Create your own photo show

Windows has always been pretty good at storing and organising photographs, with all recent versions including a folder called ‘My Pictures’ or just ‘Pictures’, ready to store snapshots.

When Windows Vista was announced, though, it included something a bit more sophisticated that could catalogue, print and organise photos into slideshows.

In this issue’s Back to Basics we’ll look at both the original Photo Gallery for Vista and the latest version – called Windows Live Photo Gallery – that works in both Vista and Windows 7. We’ll even explain how XP users can enjoy the show.

Meet Windows Photo Gallery
Windows XP and 7 users need to download and install Photo Gallery (we’ll explain how shortly), but Vista users can get stuck right in. Click Start, type Photo Gallery into the search box and, when Photo Gallery appears in the program list above, click it once to launch the program.

If this is the first time that Photo Gallery has been launched, it may take a while to catalogue your photos (and videos as well) but after that, they’ll be displayed in the main window together with a list of different folders down the left-hand side.

These folders make it easy to view photos in different ways. For example, click the Pictures folder in the left-hand column and the main display will change to reflect the way that the Pictures folder is organised; scroll back up and click on the Date Taken folder and the photos will be displayed in date order, starting with the most recent.

Want to find pictures from a particular year? Click on the relevant folder date in the left-hand column to see the related photos in the main window – and if you took photos on different months that year and on different days within those months, Photo Gallery lets you ‘drill down’ to look at those as well.

 

It’s also possible to organise photos by using tags – see the heading 'Tag Photos using Windows Live Photo Gallery' towards the end of this artlcle.

Using Photo Gallery
Photo Gallery is packed with features and we don’t have nearly enough room to cover them all, but here’s a selection of things to try.

Click on a photo in the main window to select it and then click the Fix button. The photo will open in a new window and you can use the various controls down the right-hand side to adjust the exposure, colour, crop the picture to show a specific part, or fix the red-eye look that’s sometimes the result of bad flash photography.

If in doubt, click Auto Adjust and Windows will do its best to improve the picture automatically. If something doesn’t work or just looks wrong, click Undo; alternatively, if you’re happy, click Back To Gallery to save any changes and return to the main window view.

Photo Gallery can also display a full-screen slideshow of the contents of any folder. Select a folder from the left-hand column and then click the button at the foot of the main window that looks like a 35mm slide. Press the Escape (Esc) key to quit the slideshow when done.

Remember that Photo Gallery can catalogue any videos stored on the hard disk – click the Videos folder in the left-hand column to display them. To play back a video, double-click its thumbnail.

Windows Live Photo Gallery
XP and Windows 7 don’t include Photo Gallery, but its replacement, Live Photo Gallery, can be downloaded free (and Vista users can get it, if desired). Windows 7 users should click Start and type Photo Gallery into the search box, then click the ‘Go online to get Windows Live Essentials’ option that appears in the menu.

When the website loads, click Photo Gallery and then at the next screen, click the Download now button. If the File Download Security Warning dialogue box appears, click Save and then choose a location for the downloaded file. Firefox users should select Save File to save the download to Firefox’s default download folder.

Now locate and double-click the downloaded file and, when prompted, select the ‘Choose the programs you want to install’ option and then remove ticks from everything except Photo Gallery and Movie Maker (they come as a pair). Click Install and, when it’s finished, click Close. To launch the program, click Start and then pick it off the menu.

If using XP, launch a web browser and go to Microsoft's Windows Live page. Click Essentials and choose ‘Great photos: Photo Gallery’. At the next screen, click the ‘Learn about Photo Gallery for Windows XP’ link (this link appears only when using a Windows XP PC) and then choose a language. Click Download Now and follow the above instructions to complete the download and launch the installation.

Remove the ticks from everything except Photo Gallery and, if XP offers to close the web browser, click Continue. It may suggest changing the web browser home page and search provider: if you don’t want to, remove all the ticks and click Continue.

At the next screen, sign up for a Windows Live ID if you like – this is useful for sharing photo albums online. If you already have one or don’t want one, click Close. To load Live Photo Gallery, click Start, then All Programs, the Windows Live, then Photo Gallery.

Tag photos using Windows live photo gallery

 

1  Launch Photo Gallery and then find and double-click a picture with some people in it. In the right-hand panel you’ll see an option to ‘Tag someone’. Click it.

 

2  The mouse pointer turns into a crosshair – use it to draw round the person’s face and then let go of the button. Type their name into the empty pop-up box and press Enter. Then click the Close file button.

 

3  Tag more people in the same way then click the Find tab at the top of the main window to see thumbnails of them. Click the More arrow and then hover the pointer over a specific thumbnail and Photo Gallery will display only pictures of that person.

Getting to know the Gallery
There’s lots more that can be done with both versions of Photo Gallery covered here but we’ve given you enough to get you started. As mentioned earlier, we’d certainly spend some time tagging pictures, as this will make it easy to navigate round even very large libraries of photographs to find exactly the ones you want.