New Photo Sharing Service Announced: Windows Live Photos

Today, the Windows Live team announced a brand-new photo-sharing service that integrates directly with the Windows Live Photo Gallery desktop software, a part of the Windows Live client applications. (More info on Photo Gallery is here). Simply called Windows Live Photos, the new online service lets you upload photos directly from your computer and create and manage online galleries of photos.

The online service mirrors some of the functions of the desktop software – for example, you can tag people in your photos, tag yourself, or rename the photo's title. However, the online gallery also provides new features like the ability to add comments to the photos or copy an embed code for posting your photos elsewhere on the web. There’s a photo URL provided, too, if you just want to link to the photo itself.

Through Live Photos’ privacy controls, you can specify who, if anyone, has access to your photos and what they can do – view, edit, delete, download, etc. 

One of the best features in the new service, though, is definitely the photo slideshow, which you can launch at anytime from the “More” menu. The slideshow is easy to click through with its navigation buttons at the bottom or you can let it auto-play. When you're finished viewing the images, you can easily return to your photo gallery either by clicking the link provided or just hitting “escape.”

The new Live Photos service will also be available from the new Windows Live homepage, also announced today.