tags that are nested beneath it (right)

To nest tags

  1. Create the tags that you want to use.

  2. In the Navigation pane, drag a tag that you want to be nested to the tag that you want to make the top-level tag.

  3. Continue to drag any additional tags to the top-level tag.

Tip

Tip

To create a nested tag when typing tags in the Info pane, use a slash (/). For example, type Family/Children to add the Children tag (which is nested under the Family tag) to a picture. If the Family tag does not already exist, it will be created automatically.

Was this helpful?What's this?
Thank you.
Do you want to add anything else?
Thank you. Your feedback helps us to continually improve our content.
1200 400 How can we make this more helpful for you? Submit Skip this Do you want to add anything else? Submit No thanks