Windows Photo Gallery 2012

New for Windows Photo Gallery is the ability to upload videos and slideshows directly to Vimeo (the big "V"). The software now only runs on Windows 7 or 8, but earlier versions are still available for download for XP and Vista users.

The new Auto Collage tool can create composite photos with emotional impact.

The created collage blends the edges of the component photos.

When you plug in photo (and or video) media, you'll first see this option to either choose date groups or just import everything. Note that even with the latter choice, you can add tags to the import group.

If you pick "review, organize, and group" from the previous dialog (happily, it's the default), you'll see another like this, which lets you select, name, and tag photo session groups. You can also expand groups to see member photos and choose which to import.

Double clicking on a thumbnail opens an image for editing. Note video is included, too, indicated by the file sprocket holes on the sides. From here, you can start rotating, tagging, rating, captioning, and eve uploading or emailing.

Brightness, contrast, highlights, and shadows can be adjusted when you click the Fine Tune button. The histogram with draggable white and black points is a big plus.

A different color adjustment choice lets you auto adjust or choose from a grid.

Photo Gallery will find faces in your photos, even at an angle, and ask you to identify them. Then you can view all your pictures that contain a certain individual.

You can have the program check for all images that contain faces and tag them all at once. After doing this, it will make better guesses as to the owner of the face in future images.

If your image files contain GPS data, you can view photos grouped by location.

A right-click on your geotag can take you to a Bing map of where it was taken. It's not as cool as Photoshop Elements built-in map mashup, though.

Photo Gallery did one of the best jobs of blemish removal we've seen in consumer photo editing software.

You can pick from preset standard sizes or use free form custom crops. The selector gives you help with the "rule of thirds."

There aren't a whole lot of doodads and frames like those some other entry-level photo software offers, just a few tasteful tints and styles.

This feature lets you choose the best expression for each individual from multiple takes of a group shot.

The noise reduction and sharpening tools worked well.

You can play video file right inside Photo Gallery, but you can't edit or rotate them.

You can create a new album on your Facebook photos page, and face tags will be maintained.

You can order prints from CVS, Fujifilm, SnapFish, Kodak, or Shutterfly. As you can see, you get decent size options, and the prices are pretty cheap, at least for Kodak.