Vista - Picture Gallery & Media Center

I'm anxious to upgrade to Vista so I can use the functionality of Picture
Gallery. Currently I am using Digital Image 2006 to tag & organize my
photos. Currently, all my photos are stored in a single file folder, then I
assign location, event, people, *-rating, keywords to the photos. Using this
method it makes it very easy to filter & view photos.

I recently purchased a Windows Media Center PC, with XP but will be
upgrading to Vista as soon as possible. I was hoping that I would be able to
use Media Center as my prime interface for viewing photos, running slide
shows, etc. However right now I'm finding the Media Center within XP is very
limiting for me since I keep all my photos in a single folder.

I am hoping the Picture Gallery will solve this issue for me. If picture
gallery works as well as it appears, then I should no longer need to use
Digital Image (I only use digital image as a cataloging application, I don't
use it to adjust/fix photos in any way). Can someone please verify the
following for me...

1. Will picture gallery run within windows media center? ie. Right now
when I click on my pictures within media center my only options are to view
photos 'by folder' or 'by date'. I'm hoping that once upgraded, there will
be more options to view photos based on the organization & tags which are
assigned with picture gallery.

2. I believe the tags I currently have assigned to my photos within Digital
Image are called 'metadata'. Is this metadata associated with the actual
file & will it be recognized by picture gallery so I won't actually have to
re-categorize & reassign all of the tags to my photos once I upgrade.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Bonnie

1) I'm using Vista RTM. There is an option to view by tags but this option
seems only to use the Windows tags, not the Picture Gallery tags. I can't
believe these are not somehow integrated.

2) I'm not 100% sure about this one. My guess is that your Digital Image
metadata is associated with the file, but that Picture Gallery won't
recognize it. This is frustrating. I'd like to be able to use the best tool
for a given job (e.g. ACDSee or Picasa) and have a standard tagging system
that works across all the different software.

Hope this is somewhat useful.

Andrew


"Bonnie." wrote:

> I'm anxious to upgrade to Vista so I can use the functionality of Picture
> Gallery. Currently I am using Digital Image 2006 to tag & organize my
> photos. Currently, all my photos are stored in a single file folder, then I
> assign location, event, people, *-rating, keywords to the photos. Using this
> method it makes it very easy to filter & view photos.
>
> I recently purchased a Windows Media Center PC, with XP but will be
> upgrading to Vista as soon as possible. I was hoping that I would be able to
> use Media Center as my prime interface for viewing photos, running slide
> shows, etc. However right now I'm finding the Media Center within XP is very
> limiting for me since I keep all my photos in a single folder.
>
> I am hoping the Picture Gallery will solve this issue for me. If picture
> gallery works as well as it appears, then I should no longer need to use
> Digital Image (I only use digital image as a cataloging application, I don't
> use it to adjust/fix photos in any way). Can someone please verify the
> following for me...
>
> 1. Will picture gallery run within windows media center? ie. Right now
> when I click on my pictures within media center my only options are to view
> photos 'by folder' or 'by date'. I'm hoping that once upgraded, there will
> be more options to view photos based on the organization & tags which are
> assigned with picture gallery.
>
> 2. I believe the tags I currently have assigned to my photos within Digital
> Image are called 'metadata'. Is this metadata associated with the actual
> file & will it be recognized by picture gallery so I won't actually have to
> re-categorize & reassign all of the tags to my photos once I upgrade.
>
> Thanks in advance.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the information. Could you please clarify something for me...
what do you mean by 'Windows tags'? How do you assign/edit the windows tags.
Maybe it will make more sense once I understand what these tags are, but
right now I'm with you in not understanding why you can sort/view based on
picture gallery tags.

Bonnie.

"Andrew Shuttleworth" wrote:

> Hi Bonnie
>
> 1) I'm using Vista RTM. There is an option to view by tags but this option
> seems only to use the Windows tags, not the Picture Gallery tags. I can't
> believe these are not somehow integrated.
>
> 2) I'm not 100% sure about this one. My guess is that your Digital Image
> metadata is associated with the file, but that Picture Gallery won't
> recognize it. This is frustrating. I'd like to be able to use the best tool
> for a given job (e.g. ACDSee or Picasa) and have a standard tagging system
> that works across all the different software.
>
> Hope this is somewhat useful.
>
> Andrew
>
>
> "Bonnie." wrote:
>
> > I'm anxious to upgrade to Vista so I can use the functionality of Picture
> > Gallery. Currently I am using Digital Image 2006 to tag & organize my
> > photos. Currently, all my photos are stored in a single file folder, then I
> > assign location, event, people, *-rating, keywords to the photos. Using this
> > method it makes it very easy to filter & view photos.
> >
> > I recently purchased a Windows Media Center PC, with XP but will be
> > upgrading to Vista as soon as possible. I was hoping that I would be able to
> > use Media Center as my prime interface for viewing photos, running slide
> > shows, etc. However right now I'm finding the Media Center within XP is very
> > limiting for me since I keep all my photos in a single folder.
> >
> > I am hoping the Picture Gallery will solve this issue for me. If picture
> > gallery works as well as it appears, then I should no longer need to use
> > Digital Image (I only use digital image as a cataloging application, I don't
> > use it to adjust/fix photos in any way). Can someone please verify the
> > following for me...
> >
> > 1. Will picture gallery run within windows media center? ie. Right now
> > when I click on my pictures within media center my only options are to view
> > photos 'by folder' or 'by date'. I'm hoping that once upgraded, there will
> > be more options to view photos based on the organization & tags which are
> > assigned with picture gallery.
> >
> > 2. I believe the tags I currently have assigned to my photos within Digital
> > Image are called 'metadata'. Is this metadata associated with the actual
> > file & will it be recognized by picture gallery so I won't actually have to
> > re-categorize & reassign all of the tags to my photos once I upgrade.
> >
> > Thanks in advance.

Sorry for the slow follow up. For some reason I didn't see the reply
notification.

This is getting a bit out of my depth to be honest so hopefully someone else
can jump in. From my perspective as a user there seems to be two sets of tag
metadata, one that Windows Vista and Media Centre uses and one that Pciture
Gallery uses. By 'Windows tags' I was referring to the tags stored with the
Windows metadata.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

Andrew

"Bonnie." wrote:

> Hi Andrew,
>
> Thanks for the information. Could you please clarify something for me...
> what do you mean by 'Windows tags'? How do you assign/edit the windows tags.
> Maybe it will make more sense once I understand what these tags are, but
> right now I'm with you in not understanding why you can sort/view based on
> picture gallery tags.
>
> Bonnie.
>
> "Andrew Shuttleworth" wrote:
>
> > Hi Bonnie
> >
> > 1) I'm using Vista RTM. There is an option to view by tags but this option
> > seems only to use the Windows tags, not the Picture Gallery tags. I can't
> > believe these are not somehow integrated.
> >
> > 2) I'm not 100% sure about this one. My guess is that your Digital Image
> > metadata is associated with the file, but that Picture Gallery won't
> > recognize it. This is frustrating. I'd like to be able to use the best tool
> > for a given job (e.g. ACDSee or Picasa) and have a standard tagging system
> > that works across all the different software.
> >
> > Hope this is somewhat useful.
> >
> > Andrew
> >
> >
> > "Bonnie." wrote:
> >
> > > I'm anxious to upgrade to Vista so I can use the functionality of Picture
> > > Gallery. Currently I am using Digital Image 2006 to tag & organize my
> > > photos. Currently, all my photos are stored in a single file folder, then I
> > > assign location, event, people, *-rating, keywords to the photos. Using this
> > > method it makes it very easy to filter & view photos.
> > >
> > > I recently purchased a Windows Media Center PC, with XP but will be
> > > upgrading to Vista as soon as possible. I was hoping that I would be able to
> > > use Media Center as my prime interface for viewing photos, running slide
> > > shows, etc. However right now I'm finding the Media Center within XP is very
> > > limiting for me since I keep all my photos in a single folder.
> > >
> > > I am hoping the Picture Gallery will solve this issue for me. If picture
> > > gallery works as well as it appears, then I should no longer need to use
> > > Digital Image (I only use digital image as a cataloging application, I don't
> > > use it to adjust/fix photos in any way). Can someone please verify the
> > > following for me...
> > >
> > > 1. Will picture gallery run within windows media center? ie. Right now
> > > when I click on my pictures within media center my only options are to view
> > > photos 'by folder' or 'by date'. I'm hoping that once upgraded, there will
> > > be more options to view photos based on the organization & tags which are
> > > assigned with picture gallery.
> > >
> > > 2. I believe the tags I currently have assigned to my photos within Digital
> > > Image are called 'metadata'. Is this metadata associated with the actual
> > > file & will it be recognized by picture gallery so I won't actually have to
> > > re-categorize & reassign all of the tags to my photos once I upgrade.
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance.