Photo Gallery

Since this is referenced a lot, I decided to take a quick look tonight.
Maybe I'm missing something, but here are my initial reactions:

Open is missing. If you have a photo on your hard drive or network, I can't
find a way to open it to look at it. It's probably there, but well hidden.
Could not get any network functions to work.

Add Folders to Gallery. So then you copy the pic files over the network and
place in a folder on the Vista hard drive. I then try to use the Add
Folders to Gallery options. It shows me all my hard drives, but seems to be
unable to find any folders anywhere. They are all missing in action.
Giving up on using this, I type in the folder name and it adds that folder
to the Gallery. So now the folder is there, but none of the pics I copied
there appear at all. They are also missing in action.

My camera is a Nikon, so perhaps MS forgot to build in the ablity to see raw
Nikon images (many freeware programs have no troubles at all). Once I
convert to jpg, the images at least come up. The basic edit controls are
about what is included in the lite versionf of Microsoft Picture It. That's
a pretty fair package that has been around for at least 5 years.

Thus far there are scads of freeware programs that do all these things
better. Since I already have an assortment of other programs (Nikon Edit,
Adobe xxx, etc), there is nothing here that looks interesting.

Perhaps for someone who has nothing, but even the programs that come with
$75 digital cameras are in the same ballpark.

Ed

All my pictures in the Pictures folder show up in the Photo Gallery. If you
have them on certain places on the hard disk, such as the root of the drive,
they probably will no show up, since certain aspects of the root of the
drive are not indexed and there are missions on it. Try puting your photos
in your user folder.

Also, there is a dedicated Vista newsgroup for issues concerning pictures -
lets try utilizing them microsoft.public.windows.vista.music_pictures_vide o
--
--
Andre
Windows Connected | http://www.windowsconnected.com
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta

"Ed Dixon" <eddixon@mtnsys.com> wrote in message
news:uoE1xGzaGHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

> Since this is referenced a lot, I decided to take a quick look tonight.
> Maybe I'm missing something, but here are my initial reactions:
>
> Open is missing. If you have a photo on your hard drive or network, I
> can't find a way to open it to look at it. It's probably there, but well
> hidden. Could not get any network functions to work.
>
> Add Folders to Gallery. So then you copy the pic files over the network
> and place in a folder on the Vista hard drive. I then try to use the Add
> Folders to Gallery options. It shows me all my hard drives, but seems to
> be unable to find any folders anywhere. They are all missing in action.
> Giving up on using this, I type in the folder name and it adds that folder
> to the Gallery. So now the folder is there, but none of the pics I copied
> there appear at all. They are also missing in action.
>
> My camera is a Nikon, so perhaps MS forgot to build in the ablity to see
> raw Nikon images (many freeware programs have no troubles at all). Once I
> convert to jpg, the images at least come up. The basic edit controls are
> about what is included in the lite versionf of Microsoft Picture It.
> That's a pretty fair package that has been around for at least 5 years.
>
> Thus far there are scads of freeware programs that do all these things
> better. Since I already have an assortment of other programs (Nikon Edit,
> Adobe xxx, etc), there is nothing here that looks interesting.
>
> Perhaps for someone who has nothing, but even the programs that come with
> $75 digital cameras are in the same ballpark.
>
> Ed

All my pics are all in standard organized windows folders. Every picture
tool I have ever tried has no problem at all. However The Vista product
does not seem to be able to find much of anything.

What I see thusfar in Photo Gallery is second rate compared to most freeware
products. Again, maybe I've missed the gems there, but they seem to be
hiding from me.

Ed


"Andre Da Costa [Extended64]" <andred25@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23bu3VlzaGHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

> All my pictures in the Pictures folder show up in the Photo Gallery. If
> you have them on certain places on the hard disk, such as the root of the
> drive, they probably will no show up, since certain aspects of the root of
> the drive are not indexed and there are missions on it. Try puting your
> photos in your user folder.
>
> Also, there is a dedicated Vista newsgroup for issues concerning
> pictures - lets try utilizing them
> microsoft.public.windows.vista.music_pictures_vide o
> --
> --
> Andre
> Windows Connected | http://www.windowsconnected.com
> Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
> Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
> http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
>
> "Ed Dixon" <eddixon@mtnsys.com> wrote in message
> news:uoE1xGzaGHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

>
>

I don't have a lot of time into it either, partly because I can see right
off the bat that some things aren't working yet. But my experience with what
I have done is different. For example, there's an Open button on the
toolbar, and you can also right-click any thumbnail and choose Open With.
Fix takes you to a simple editor for cropping, brightness, contrast, red
eye.



Had no problem adding folders from local drives. But the Network option
isn't working for me.



Tags seem to be working OK. Click Not Tagged in the left column, then you
can add tag words (like keywords) to any picture or group of selected
pictures. Later you can view all the pictures that contain any given tag
word just by clicking that tag word in the left column. I'd that that's the
main point of the gallery. To be able to assign tag words to all types of
pix and videos, independent of the file type and the metatags that each file
type offers.





"Ed Dixon" <eddixon@mtnsys.com> wrote in message
news:uoE1xGzaGHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

> Since this is referenced a lot, I decided to take a quick look tonight.
> Maybe I'm missing something, but here are my initial reactions:
>
> Open is missing. If you have a photo on your hard drive or network, I
> can't find a way to open it to look at it. It's probably there, but well
> hidden. Could not get any network functions to work.
>
> Add Folders to Gallery. So then you copy the pic files over the network
> and place in a folder on the Vista hard drive. I then try to use the Add
> Folders to Gallery options. It shows me all my hard drives, but seems to
> be unable to find any folders anywhere. They are all missing in action.
> Giving up on using this, I type in the folder name and it adds that folder
> to the Gallery. So now the folder is there, but none of the pics I copied
> there appear at all. They are also missing in action.
>
> My camera is a Nikon, so perhaps MS forgot to build in the ablity to see
> raw Nikon images (many freeware programs have no troubles at all). Once I
> convert to jpg, the images at least come up. The basic edit controls are
> about what is included in the lite versionf of Microsoft Picture It.
> That's a pretty fair package that has been around for at least 5 years.
>
> Thus far there are scads of freeware programs that do all these things
> better. Since I already have an assortment of other programs (Nikon Edit,
> Adobe xxx, etc), there is nothing here that looks interesting.
>
> Perhaps for someone who has nothing, but even the programs that come with
> $75 digital cameras are in the same ballpark.
>
> Ed

The Open button on the toolbar appears to be to select programs to use, not
to select an individual photo to be displayed/edited. The File menu is
where I would expect an Open command to be, and none appears there.

The right click on thumbnail works fine, as long as the image is already
there. However someone has placed an image in directory xyz on the PC. You
want to look at it. You don't want to include that folder as it is used for
other things. How?

Fix seems to work fine and is on par with simialar features includes in
early versions MS Picture It. Essentially the basic photo edit options.

When I use the Add Folders option, only a subsset of the actual folders are
displayed. Most are either hidden or missed. When a tools gives me the
option to select a folder, I expect to see every single folder, not the ones
it chooses. If for some reason I don't have access, I expect an Access
Denied message.

Ed


"Puppy Breath" <alan@coolnerds.com> wrote in message
news:16171438-4CFD-4A9A-A771-0F31C959D9E0@microsoft.com...

>I don't have a lot of time into it either, partly because I can see right
>off the bat that some things aren't working yet. But my experience with
>what I have done is different. For example, there's an Open button on the
>toolbar, and you can also right-click any thumbnail and choose Open With.
>Fix takes you to a simple editor for cropping, brightness, contrast, red
>eye.
>
>
>
> Had no problem adding folders from local drives. But the Network option
> isn't working for me.
>
>
>
> Tags seem to be working OK. Click Not Tagged in the left column, then you
> can add tag words (like keywords) to any picture or group of selected
> pictures. Later you can view all the pictures that contain any given tag
> word just by clicking that tag word in the left column. I'd that that's
> the main point of the gallery. To be able to assign tag words to all types
> of pix and videos, independent of the file type and the metatags that each
> file type offers.
>
>
>
>
>
> "Ed Dixon" <eddixon@mtnsys.com> wrote in message
> news:uoE1xGzaGHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

>

We might be using different builds, I don't know. I don't have a menu bar at
all in Photo Gallery. If you just want to preview a pica, not open it in a
specific program, you double-click its icon.

When I browse for folders the tree is, of course, collapsed. But I can get
to any folder just be expanding the parent. It would be a bit extreme to
have every single folder displayed when you first get to that tree.

You're probably right about not being able to add a single photo to the
gallery. But you could still add that folder. Only the pix and videos from
that folder will be in the gallery.

I think everyone here already knows there are a zillion programs on the
market that can do anything you can do in Vista. It's not really a question
of which product is better as Vista is an OS, not a specific product. It's
more a question of whether or not having certain capabilities built into the
OS is advantageous to the type of work you do and how you do it.

And it's not a question of whether it works with old hardware. It's a
question of how well it utilizes current and future hardware (with an
emphasis on "future"). That's why I was asking how many people would
build/buy a new PC just to run Vista in an earler post. Interesting to see
the different reactions to that question.




"Ed Dixon" <eddixon@mtnsys.com> wrote in message
news:uM2JCR5aGHA.4424@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

> The Open button on the toolbar appears to be to select programs to use,
> not to select an individual photo to be displayed/edited. The File menu
> is where I would expect an Open command to be, and none appears there.
>
> The right click on thumbnail works fine, as long as the image is already
> there. However someone has placed an image in directory xyz on the PC.
> You want to look at it. You don't want to include that folder as it is
> used for other things. How?
>
> Fix seems to work fine and is on par with simialar features includes in
> early versions MS Picture It. Essentially the basic photo edit options.
>
> When I use the Add Folders option, only a subsset of the actual folders
> are displayed. Most are either hidden or missed. When a tools gives me
> the option to select a folder, I expect to see every single folder, not
> the ones it chooses. If for some reason I don't have access, I expect an
> Access Denied message.
>
> Ed
>
>
> "Puppy Breath" <alan@coolnerds.com> wrote in message
> news:16171438-4CFD-4A9A-A771-0F31C959D9E0@microsoft.com...

>

We probably have different builds.

I think having basic photo and music things in the OS is a good thing. They
are basic and are included. However they work poorly in the build I have.
We'll see how it works in later builds.

When I mentioned all folders, I meant in a tree view sense. You select
folder A and it expands into A1, A2 and A3. If you then select A2, you can
expand it to show any included folders. What happened here is that A may
show, but A1, A2 and A3 does not show un expansion, even though they exist
in the file system.

The lack of ability to load a single photo is a big weakness. Virtually
every photo tool ever created can do this, for a good reason.

Ed


"Puppy Breath" <alan@coolnerds.com> wrote in message
news:3FF24E27-11A1-4FB0-BF93-A09413E6DADF@microsoft.com...

> We might be using different builds, I don't know. I don't have a menu bar
> at all in Photo Gallery. If you just want to preview a pica, not open it
> in a specific program, you double-click its icon.
>
> When I browse for folders the tree is, of course, collapsed. But I can get
> to any folder just be expanding the parent. It would be a bit extreme to
> have every single folder displayed when you first get to that tree.
>
> You're probably right about not being able to add a single photo to the
> gallery. But you could still add that folder. Only the pix and videos from
> that folder will be in the gallery.
>
> I think everyone here already knows there are a zillion programs on the
> market that can do anything you can do in Vista. It's not really a
> question of which product is better as Vista is an OS, not a specific
> product. It's more a question of whether or not having certain
> capabilities built into the OS is advantageous to the type of work you do
> and how you do it.
>
> And it's not a question of whether it works with old hardware. It's a
> question of how well it utilizes current and future hardware (with an
> emphasis on "future"). That's why I was asking how many people would
> build/buy a new PC just to run Vista in an earler post. Interesting to see
> the different reactions to that question.
>
>
>
>
> "Ed Dixon" <eddixon@mtnsys.com> wrote in message
> news:uM2JCR5aGHA.4424@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

>

I guess that last part is the part I don't get. The idea behind the Photo
Gallery is to have a central store for all your photos and videos.What would
be the purpose of excluding specific items from a tool that's designed to
make it easy to organize and access them all?


"Ed Dixon" <eddixon@mtnsys.com> wrote in message
news:ujbjtP6aGHA.2368@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

> We probably have different builds.
>
> I think having basic photo and music things in the OS is a good thing.
> They are basic and are included. However they work poorly in the build I
> have. We'll see how it works in later builds.
>
> When I mentioned all folders, I meant in a tree view sense. You select
> folder A and it expands into A1, A2 and A3. If you then select A2, you
> can expand it to show any included folders. What happened here is that A
> may show, but A1, A2 and A3 does not show un expansion, even though they
> exist in the file system.
>
> The lack of ability to load a single photo is a big weakness. Virtually
> every photo tool ever created can do this, for a good reason.
>
> Ed
>
>
> "Puppy Breath" <alan@coolnerds.com> wrote in message
> news:3FF24E27-11A1-4FB0-BF93-A09413E6DADF@microsoft.com...

>
>

I understand the concept, I just think it's the wrong one. Having photo
management options is a good thing, but not at the expense of the ability of
the user to control the management.

I take 10-15 thousand photos a year. I have a management approach that
works just fine and have zero interest in letting some other tool decide how
to deal with 50GB of personal images.

As I said before in another similar post. beauty is in the eyes of the
beholder. The trick is not to remove some of the views of beauty through
poor software design.

Ed

"Puppy Breath" <alan@coolnerds.com> wrote in message
news:8E0CBC4F-0AAE-45CB-A95C-797D2F16755B@microsoft.com...

>I guess that last part is the part I don't get. The idea behind the Photo
>Gallery is to have a central store for all your photos and videos.What
>would be the purpose of excluding specific items from a tool that's
>designed to make it easy to organize and access them all?
>
>
> "Ed Dixon" <eddixon@mtnsys.com> wrote in message
> news:ujbjtP6aGHA.2368@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

>

Yes, it's all about perception. No argument there.

"Ed Dixon" <eddixon@mtnsys.com> wrote in message
news:%23dKXt%236aGHA.3408@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

>I understand the concept, I just think it's the wrong one. Having photo
>management options is a good thing, but not at the expense of the ability
>of the user to control the management.
>
> I take 10-15 thousand photos a year. I have a management approach that
> works just fine and have zero interest in letting some other tool decide
> how to deal with 50GB of personal images.
>
> As I said before in another similar post. beauty is in the eyes of the
> beholder. The trick is not to remove some of the views of beauty through
> poor software design.
>
> Ed
>
> "Puppy Breath" <alan@coolnerds.com> wrote in message
> news:8E0CBC4F-0AAE-45CB-A95C-797D2F16755B@microsoft.com...

>
>