"Get the Big Picture" with Windows Live Photo Gallery Panoramas

Windows Live Photo Gallery is essentially designed as an upgrade to the default Windows Photo Gallery application for viewing and editing digital images that ships by default with Windows Vista. However, instead of delivering the product as a standalone update, Microsoft has included it under the Windows Live bran umbrella. With Windows Live, the Redmond company aims to build a comprehensive operating system in the cloud that would deliver a suite of products and services corresponding to the infrastructure of the traditional Windows client.

Windows Live Photo Gallery, available as a beta, brings the Live steroids to Windows Photo Gallery, but the fact of the matter is that, with a few exceptions, the upgrade is little worthwhile. The panoramic capabilities of Windows Live Photo Gallery are just such an exception, as you will be able to see from the video embedded at the bottom.

"Creating panoramic stitches in the Windows Live Photo Gallery is quick and easy. Using technology from Microsoft Research, we've been able to integrate panoramic stitching into the Live Photo Gallery in a way that's fast and automatic. Check out the following screencast for a walkthrough of how to stitch a number of photos together into one composite", stated Karthik Anbalagan, Microsoft Program Manager.

Microsoft has completely automated the stitching process involved in creating panoramic images via Windows Live Photo Gallery. Leveraging technology developed by Microsoft Research, Live Photo Gallery allows the user to select a group of disparate images but featuring connected visual elements and melt the photographs into a single panorama. While undoubtedly taking the user completely out of the equation is a caveat of the feature, creating panoramic images with Windows Live Photo Gallery is still a strong recommendation for upgrading from the plain Windows Photo Gallery.

"When taking photos to create a panorama, remember to have at least 30% overlap between shots to get the best results. Look for unique features in whatever you are photographing that you can use as common elements between neighboring photos. If you are stitching a large number of high resolution photos, the task may take a while since it's quite computationally intense, but the results are worth the wait", Anbalagan added.


Video: Live Photo Gallery Panoramic Stitching