Microsoft today has made available a new tool for photographers using Windows for their digital photos: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools V1 . This application lets you quickly edit the metadata on digital photos you've shot with your camera - including RAW formats. Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on May 1st, 2008 with no comments.
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Microsoft today has made available a new tool for photographers using Windows for their digital photos:
Microsoft Pro Photo Tools V1. This application lets you quickly edit the metadata on digital photos you've shot with your camera - including RAW formats.
Microsoft Pro Photo Tools also allows photographers to use geotagging for their photos. Geotagging is the ability to "tag" something with location information - and in the case of photos the location of where your photo was taken. You can quickly add location data from a GPS device or Live Search Maps to a photo's metadata.
Download: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools V1 (x86)
I use Windows Live Photo Gallery to manage all my photos. I'd like to note that changes in any specific photo' s metadata using Microsoft Pro Photo Tools will be reflected of course in Windows Live Photo Gallery - including title and tags.
You'll see here I've added a title, description, and keywords (aka tags) in Microsoft Pro Photo Tools to one of my photos.
In Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can see the title and tags I've added in Microsoft Pro Photo Tools are displayed in the Windows Live Photo Gallery UI (specifically in the Info pane). The metadata is also in the photo's properties as well.
In Windows Live Photo Gallery currently, the UI doesn't call out metadata for geotagging. But by geotagging your photos in Microsoft Pro Photo Tools now - it's in the metadata so in the future, that metadata can easily be called out by any app designed to call out geotagging from photos.
It's great to see us making investments in creating a better experience for photographers using Windows.
For further background on Microsoft Pro Photo Tools - CNET's Stephen Shankland was able to talk with Josh Weisberg, Microsoft's director of digital imaging evangelism, in a really nice in-depth post looking at Microsoft Pro Photo Tools including its origin and its future.
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on May 1st, 2008 with no comments.
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Mother's Day is fast approaching and what better way to show your Mom you care than to enter her in a photo contest! While I'm still working to get my Mom to join the online community, we have a fun way you all can recognize your own Mom and help her Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on May 1st, 2008 with no comments.
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Mother's Day is fast approaching and what better way to show your Mom you care than to enter her in a photo contest! While I'm still working to get my Mom to join the online community, we have a fun way you all can recognize your own Mom and help her learn how to share all those family photos on her PC with the family and friends!
Portraits of Mom is a contest that lets you showcase Mom using Windows Live by either posting her picture to Windows Live Spaces or visiting one of our temporary retail locations to have her photo taken by a professional. Anyone who doesn't work at Microsoft can enter their Mom's photo into the contest for a chance to win
awesome prizes.
Visit http://www.portraitsofmom.com/ and use Windows Live Photo Gallery to upload your favorite photo of your Mom. Show off your photo on your Windows Live Space, and tell your Mom she's featured along with all the great Moms on the site. Then get her friends and family to vote for her picture posted on http://www.portraitsofmom.com/. If you don't have Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can download it for free along with the rest of the Windows Live suite at http://get.live.com/.
If your Mom or members of your family are in New York or San Francisco over the next two weeks, take them to visit the Windows Live Portrait Studios, a temporary "photo studio" where they'll be treated to a professional portrait sitting. After a quick stylist make-over, she can include the family, a pet or friends in her personal portrait...and the best part is that it's all for free! For location details, click here.
If you're in Seattle, bring your Mom to the Woodland Park Zoo on May 10 and 11 and get a free photo taken by our Quick Snaps team. Just find the Quick Snaps team - who will be wearing lots of Windows gear- and they'll snap a photo of Mom and her family or friends. She'll get a free copy of the photo on the spot, complete with instructions on how to sign up for a Windows Live ID and participate in the Portraits of Mom photo contest!
So come on, celebrate Mothers Day by showing your Mom some love!
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on May 1st, 2008 with no comments.
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This last weekend, my friend and I headed into Central Washington State for a "Spring Break" roadtrip adventure. Our first stop was Seattle, and then we headed over the Snoqualmie Pass into Central Washington where we stopped by Grand Coulee Dam before heading down to the Tri-Cities area before heading home. I took with me my Dell XPS M1530 (PRODUCT) RED Laptop with me running of course Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED. I also took my
Canon HV20 HD Camcorder, and a
Canon Digital Rebel XTi - both of which are Certified for Windows Vista.
On the road, I focused mostly on photography. Many of the places we visited didn't really work well for video and I didn't feel me standing in front of the camera playing "tour guide" would be of any real value. I relied heavily of course on Windows Vista and Windows Live Photo Gallery to import and manage my photos. Because the Canon Digital Rebel XTi is Certified for Windows Vista - it was hassle free to import sometimes up to 400 pictures into Windows Live Photo Gallery. And the photos themselves averaged about 3MB each as I was shooting in the highest quality possible at 10.1 megapixels.
In using Windows Live Photo Gallery, I have the ability to create a panoramic stitch from the photos I took - probably my most favorite feature in Windows Live Photo Gallery. In shooting photos - I made sure I was shooting with the intent to create stitches. What does that mean really? I would take a picture from one angle, then the next, then the next - which would then allow for Windows Live Photo Gallery to create excellent stitches. I'll probably do a video on exactly how I shoot for stitching later on.
So now I have a few really cool panoramic stitches to share of the places we stopped on our roadtrip. I go through them in chronological order with some commentary to add context to each photo.
While in Seattle, we ended up walking down to the waterfront from the Space Needle. I took this shot on the roof of the Bell Harbor Conference Center:
Later on, we decided to head on up to the observation deck of the Space Needle. I was able to get several awesome panoramic shots of Seattle from the top of the Space Needle. Here is the first series of shots I took - looking northwest out toward Puget Sound:
Then I took some shots to create this shot overlooking Elliot Bay:
This is Seattle and probably my favorite panoramic stitch of the Seattle bunch:
And finally this is looking east towards the Cascade Mountain Range. You can see Lake Union on the lower left:
The next day - we headed over the Snoqualmie Pass toward Central Washington State and the Grand Coulee Dam. Up over the pass, it got quite snowy which was a nice (and interesting) change of scenery:
About 100 miles later we were here overlooking the Columbia River near Vantage, WA:
Back on the road heading to Grand Coulee Dam - we ended up stopping in the middle of nowhere for this shot:
In Central Washington, there is quite a bit of interesting geological features (part of why we headed out here). Here is a panoramic shot of Dry Falls. Dry Falls about 10,000-15,000 years ago was a huge water fall carved out by ice age flooding. You can read more about the history of Dry Falls here. But to be here and see it in person was absolutely amazing:
We finally reached Grand Coulee Dam. It's pretty big. They say it is the largest concrete structure in the United States. And you can see - there is quite a bit of concrete! We wanted to get a dam tour but it so happens that the very day we drove hundreds of miles to see the dam was the day they decided to do maintenance on the elevators for the tours. This is another one of my favorite shots from the trip:
Our trip ended the next day on Oregon Coast outside Tillamook, OR:
Hopefully you've enjoyed seeing these panoramic stitches of some of these amazing places. Creating your own stitches in Windows Live Photo Gallery is really easy too - all you need is a digital camera and to be able to import into Windows Live Photo Gallery. You can download Windows Live Photo Gallery, part of the Windows Live suite, here.
I'd like to give a shout out to Canon for loaning me the Canon Digital Rebel XTi for the trip. It is a pretty slick camera and as these shots show, it takes some pretty good photos. If you are looking for a DSLR - definitely take a look at this camera.
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on March 26th, 2008 with no comments.
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Back in September, Nick blogged about two new LifeCams from Microsoft Hardware: the VX-7000 and NX-3000. Recently, I've been looking for a new webcam. I already owned the VX-3000 - but I wanted something a little more powerful and higher quality. And Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on March 7th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Back in September, Nick blogged about two new LifeCams from Microsoft Hardware: the VX-7000 and NX-3000. Recently, I've been looking for a new webcam. I already owned the VX-3000 - but I wanted something a little more powerful and higher quality. And the VX-7000 is just that! I went ahead and picked one up last week and thought I'd share some notes on my experience with it so far.
First off, let me give you a brief introduction to the device. The VX-7000 is the top-of-the-line webcam in the VX series of LifeCams from Microsoft Hardware. The VX series LifeCams are designed for desktop PCs while the NX series LifeCams are designed for laptops. The VX-7000 is a Certified for Windows Vista device so it is designed to work great with Windows Vista. All LifeCams are optimized for Windows Live - specifically being used with Windows Live Messenger for video calls. The VX-7000 comes with a pretty slick set of specs (you can also read the specs here from the Microsoft Hardware site):
- 2.0 Megapixel Sensor for clear video
- Built-in Microphone designed to capture crystal clear audio
- Universal Attachment Base to fit on top and clamp on to most monitors
- Auto-Adjustment for Low Light Conditions
- 71 degree Wide-angle Lens
- High Definition 8 Megapixel still digital photographs
Both video and still photos are shot at 1600x1200 screen resolution which is really nice.
The VX-7000 (and all LifeCams) utilizes the Microsoft LifeCam client where you can take photos and videos using the camera. You can download the Microsoft LifeCam along with the drivers here.
But what the VX-7000 is perfect at, I found out, is doing video calls with contacts in Windows Live Messenger. I used Windows Live Messenger's Audio and Video wizard (under the Tools menu) to set the audio and video up with the VX-7000. I then initiated a video call with a friend of mine and within seconds my friend could hear and see me via my VX-7000 webcam. And the quality was pretty good!
As I mentioned above, you can use the Microsoft LifeCam client to record photos and videos using the VX-7000 (or any LifeCam). And with Windows Live Photo Gallery - you can upload those photos you take to your Windows Live Space (or Flickr). Did you also know that with Windows Live Photo Gallery you can upload videos to MSN Soapbox as well?
I was able to take several videos I shot with the VX-7000 and use Windows Live Photo Gallery to upload them to MSN Soapbox.
Overall though I've been really impressed with the quality of the VX-7000 in general and it should certainly be looked at if you're looking for a new webcam.
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on March 7th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Last week in Redmond I had the pleasure of taking a look the PCs from Dell running Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED. The line-up includes the Dell XPS M1330 and M1530 laptops, the Dell XPS One, and Dell's 948 All-in-One printer. And all of them of Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on January 24th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Being able to create panoramtic stitches in Windows Live Photo Gallery is one of my favorite features ever. I deciced while at CES, I really wanted to use the feature to show off a few locations of both CES and Las Vegas. While at CES this week, I essentially Read More......(
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Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on January 9th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Being able to create panoramtic stitches in Windows Live Photo Gallery is one of my favorite features ever. I deciced while at CES, I really wanted to use the feature to show off a few locations of both CES and Las Vegas. While at CES this week, I essentially lived in Windows Live Photo Gallery uploading photos to Flickr to share with you here. But here are a few panoramic shots I created.
The above is a shot of me standing at the Microsoft Product Pavilion Tent and facing the Las Vegas Convention Center. This gives you an idea of how busy CES can get (both with people, buses, taxis, etc).
My next shot is from the Microsoft Auto Showroom. They had several cars there demostrating awesome Microsoft Auto technology - such as Ford Sync.
And the last shot I have is actually the first panoramic shot I created while at CES. Its the view from my hotel room looking out toward the strip. Not really an impressive view but certainly a neat panoramic shot (at least in my opinion) non-the-less.
I'm sitting here at McCarran International Airport and wanted to share these just before jumping on my plane. Expect another post re-capping CES coverage from myself and many others in the next day or so.
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on January 9th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on CES and CES 2008 and Featured News and Flickr and Las Vegas and Panoramic and Windows Live and Windows Live Photo Gallery.
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