Ok, now it’s Windows Live Photo Gallery’s (WLPG) turn. Read my views on other Windows Live Apps here.
Firstly, WLPG is a very refined photo management software. It’s interface is familiar to the Windows Explorer and let you perform most of the functions that you can perform on a folder through explorer.
Second, WLPG’s online uploads land in Windows Live Sky Drive, which means you have 25GB of online storage at disposal.
I am trying to compare it to Picasa, which is currently very popular and see where it stands:
| Features | Live Photo Gallery | Picasa | Shutterfly |
| Basic Image Editing | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Panaromic Stitching | Yes (Outstanding) | No | No |
| Collages | No | Yes (Excellent) | No |
| Photosynth Creation | Yes | No | No |
| Upload to Social Websites | Yes | No (only Youtube) | No |
| Online Storage | Yes (25 GB) | Yes (1 GB) | Yes (Unlimited) |
| Slide Show Creation | Yes (Excellent Control) | Yes (Partial Control) | No |
| Extensibility Plugins | Yes | No | No |
| Post to Blog | Yes | Yes | No |
| Order Prints | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Face Tag | Yes | Yes (Online only) | No |
| Auto Gallery Sync | Yes | No | No |
| Coolness Factor | Medium | High | Low |
| Duplicate Image Search | No | Yes | Yes |
| Geo Tag | No | Yes | No |
| Bulk Download | Yes | Yes | No |
So that’s a quick feature to feature comparison of WLPG, Picasa and Shutterfly. Lack of ability to upload to third party sites in Picasa needs to be plugged as soon as possible. I just wish it had a shorter name like Picasa. Anyway, there are few unique features that I want to highlight.
The photos uploaded on Sky Drive can be downloaded at one go, like Picasa. However with many other tools you need to download every photo separately. You can either download the entire album or download them as a ZIP file. Also the feature to sync the whole library, will make it even simpler to keep your photos synced with Sky Drive. The Sync Library option is disabled right now and should open up soon, in the meanwhile you can publish pictures to Sky Drive using Publish option. While Picasa offers a similar functionality, it is a bit crippled by low free of cost space.
Talking about the online storage you have the standard share features and ability to order prints via HP Snapfish.
Finally I would say that, Windows Live Photo Gallery is a very good addition and is a must have on your PC for the ease of use and host of other features. Also, keep Picasa for those cool collages it can make.
Popularity: 83%
