Editing photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery

All of the following editing tools are found on the Fix pane. Select a photo to edit, click Fix, and then experiment for yourself.

Auto adjust. Auto adjust senses what corrections will make your photos better and applies them. Remember, Auto adjust changes are subjective and might not always appeal to you. Using Auto adjust as a starting point and making further adjustments as needed is a good way to gain an understanding of what some of the other editing features are. Auto adjust shows you what adjustments have been made, making this easier still.

Brightness. Brightness adjusts the perceived brightness in a photo.

Contrast. Contrast is the overall difference in appearance between dark areas in a photo and lighter areas.

Shadows and Highlights. These adjustments affect the quantity of light and darkness applied to different parts of a photo.

Histogram. The histogram provides information about overall levels of brightness in a photo. The left of the histogram relates to the photo's darkness and the right represents its brightness. You can use this information to gauge the amount of adjustment you might make to a photo or the amount of exposure you use later when taking a photo under similar conditions.

Adjust color. Color temperature is the amount of blue tones (cool) and red tones (warm) in an image. Tint is a variation of hue created by adding white to an image. Saturation is the strength or intensity of color an image has. Highly saturated photos have brighter colors that are rich and vivid. Images with less saturation will be less intense (the extreme case being an image that is entirely composed of gray tones).

Straighten photo. This feature lets you correct of a photo's horizon. Photo Gallery will straighten the photo for you automatically when you select this feature, and then you can fine tune the adjustment by moving the slider.

Crop photo. After looking over a photo, you might find sections of the image that you want to remove. The Crop photo feature is the easiest way to change composition and to remove sections of an image that you don't like. When using the Crop photo feature, Photo Gallery displays a frame that you can position and adjust to include the detail you want to keep. Everything outside this frame will be removed when you click Apply. You might need to use the Crop photo feature a few times to get the composition the way you want it.

Adjust detail. Sharpening enhances the perceived edges of subject in an image. Many cameras capture photos that have a "soft" quality to them. These photos can be made more clear by using the sharpen tool. When applying this tool, Photo Gallery determines the edges of an object and enhances them, producing an image that appears more in focus.

Fix red eye. Fixing red eye is done by selecting the Fix red eye feature, and then dragging the mouse over the desired pixels.

This can be tricky until you get the hang of it. To make it easier, try using the magnifying tool to zoom in on the eyes.

Black and white effects. Photo Gallery offers several different black and white effects that can be used to add interesting antiqued qualities to photos. Click one of the six examples to apply a filter to your photo. If you don't like how it looks, click Undo to remove the filter.

Undo/Redo. This feature lets you experiment with the editing tools to discover how they work and what they do, so you can be creative and have fun because you can undo and redo whatever changes you make to a photo. If you go back to the gallery and later want to undo changes to the photo, just select the photo again, click Fix, and then click Revert.