Photographers who shot their photos in RAW format could not really make use of Windows Live’s Photo Gallery until now, as it did not support RAW formats.

This changes today with the release of the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack for Windows Vista and Windows 7. The independent download adds support for more than 120 DSLR cameras to Photo Gallery, Windows Explorer and other programs that use Windows Imaging Codecs (WIC).

Installation of the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack should be a breeze. Users only need to make sure that they install the right version for their operating system. The camera codec pack is offered for 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.

The download page over at Microsoft’s Download Center lists the supported camera models. I have taken the liberty to quote the camera models below:

• Canon: EOS 1000D (EOS Kiss F in Japan and the EOS Rebel XS in North America), EOS 10D, EOS 1D Mk2, EOS 1D Mk3, EOS 1D Mk4, EOS 1D Mk2 N, EOS 1Ds Mk2, EOS 1Ds Mk3, EOS 20D, EOS 300D (the Kiss Digital in Japan and the Digital Rebel in North America) , EOS 30D, EOS 350D (the Canon EOS Kiss Digital N in Japan and EOS Digital Rebel XT in North America), EOS 400D (the Kiss Digital X in Japan and the Digital Rebel XTi in North America), EOS 40D, EOS 450D (EOS Kiss X2 in Japan and the EOS Rebel XSi in North America), EOS 500D (EOS Kiss X3 in Japan and the EOS Rebel T1i in North America), EOS 550D (EOS Kiss X4 in Japan, and as the EOS Rebel T2i in North America), EOS 50D, EOS 5D, EOS 5D Mk2, EOS 7D, EOS D30, EOS D60, G2, G3, G5, G6, G9, G10, G11, Pro1, S90
• Nikon: D100, D1H, D200, D2H, D2Hs, D2X, D2Xs, D3, D3s, D300, D3000, D300s, D3X, D40, D40x, D50, D5000, D60, D70, D700, D70s, D80, D90, P6000
• Sony: A100, A200, A230, A300, A330, A350, A380, A700, A850, A900, DSC-R1
• Olympus: C7070, C8080, E1, E10, E20, E3, E30, E300, E330, E400, E410, E420, E450, E500, E510, E520, E620, EP1
• Pentax (PEF formats only): K100D, K100D Super, K10D, K110D, K200D, K20D, K7, K-x, *ist D, *ist DL, *ist DS
• Leica: Digilux 3, D-LUX4, M8, M9
• Minolta: DiMage A1, DiMage A2, Maxxum 7D (Dynax 7D in Europe, α-7 Digital in Japan)
• Epson: RD1
• Panasonic: G1, GH1, GF1, LX3

Windows Live Photo Gallery supports viewing and editing of RAW image formats once the codec pack has been installed on the system. Photo Gallery will automatically create a copy of the RAW images in JPEG or JPEG-XR format which can then be edited and worked with by the user.

Windows users can now also preview the supported RAW image formats under Windows Explorer and other programs that make use of WIC.

Microsoft has already announced that they are working on adding support for missing and new camera models. (via)

The Windows Live team had similar thoughts as they launched a new website for Windows Live plug-ins. Plug-ins are small extensions of Windows Live programs that add a new feature to one of the Windows Live applications.

The Windows Live Plug-ins website is currently listing plug-ins for Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and Writer. The interesting part is that Microsoft welcomes developers to develop and submit plug-ins for Windows Live which could be offered on the official site eventually, if they pass some form of quality assessment.

A total of 191 plug-ins are currently offered at the Windows Live Plug-ins site, the majority of them (177) for Windows Live Writer. Lets take a closer look at the categories:

• Windows Live Photo Gallery: Plug-ins to publish photos (and videos) on image (video) hosting sites including Facebook, Youtube and Smug Mug.
• Windows Live Movie Maker: Only three plug-ins to upload to Youtube, Facebook or Smug Mug.
• Windows Live Writer: Many plug-ins for post publishing, formatting, content insertion or photos and videos.

Windows Live Writer users are most likely to find plug-ins that will improve their workflow.

It remains to be seen if Microsoft can entice developers to code plug-ins for Windows Live. Lets hope it does not end up similar to developing browser plug-ins for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (which is more or less non-existent).

Many digital camera manufacturers on the other hand have not created codecs that support the framework and both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. That’s where the FastPictureViewer WIC Codec pack comes into play which is a collection of digital camera codecs for about 300 different digital camera models that make use of the framework under 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.

The codecs are then automatically used by programs that support WIC which includes most of Microsoft’s own software programs including Windows Media Center, Windows Live Photo Gallery, the developer’s Fast Picture Viewer and all Microsoft .net Framework 3 applications.

The digital camera codec pack is currently available as a beta version from the developer’s website. It adds support for the following formats:

• *.tga, *.tpic Truevision Targa (TGA) Supports most format flavors: uncompressed and RLE-encoded grayscale 8 and 16-bit, true color 15, 16, 24 and 32-bit (with alpha) and 8-bit indexed with 15, 16, 24 and 32-bit colormap.
• *.dng Adobe Digital Negative BETA
• *.cr2, *.crw Canon Raw Images BETA
• *.raf Fuji Raw Images BETA
• *.3pr, *.fff Hasselblad Raw Images BETA
• *.kdc, *.dcr Kodak Raw Images BETA
• *.raw, *.rwl Leica Raw Images BETA
• *.mrw Minolta Raw Images BETA
• *.nef, *.nrw Nikon Raw Images BETA
• *.orf Olympus Raw Images BETA
• *.rw2 Panasonic Raw Images BETA
• *.pef Pentax Raw Images BETA
• *.sr2, *.arw Sony Raw Images BETA
• All formats Thumbnail provider for XP Provides support for thumbnail views in Windows XP Explorer, for all the above format variants.

The developer is currently investigating possibilities to add additional codecs to the codec pack. Check out the website for more information.

To be more precise, the plugin is currently working with Windows Live Photo Gallery or Windows Live Movie Maker. It works by selecting one video in one of the supported applications and initiating the upload from the Publish > Live Upload To Youtube menu. A popup will appear asking for a Youtube username and password.

If the login is successfully a new window will be shown with options to enter a title, description, keywords, a category and permissions for that video. A progress bar will be displayed after sending the information that is showing the status of the uploaded video.

The Windows Live Movie Maker menu is called Publish On Web instead of Publish but it provides the same interface after that point.

The plugin should be installed when Windows Live Photo Gallery is not running. During first usage a Facebook account has to be linked to the Windows Live Photo Gallery application. This simply involves logging in to Facebook when the Windows Live application asks you to. A few other options will pop up during that process. An album has to be created if none is currently available. There is also the option to automatically accept images that get uploaded this way or to manually approve them instead.

Manually approving the images would mean to accept them on the Facebook website after transferring them from Windows Live Photo Gallery to Facebook.

Using the uploader is simple after creating the first account and album on Facebook. Images that should be uploaded are marked by the user who then selects Publish > LiveUpload To Facebook option from the main menu. Afterwards its simply a matter of selecting the account and the album to upload the images. It is always possible to link another account to the application or to create another album for an already existing account.

The installer lets you choose the programs that you want to download and install. The available porgrams are Messenger Beta, Mail Beta, Toolbar Beta, Photo Gallery Beta, Family Safety Beta, Microsoft Office Outlook Connector Beta and Writer Beta.

All downloads (discovered by the Liveside website)are available in English, German, Italian, French and Spanish with more to come later this day. Each setup displays the list of programs. By default all are selected but the user can select those that he does not want to install. Once the selection has been made they can be downloaded and installed by pressing the Install button.

Joshua has posted an article about Windows Live Wave 3 previously which contains a good overview of the changes in the new version.

So, if you are running XP you can uninstall Windows Desktop Search and continue using Windows Live Photo Gallery afterwards. The developers do not get into much detail but they claim that they fixed tons of bugs. The newest version can not be downloaded right now which means that everyone has to fire up Windows Update if they have Automatic Updates disabled after downloading the version available.

Bugging me is that it does not have tag support currently for Flickr uploads. Tagging and Captions are actually supported and will be transferred to Flickr as well. It also feels a little bit slow compared to other image viewers but since this is a beta there is surely room for improvement. On the other hand, it is a Microsoft product..

I also discovered more than 400 pictures in my profile folder which I was not aware of at all including the picture of this young woman wearing a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet. I have no clue, honestly.

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