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Creating photo panoramas with Windows Live Photo Gallery

With Windows Live Photo Gallery, your field of vision isn't limited to what you can squeeze into one photo. In Photo Gallery, you can "stitch" together several photos in a series to create a larger, more interesting composition.

In the past, taking panoramic photos required a special camera, lenses, or the use of complicated camera features. The only other option was to paste photos together by hand. Photo Gallery makes creating panoramic photos much easier—and much more fun.

To create a panorama, install Windows Live Photo Gallery if you haven't installed it already.

Getting started

  1. Take a series of photos that overlap a little. Here is an example using photos of Amsterdam.

    Picture of four photos used to create a panoramaThe four photos used to create the panorama

  2. After you import the photos into Photo Gallery, select them by holding down the CTRL key while you click each photo.

  3. Click Make, and then click Create a panoramic photo. Photo Gallery analyzes and adjusts the photos so they fit together smoothly.

  4. Select a name and folder location for the panoramic photo.

    Picture of Photo Gallery displaying the stitched photosThe rough panoramic photo that Photo Gallery created from the sample photos

    The precision of the panoramic photo depends on the amount of overlap in the photos and the similarity of the lighting between the photos. Experiment with it a few times until you get a good feel for the type of photo scenes that stitch together best from your particular camera.

  5. After the photos are stitched together, you can clean up the rough edges by cropping the photo. Click Fix, and then click Crop photo.

    Picture of the Crop photo featureCropping the panoramic photo to clean up the edges and create a good composition

  6. Select the section of the photo you want to keep and click Apply.

    Picture of the Apply crop featureApplying the changes to the panoramic photo

  7. When you're finished editing your new panoramic photo, click Back to gallery to return to the gallery. Photo Gallery automatically saves the photo for you.

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