I love digital photography but not so much that I feel like I need to become an Adobe Lightroom whore. I just like really simple tools that just work. I’ve found Windows Live Photo Gallery simply Just Works for 100% of what I do with digital photos (which is probably 80% of what hard core amateurs do).
For instance, take this panoramic stitch. I shot 6 photos with my D80 yesterday of my son’s Lacrosse team lined up thanking the crowd. With literally 30 seconds of work in Windows Liver Photo Gallery I created this amazing panorama. It took another 30 seconds to upload it to Flickr using Gallery’s built-in Flickr support. I spent more time typing this than I did on getting the photo done.
That’s how it should be. Way to go Live team!