What do you normally do when you want to upload a set of photos from the weekend onto your social networking site of choice?
The site might have its own photo service that allows you to upload directly from your hard drive, or you might use a dedicated photo transfer system with a drag-and-drop interface and various photo presentation tools.
Whatever the case, chances are that right now, you're taking several disjointed steps to do what you could do in one intuitive leap with the new Windows Live Photo Gallery and photo sharing services. The great thing about the new Windows Live is all the options you have when it comes to sharing your photos with the people closest to you. Now that your photo uploads go straight to your Skydrive, you can choose who gets to see your pics, or open the file up to share with everyone. You can also share your photos in real-time with your friends by dropping them into a Messenger chat, whenever you like.
And you're not just limited to sharing within Windows Live products either. By using the new LiveUpload plug-in, you can upload your pictures directly to Facebook and a range of other social networks using Photo Gallery.
The new Photo Gallery works as a stand-alone photo editing and presentation suite, but it also gives you a range of inventive and fun options to share and display your photos — options that aren't offered by other photo-sharing products.
Through its integration with SkyDrive — Windows Live's file sharing and storage service — you can centralise all of your photo sharing needs using a simple, drag-and-drop uploading function. Want to quickly snap and embed a photo into your next blog post or email? Perhaps you'd like to create a new background for your Messenger scene or drop a few photos into your next IM session so you can chat about them with your friends in real time? With Windows Live Photo Gallery, it’s dead-easy.
So how does it all work?
Before you go and download the new Photo Gallery let's have a quick look at what's on offer.
Let's start by going to the photo page within your Live profile. On this page, you'll find a summary of recent albums and photos that you've shared, as well as a photo-specific What's New feed.
When a friend visits your profile, they've got a whole lot of options when it comes to viewing and sharing your photos. Through your photo page they can select a gallery and download all the photos, straight away.
After you've uploaded your latest photo album, you'll want to tag each photo so that anyone who's been snapped will be alerted in the What's New feed and can find those pics easily.
The new Photo Gallery recognises when you hover over someone in a photo, and tagging one of your friends is as simple as right clicking on the face box and selecting their name from your list of Windows Live contacts, or entering in any name you'd like.
Now, you might want to upload your photos to another social network you use. Why not send them straight to Facebook using the new LiveUpload plug-in?
That's just a basic wrap up of what you can do with the new Windows Live Photo Gallery.
The best way to find out more for yourself is to download it, have a play, and make sure to come back to windows.ninemsn.com.au for more tips on how to personalise your Windows Live experience using Photo Gallery.
Had a chance to start using the new Photo Gallery yet? Let us know how it's been for you below
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