Windows Experience Blog : Photography

Device Stage – A New Way of Interacting with Devices in Windows 7

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:48:52 GMT

Windows 7 introduces a new way to interact with your phone, camera, printer, or portable media player from the Windows desktop. Device Stage is new visual interface that makes it easy to find the things you want to do with your devices on your Windows 7 PC. You could think of Device Stage as a multi-function version of Autoplay where it displays all the applications, services, and information related to your device. Device Stage not only works for devices connected to a Windows 7 PC via USB, but also Bluetooth and Wi-Fi as well. In many cases, software installation isn’t required for Device Stage – with any additional drivers that might be needed automatically retrieved from Windows Update.

Device Stage is customized by the device manufacturer and specific to the devices you own. During Steve Ballmer’s keynote at CES tonight, the Nikon D90 was shown via IE8 during the Windows 7 demo showcasing the “Snap To” feature. They used the Nikon D90 because it is a device that works great with Windows 7 today. Part of working great with Windows 7 is that the Nikon D90 also supports Device Stage. When a Nikon D90 is plugged in to a Windows 7 PC, you can see how Nikon customized Device Stage specifically for the D90.

As I mentioned, Device Stage displays all the applications, services and information related to your device. In the case of the Nikon D90, Device Stage presents to the user the ability to import photos and videos off the device, browse files on the device, take advantage of the service from Nikon called my Picturetown, launch Nikon’s Nikon Transfer application, and get support or order accessories for the D90. You’ll notice Device Stage also displays how much battery life is left on the Nikon D90 as well as how much storage is left too.

Because Device Stage is a way of extending the features of Windows 7 to expose device capabilities, it also supports the use of Jump Lists via the new Windows Taskbar.

When a device is plugged in that supports Device Stage, it appears on the new Windows Taskbar in Windows 7 as an icon of the actual device. To quickly access all that is offered through Device Stage for that specific device, you can right-click on the device on the taskbar to see all the Device Stage options. You’ll notice for the D90, the Jump List displays everything shown in Device Stage for the device.

Simply moving your mouse over the device on the Windows Taskbar also gives you a quick glance at battery life and storage capacity.

In the next couple days I’ll be talking about Device Stage a bit more - highlighting different experiences Device Stage provides for different device types from different device manufacturers.

In the Windows 7 Beta, you will be able to experience Device Stage for yourself! I know folks will be wondering what devices will support Device Stage for the Windows 7 Beta too - click here for that device list!

Upload Photos to Facebook with New Windows Live Photo Gallery Plug-in

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:18:24 GMT

Michael Palermiti, Program Manager on the Windows Live Digital Memories Experience Team (the awesome people responsible for Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Movie Maker), has posted about a new plug-in for Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta that allows you to upload photos directly to Facebook. Using LiveUpload to Facebook, users can configure multiple Facebook accounts to upload photos to in Windows Live Photo Gallery. Upload to Facebook supports the ability to upload photos to existing albums on Facebook or create new ones.

Download: LiveUpload to Facebook

What’s even better about the LiveUpload to Facebook plug-in is that it takes advantage of Windows Live Photo Gallery’s new People Tags feature. That means if you tag a person you are also friends with on Facebook – once you upload the photo to Facebook that tag will automatically appear on the published photo.

You can download the Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta, along with Betas for the rest of the Windows Live Essentials suite, at download.live.com today. The plug-in only works with the Beta.

For a list of other plug-ins for Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta – click here!

Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2 Released

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:10:00 GMT

I caught this via Nic over at Channel 10 today – a new version of Microsoft Pro Photo Tools has been released: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2.

Download: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2

The first thing I want to mention in regards to what’s new with Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2 is something I think many readers here will find as very good news: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2 now has support for 64-bit Windows Vista.

Here’s what else is new with Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2:

Support for reading & writing XMP side car metadata enabling interoperability with Adobe products.
Viewing actual RAW images, in addition to thumbnails
Conversion of RAW files to JPEG, TIFF, and HD Photo using “As Shot” camera settings.
The ability to resize RAW images.
Support for geotagging international locales
Improved functionality for geotagging images.

And the features from the previous version of Microsoft Pro Photo Tools is there there too including the use of Virtual Earth 3D for 3D renderings of a image’s location.

For more details, check out the team’s post on the Microsoft Professional Photography Blog.

Microsoft Research Releases AutoCollage 2008!

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:16:00 GMT

Today Microsoft Research has released a super-neat application that allows you to take a group of photos and easily create a collage within minutes - called AutoCollage 2008. AutoCollage 2008 is the result of research out of Microsoft Research Cambridge as well as research from other Microsoft Research Labs. The AutoCollage 2008 release marks the first incubation released directly to consumers from Cambridge's Microsoft Research Lab.

In AutoCollage 2008, I was able to pick a folder of photos that I took at this year's Microsoft Pro Photo Summit. Using the AutoCollage controls on the top right-hand side (under "Actions") I was able to choose the amount of images to include in the collage.

All I needed to do was hit "create" and within seconds I had a collage created! Larger collages could take a few minutes to create. Here is my collage of photos from the Microsoft Pro Photo Summit:

After creating the collage, I can choose to either email the collage or set as a desktop wallpaper directly in AutoCollage 2008.

I foresee lots of collages in my future!

AutoCollage 2008 is available here as a 30-day trial or available on the Windows Marketplace for $19.95 for US folks or here at the Microsoft Store for UK folks for £19.90. By charging for this application - this allows the Cambridge incubation team to dedicate significant amount of work to making it rock for consumers. And AutoCollage 2008 certainly rocks.

Photosynth Goes Public: Create Your Own Today!

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:16:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft Live Labs has announced the worldwide availability of Photosynth where users can create their own Photosynth collections - or "Synths" - for free. Previously, Photosynth was only available as a Technology Preview without the ability to create your own Synths.

To start using Photosynth yourself, just head on over to the new Photosynth website and login with your Windows Live ID and create a Photosynth ID. This Photosynth ID will be tied to whatever Synths you create. Depending on the number of photos in your Synth, it could take anywhere between 2 to 30 or more minutes to create and upload. When you create a Synth, you can give your Synth a name, description and even assign it some tags. Everyone is given a quote of 20GB for their Synths.

To view and create Synths, a 7MB plug-in must be installed first from either Internet Explorer (6 or 7) or Mozilla Firefox (2 or 3).

The Photosynth plug-in does all of the processing - or "synthing" - of your photos prior to uploading the results to the Photosynth website.

The installation of this plug-in also puts a link to Photosynth on your Start Menu for quick Photosynth access!

So how does Photosynth work? Photosynth analyzes your photos for similarities to your other photos in the set and then uses the information to estimate where the photos were was taken from. Photosynth then re-creates the place the photos were taken and uses that as a canvas to display your photos. Pretty neat huh? The work done in analyzing your photos is done via the above mentioned Photosynth plug-in.

Want to know how to make good Synths? No problem. Check out the Photosynth Guide which explains in great detail how to take photos that can be used to create good Synths in Photosynth. You can also watch this awesome "How-to" video from Laura Foy on creating good Synths in Photosynth as well.

You should also check out the Encyclopedia of Life Synths. These are great examples of some of the Synths you can create. The Encyclopedia of Life is a global project to document and photography the Earth's 1.8 million species and make the information freely available via the Internet.

Photosynth allows you to also embed Synths directly into websites and blog posts. To celebrate tonight's launch - I've created my very first Synth from images taken a few months ago from the top of the Space Needle. I took a lot of shots from different angles that I thought would make a perfect Synth.

Click here to view a larger version of my Synth.

My Space Needle Synth consisted of 95 images. Those 95 images together was about 176MB. It took me about 20 minutes to "synth" these photos together and upload them to the Photosynth website. Each Synth has a "synthiness" rating. My Space Needle Synth has 96% Synthy. The more synthy you are - the more "connected" your photos are in that Synth. You want to be synthy.

Photosynth is a very exciting release and I can't wait to see all the cool Synths people will be uploading. Try out Photosynth today and leave a comment with a link to some of your Synths for me to check out!

Channel 10's Nic Fillingham got to sit down and chat with several members of the Photosynth Team for Channel 10's photography show ShutterSpeed. Give it a watch.

Be sure to keep your eyes on the Photosynth Team Blog for more on Photosynth!

Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 and Deep Zoom Composer Update

Brandon LeBlanc — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 02:04:00 GMT

As announced earlier this week during the Tech•Ed 2008 Keynote - Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 has been released. Tech•Ed 2008 for Developers is taking place in Orlando this week with Tech•Ed 2008 for IT Professionals starting next week. Check out the Virtual Press Room for Tech•Ed 2008 for the latest announcements.

On top of today's Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 release comes two new releases also worth taking note of: Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 CTP and an updated build of Deep Zoom Composer for Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 support.

Because of updates made in Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2, I needed to install the updated build of Deep Zoom Composer and re-publish my Space Needle Deep Zoom Collection to take full advantage of today's Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 release.

Download: Deep Zoom Composer June 2008 Release (Version 0.9.0.3)

Download: Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 CTP

With the new build of Deep Zoom Composer - I was able to choose between JPEG and PNG for the format of my photos within my Deep Zoom Collection. In my updated Space Needle Deep Zoom Collection I went with PNG. However, when you choose JPEG you can set the quality of the JPEG images which is really nice. Another new feature in the new Deep Zoom Composer is the ability to tag images within your Deep Zoom Collection. Apparently there is a way to add sorting by tags for Deep Zoom Collections but this process is fairly code-intensive and I'm not really sure just how to do that - yet.

Deep Zoom Collection*: Top of Space Needle in Seattle, WA (UPDATED)

* Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 is required to view Deep Zoom Collections. If you don't have Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 installed, it will ask you to install it to view the Deep Zoom Collection.

Using the Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 CTP release I was able to change some of the formatting of my Deep Zoom Collection such as changing the background and the size of the actual Deep Zoom area. Expression Blend 2.5 can open Deep Zoom Projects created by Deem Zoom Composer - allowing for more advanced control over the project.

I plan to have my second Deep Zoom Collection published shortly - and to be quite a bit bigger than my Space Needle Doom Zoom Collection.

Have you created a Doom Zoom Collection? Leave a comment with a link to your Deep Zoom Collection!

Not Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 related - but still Silverlight related - check out the trailer to the upcoming new X-Files move X-Files: I Want to Believe in Silverlight! Thanks Barack for the heads up.

New Digital Photography Series Debuts on Channel 10

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:36:00 GMT

Channel 10's Nic Fillingham has gone live with a brand new show on Channel 10 focusing on digital photography and imaging called ShutterSpeed. The idea is simple: make you a better photographer by highlighting techniques to take better photos, help you understand your camera (and camera gear), and showcase ways to edit your photos. As someone who is taking up digital photography as a hobby - I am always on the lookout for any pointers on how to be a better photographer.

In ShutterSpeed's first episode - Nic is joined by several Microsofties who focus on digital photography in the products they work on as well as being photographers themselves:

Tim Grey - Senior Product Manager on the Rich Media Group.
Michael Palermiti - Program Manager on the Digital Memories Experience Team (like Windows Live Photo Gallery).
Bill Crow - Group Manager on the Microsoft Live Labs Team.

Bill Crow headed up work on HD Photo prior to heading over to Microsoft Live Labs and helped drive to get HD Photo submitted to become a industry standard (JPEG XR). HD Photo is natively supported in Windows Vista today as well - including in Windows Live Photo Gallery.

Also in ShutterSpeed Episode 1 - Nic visits the home studio of award winning photographer Phil Borges who is a Microsoft Icon of Imaging. You can view Phil Borges' Microsoft Icon of Imaging profile here.

Watch ShutterSpeed Episode 1:

ShutterSpeed Episode 01

The idea is that ShutterSpeed will be a regular series of videos on Channel 10. I look forward to it! If you have any suggestions for any future episodes of ShutterSpeed - send them along to shutterspeed@on10.net. I already got one suggestion: pointers on how to take great night shots. For some reason my night shots never turn out.

Into Digital Photography? Check out Microsoft Pro Photo Tools V1

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:17:00 GMT

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.

Panoramic Stitches from Around the Pacific Northwest

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:44:00 GMT

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.

Edit and Share Photos and Videos with Windows Live Photo Gallery

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 00:25:00 GMT

Along with updated betas for Windows Live Messenger 8.5, Windows Live Mail, and Windows Live Writer - users can now install and test the second beta of Windows Live Photo Gallery. Back in June, Microsoft announced Windows Live Photo Gallery as the successor to Windows Photo Gallery in Windows Vista with a closed beta program. Starting today - anyone can now choose to install and try out Windows Live Photo Gallery.

This new release of Windows Live Photo Gallery offers some impressive enhancements over the previous beta as well as the existing Windows Photo Gallery in Windows Vista.

First off, users get improved color adjustment and cropping capabilities for fixing their photos. These enhancements allow users to easily make changes to their photos before sharing them. You can now adjust the detail of your image by sharpening your image up or change the levels of shadow and highlights in the image's exposure. Under "Adjust exposure" users now have a Histogram of their photos. This will help in adjusting the right levels for making your images look the best.

A new feature has been added to Windows Live Photo Gallery that will make many users happy (I for one am crazy about this feature). Users can now right-click on an image file to resize that image. You can even select multiple images and resize them together (batch resize was a popular feature request by users).

I do a ton of resizing images and being able to do this right from Windows Live Photo Gallery is a deal thing for me.

With shooting a ton of photos, not all of those photos turn out to be worth anything. So why import them onto the PC? With Windows Photo Gallery I was unable to preview and pick and choose the images I want to import off my camera. With Windows Live Photo Gallery you can with the new Photo and Video Import tool.

The Photo and Import Tool is a lot smarter in Windows Live Photo Gallery. It will list your images by date and allow you to enter names and tags for different photos on different dates.

After importing your images and fixing them all up - Windows Live Photo Gallery lets you publish those photos to your Windows Live Space. This makes it incredibly easier to share photos with friends and family. In importing photos to your Windows Live Space, you can create an entirely new album of photos or add the photos to existing albums already on your Windows Live Space.

You'll notice that Windows Live Photo Gallery supports the recently announced new optimize feature for your photos when publishing them to Windows Live Spaces. By choosing to "Optimize photos for printing" - your photos will be uploaded to Windows Live Spaces at a higher quality so that you can either print your own photos or order prints of your photos online. Users can also enjoy impressive full screen slide shows from Windows Live Spaces after uploading higher quality images through Windows Live Photo Gallery. Through Windows Live Spaces, you can take advantage of their new partnership with HP Snapfish (U.S. only currently - with more markets expected to come online later). Click here to read a bit from Windows Live Spaces Product Manager Chris Keating on Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Spaces.

Users are not only able to publish photos to Windows Live Spaces, but also videos to Soapbox on MSN Video.

Another on my favorite new features is the ability to create a panoramic photo. You can take a series of photos and stitch them together to create a panoramic photo. Here is a panoramic photo of the parking lot at my apartment complex (I stitched 8 photos together to create it):

If you love Windows Photo Gallery - you're definitely going to love Windows Live Photo Gallery. .

Keep your eyes on the Microsoft Photography and Video Blog. Matter a fact, Program Manager Scott Dart has posted pointing people to where they can download Windows Live Photo Gallery. Expect to hear more from Scott and his team very soon.

In testing out the latest Windows Live Photo Gallery release, be sure to submit feedback using feedback.live.com. This is the best place to submit bugs you may found.

Hands-on with Certified for Windows Vista Devices

Brandon LeBlanc — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:44:00 GMT

I've got a couple of reviews on some Certified for Windows Vista devices I'd like to highlight from some friends of mine.

DCVIEWS has published its review of the Nikon D40x. The D40x is Nikon's consumer friendly DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) digital camera with quite a punch. I own the original Nikon D40 (no "x") which is still impressive even for a first release. The Nikon D40x takes 10 megapixel photos while my D40 takes only 6 megapixel photos. The D40x also offers taking photos at a higher resolution that my D40. Read the review from DCVIEWS for a more detailed analysis of the Nikon D40x. You can also head over to Nikon's D40x website to check out the feature and tech specs on the camera.

Andre Da Costa has a pretty extensive review on the Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000 keyboard and mouse. Andre notes the Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000's tight integration with Windows Vista specifically with Windows Media Center. The Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000 essentially gives you a huge step-up from the Remote Keyboard for Windows XP Media Center Edition in its design for use with Windows Media Center. I own both keyboards and the Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000 is just amazing.

Two great reviews on two great devices.