The Art of Photography: Windows Live Photo Gallery (Windows)

Import your photos from your digital camera; the Windows Live Photo Gallery will automatically organize them based on date and time. Keep your images organized by name, date, rating, and type. Locate similar photos with tags you add.

Windows Live Photo Gallery is similar to the Windows Photo Gallery included with Windows Vista, but includes some improvements over the bundled version and is also available as a free download to Windows XP users.

Photo Gallery helps you import your photos and videos from digital cameras, camcorders, CDs, DVDs, and Windows Live Spaces. You can browse the pictures on your computer by folder or by date, and you can add keyword tags, ratings and captions for even more organization. Clicking the "Fix" button gives you easy-to-use tools for adjusting exposure, color, detail (sharpness), and for cropping and removing red eye. All edits are saved automatically, but can be reverted at a later time. There is also an automatic panorama stitching tool.

Other useful activities include:

Print photos in common layouts.
Order prints online through a number of providers.
Post photos to Windows Live Spaces and Flickr.
Post videos on MSN Soapbox.
Resize, rotate, delete, and rename photos.
Email optimized pictures.
Make a movie, burn a DVD or data CD.
Send files to another photo or video program.
Search photos by metadata.
Display photos in a screen saver (Vista only).

The import options are improved over what was offered in the Windows Vista version of Photo Gallery. The import wizard automatically groups your photos by date and time and you can choose what to import, and name and tag photos right at the time of import. Portrait photos can be automatically rotated at the time of import, but those already on your computer must be rotated manually (unless they were edited and saved post-capture).

I'd like to see some more advanced search options in Photo Gallery, but aside from that and the rotation issue just mentioned, there is not a lot to dislike about it. Windows Live Photo Gallery is a somewhat basic, but useful photo management tool that will meet the needs of most users who need to organize, search, fix, share, and print photos, and who aren't interested in more advanced photo editing.