It’s hard to follow-up Michael’s flickr post, but someone has to do it so here it goes.

We made some changes from the Vista Photo Gallery to the Live Photo Gallery in how you organize your photos.  One example of this is how we have pushed more organization into the import process.  The idea being that after you import your photos they come in to the gallery already pretty organized.  The following screencast walks through some of the other new photo organization features of the Live Photo Gallery.  Enjoy!

Video: gallery organization

- John Thornton (Program Manager)

If you've been reading this blog, you've probably got strong opinions of what you like and dislike in the products that our team works on: the Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, and Windows Live Spaces.

Love it or hate it, here's your chance to make a difference. Come work with us! The Digital Memories eXperience team (DMX) has a number of openings for Program Managers, Software Testers, and Software Developers.

Check out our postings on microsoft.com/jobs (you can search by keyword for 'DMX'). Tell your recruiter that you read about it on this blog!

- pixblog

In my previous post I announced that we partnered up with the Flickr team on a slick new publishing feature in Windows Live Photo Gallery.  Our friends at Flickr also talked about it on their team blog.  This time I’d like to take a few more moments and go a little deeper into some of the details of the new feature and I created a short screencast to show how simple it really is!

First, we absolutely still believe that “the truth is in the file”.  As Scott Dart (Program Manager) put it in a previous post, “That means that metadata you apply to your photos is part of the photo, and available to any application that knows how to read it.”  We carried that forward to Windows Live Photo Gallery and the publish features, both Publish on Windows Live Spaces and Publish on Flickr.  We knew this was important to Flickr users so we made sure the feature didn’t remove that important data from your photos when you uploaded them to your account.  (Got more questions about metadata?  We have answers, here.)

Talking about is OK, but how about seeing it in action?!  Check out the screencast I made showing how smooth the flow is from Importing your photos off your camera to the photos being published on your Flickr page! 

Video: Demo: Windows Live Photo Gallery - Publish on Flickr

By the way, I published my .WMV on Soapbox using Windows Live Photo Gallery! ;-)

For those that like screen shots, here’s the play by play:  If you’ve never used the Publish on Flickr feature, the first time you go to click on it in the Publish menu you’ll find it in the “More services” fly out.  The next time you return to the Publish menu, we’ll display it on the top level making it even easier for you to re-use it. 

After you click on the Publish on Flickr menu item for the first time, you’ll be asked to authorize Windows Live Photo Gallery.  Authorizing Photo Gallery simply means you allow it to access your account and upload photos to it.  You will only be asked to authorize each account once (per PC) and then you won’t have to bother again!

Clicking “Authorize…” on the above dialog will automatically open your web browser to the Flickr website where you’ll need to confirm whether you’ll allow the application to have access.  I’m assuming you will approve, or else no worky-worky for the Publish on Flickr feature!  ;-)  If it makes you feel better, Windows Live Photo Gallery is a trusted Flickr partner:

After authorizing the application on the Flickr site, you can close the web browser and return to Windows Live Photo Gallery to this dialog:

Authorization is done!  Clicking Next, gets you to the Publish dialog.  On the Publish dialog you can add or switch between multiple Flickr accounts, choose which set you want to upload to or create a new one, select a resize option if you don’t want to upload the original, and you can select the permission for your photos when they are published:

Assuming you click the Publish button, you’ll start uploading photos…  (*Power user tip* You can minimize the upload dialog and go on to other tasks, or queue up more photos to publish… queue up as many as you like!)

After the upload finishes we’ll let you know with a summary dialog and provide a one-click “View photos” option to quickly get to your newly published photos on Flickr…

So, there you have it.  What do you think?  We want to hear your feedback!  Thanks!

- Michael Palermiti (Program Manager) 

To all of those that asked for it on your own blog, posted comments on our blog or other blog postings, sent us email, or even stopped me on the streets (ok, maybe it hasn’t gone this far yet) asking us to enable Windows Live Photo Gallery to publish photos on Flickr, I want to say… We heard you and we’ve done something about it! 

I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve added the option to publish your photos on Flickr in the latest beta refresh version available today via Microsoft Update!  In fact, Windows Live Photo Gallery has received the stamp of approval from the super cool people at Flickr as a first-class application for uploading your photos to your Flickr account!  You can find the new option on the Publish menu.  I’ll be blogging more about the feature details very soon so check back here for lots more information. Check out the press release here. 
 
But wait, there’s more!  In addition to the brand new Publish on Flickr feature there are some other recent notable changes in this latest beta version:

• Windows Live Photo Gallery no longer requires WDS (Windows Desktop Search) to be installed on XP!  Again, we heard the grumblings loud and clear, and took action! Once you have installed the update via Microsoft Update and have build 1299.1010 install you can uninstall WDS if you’re not using it with any other programs.
• Being a beta, we’ve also fixed a ton of bugs reported by users so the product should be a lot more stable since the last beta release. 

Here’s how you get the latest Beta 2.2 refresh of Windows Live Photo Gallery:  If you are already using the Windows Live Photo Gallery beta, you will get the beta refresh as an update from Microsoft Update.  So, if you have automatic updates enabled from Microsoft Update you will get the latest version (Beta 2.2, build 1299.101) automatically.  If you have automatic updates disabled you will need to go to Microsoft Update (http://update.microsoft.com) to get the latest. 

Not running Windows Live Photo Gallery beta yet?  Go to http://get.live.com to get the Beta 2 version and then check Microsoft Update to ensure you get the latest Beta 2.2 version with all of this new functionality announced today!
 
We hope you’re as excited as we are!  We’re looking forward to hearing more of your feedback and experiences. 

Michael Palermiti (Program Manager)

Today, Windows Live Spaces launced a bunch of new features, including Windows Live Events. You can read all about what's new on the Spaces team blog.

Below is a re-print of the photo-specific features that were launched today:

Do more with your photos

With this release, we’ve made it easier to share photos using Spaces.

Here’s how:

• Let your friends know about new photos you’ve added to your space. Click Send a link and you’ll get a formatted e-mail with links to your album – just add your friends and family to the “To:” line and click Send.

• Put your photos and albums on other websites. Click Embed and then copy the web address or embed code and paste it into the appropriate location on the other site.
• Blog about your own or other people’s photos. Click Blog it and a new blog entry is created automatically with the photo already in the entry. Just add your thoughts and click Publish entry.
• No more downloading an entire album of photos one by one. Download all the photos in an album by clicking Download and then selecting Download album.
• Share photos from your space on Facebook (only in some markets where Facebook is available)
• For those wall-worthy shots, you can order prints online from HP Snapfish in 9 new markets including Australia, Belgium, France, Italy, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

Control who can see your albums

Want Mom to see the pictures from your hiking trip, but not the shots from your friend's birthday? No problem! Now you can choose who can see which albums on your space.

Just go to an album and click Edit album. You’ll see what the current permissions are for that album. To change them, click Change permissions. (By default, all albums are set to use the same permissions as your space.)

Add photos to your blog entries

You can now add and resize photos directly in your blog entries to make a richer experience for readers.

Note: If you want more options for editing your Spaces blog entries, download Windows Live Writer. It’s free, and it makes it easy to compose, edit, preview, and post entries to Windows Live Spaces.

- pixblog

Windows Vista and Windows Live have a mechanism for printing providers to 'plug-in' and offer their printing services to users of these products. Users can use the service to find a printing provider, and upload their photos to them, where they can then complete their order for in-store pickup, or mail order of prints and/or printed goods (books, cards, mugs, gifts, etc.)

If you are a printing provider who would like to connect with users of the Photo Gallery, the process to participate in the program resembles the following:
                                
1. Go Online
We have set up an online form at
https://wmlicense.smdisp.net/licenserequest-04/licenserequest.aspx 
which you will need to fill out entirely.  At the bottom, when it asks for Select License to Request: you must choose Microsoft Online Print Wizard Application in the drop down at the bottom and select submit.  You should receive an application form within a few days of submitting this online form.

2. Apply
Once you receive the application form you need to fill it out completely.  This form contains important information that we must use to determine who will fit the criteria we have laid out for prospective partners.  Once you have completed this form please return it via email to wmla@microsoft.com.  If you qualify for the program you will be notified and should receive the OPW agreement within 6 weeks.

3. Sign Contract
Once you receive the contract simply sign and return and this will start the onboarding process

4. Onboard
After the contract is received Microsoft will work with you to determine which onboarding window your OPW implementation will fit in.  At the time of writing, we believe that we will onboard partners in batches every 8 weeks.  A final schedule of your onboarding window will come once we have received your contract.

- JP Wollersheim