So you’ve just got back from holiday, a family trip or a visit to the grandkids and you've got loads of photos, and some video, on your digital camera that you want to download to your computer. How do you do it, and how do you organise your photos after they’re on your PC?

Here's everything you need to know to get started:

Get Windows Live Photo Gallery

We recommend the free download Windows Live Photo Gallery, which builds on the simplicity of the Windows Photo Gallery software that comes with Vista, and is also free for Windows XP users. The Live part refers to the new feature of being able to share your digital memories with friends and family online with a single click, and includes familiar services such as Hotmail.

You can read more about the features of Windows Live Photo Gallery here, and you can download your own copy for free here

Questions about downloading files from the internet? Read this article.

Transfer your photos

Begin by transferring photos onto your computer using one of the following methods:

1. Connect your camera, and an AutoPlay window appears that will walk you through the process of importing photos.
   
   
   Auto-import options make transferring photos from digital devices to your PC easy
   
   
2. Attach any electronic device such as a USB drive, video camera, portable media playe, or MP3 player to produce similar results.
3. Insert a CD, DVD, Memory Stick, or Secure Digital (SD) or Multimedia (MMC) card and content will be automatically detected as well.

Photo Gallery looks for new photos and videos on your camera or device. You can choose to group the new items by date and time, and import them into separate folders. Organising your photos and videos as you import makes them a lot less work to organise later. But if you want to do all the work by hand at another time, you can group all new items into one folder instead.

Next, assign images or groups of images names, known as tags (e.g. "Prague Holiday"). Not only do they offer a great way of quickly and clearly naming large groups of photos, tags make finding photos easier.


You can import photos and videos as groups into separate folders...


...Or you can just import all your new photos and videos without organising them into groups.

When you're done, click Import.

Tag It!

Tags are descriptive words that you can add to your photos and videos to make them easier to find later.

To add tags:

1. In the gallery, click the photo or video you want to tag.
2. In the Info pane, click Add tags.

You can either enter a new tag in the box, or select from the list of tags you've already entered for other photos and videos.


Add tags to your photos and videos to make them easier to find later

Press Enter and your new tag appears in the list of tags for that photo or video.

TIPS:

• Another way to add tags is to drag a photo to a tag in the Tags list
• To add tags to more than one photo or video at a time, hold down the CTRL key and click all the items you want to tag. You can see lists of tags shared by your photos and videos in the Info pane. To add a new tag, click Add tags, and then enter a word or phrase
• Make your tags specific — for instance, with a specific location, name of the person in the photo , or event. It'll make finding your photos later much easier.

Browsing your photos and video

To see all your photos in the gallery, click All photos and videos.


Browse all your photos in the gallery — just click All photos and videos

You can browse photos and videos by date and by tag, even if they're organized in different folders.

To browse photos and videos by date

1. Click Date taken
2. Click a year, and then a month to see photos and videos taken that month of the year. If you took many photos and videos that month, you can click a day to see only photos and videos taken on that specific day.

Browsing by date taken can help when you're looking for photos or videos from a specific event

To browse photos and videos by tag

1. Click Tags
2. Click a tag to see all the photos and videos that have that tag.

Browsing by tag can help you find photos and videos that include the same subject or were taken at the same place

You can also sort your photos and videos using the Name, Date, Rating, and Type buttons, or search for photos using the search box.


Use the buttons at the top, or the search box, to sort and find photos and videos

Manage and edit images

You can store and edit all your pictures in Windows Photo Gallery. From here, you can:

Catalogue pictures, displayed as thumbnails (just hover your mouse over any to enjoy a larger view), which can be rotated or increased in size on command. A few ways to sort snapshots, all of which are user adjustable, include:

• Tags
• Dates
• Star ratings
• Folders
• Recently added

What's next?

- Instantly determine file size, graphic resolution, tags, ratings, and date/time stamps, or add captions at a glance using the new Info Pane features.

- Red eye? A little out of focus? Colors not quite right? Improve photos by removing imperfections, enhancing lighting and brightening colours with editing tools.

To do digital touch ups, just highlight a picture and select 'Fix' in the Windows Photo Gallery.


Tweak your photos to make them look exactly the way you want

A simple slider bar and mouse driven interface helps you quickly adjust options like:

• Exposure
• Colour
• Red eye
• Brightness
• Contrast

Use editing tools to improve your pictures

TIP:Try the Auto Adjust options, and crop photos to emphasise your images most striking features. Don't be afraid to experiment with tint and saturation either — subtle changes can affect the entire mood or feel of any scene.

The changes are saved automatically in a new file, but there's no need to be scared of making a mistake. You can click Undo at any time to roll back unwanted changes one adjustment at a time.

Windows Vista also saves digital negatives: In case of a grievous mishap, you can always hit Ctrl+R to instantly revert to a picture's original, pristine form. You can even schedule regular backups to keep hard copies of your collection on hand.

Create panoramic photos

Windows Live Photo Gallery can help you stitch together multiple photos of a scene to make a panorama. Here's how:

1. In the gallery, select the photos you want to stitch together by holding down the CTRL key while you click each photo.
2. Click Make, and then click Create panoramic photo.

Creating panoramic photos is easy — Windows Live Photo Gallery stitches them together for you automatically

Your photos are stitched together into one! You can crop the photo, make whatever adjustments you want, and save.

It's fun to try this too with photos of different scenes, or even photos of people (you might get some hilarious results).

Share the memories

Windows Live Photo Gallery makes it really easy to share your photos and videos with friends and family—on the web, in email or by printing.

Sharing on the web

From Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can quickly share your photos by choosing Windows Live Spaces or Flickr, and your videos by choosing MSN Soapbox. Select the photos or videos you want to share, click Publish, click where you want to publish the selected photos or videos, and then follow the instructions.


Sharing photos on the web is easy from Windows Live Photo Gallery

Of course you'll need to set up a Windows Live Space, a MSN Soapbox account and/or a Flickr account before you can publish to these services.

Sending in email

If you'd like to send photos or videos as attachments, you can add them to an email message right from Windows Live Photo Gallery. Just select the photos or videos you want to send, and click Email.

Select a photo size for your attachments: select smaller sizes if you're concerned about filling your friend's inbox, or larger sizes if the recipient wants to print the photos. Click Attach. Photo Gallery prepares your photos in the size you indicated and your default email program prepares an email message containing the photos or videos you selected.


Windows Live Photo Gallery makes sending photos and video by email a snap

Making prints

There are two ways to print photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery: with your own printer, or by sending them to a photo printing company. Both options are available by clicking Print, and with both you can select print sizes, quantity, and other options.

Back them up

It's a good idea to back up photos and videos that are important to you. From Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can back them up to a CD.

1. Select the files you want to save to a CD (to select them all, click File, and then click Select all). Click Make, and then click Burn a data CD.
2. Insert a blank CD into your computer's CD recorder drive, and follow the instructions. If you have a lot of photos and videos, you might need more than one CD.

More info

You can read more about the features of Windows Live Photo Gallery here, and you can download your own copy for free here.

Learn more about Windows Live Spaces here and MSN Soapbox here.

Finally, here's how you can blog your photos and videos.

See all the Windows Help results for "Photos"

See all the Windows Help results for "Videos"