Windows 7 For Dummies
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You can automatically adjust photos using Windows Live Photo Gallery with Windows 7. Windows 7’s free Windows Live Photo Gallery feature allows you to fix such common mistakes as tilted horizons, red eyes from flash photos, washed out colors, or photos that need some cropping to bring out details. If you're not sure where to begin, you can sit back and let the Windows Live Photo Gallery Auto Adjust feature do the work for you.

The Windows Live Photo Gallery will evaluate your photo and provide you with a "fixed" version. However, if at any point you decide that you're not satisfied with the fixes provided, you can click the Revert button and Windows 7 will bring back the original photo.

  1. Click the Start button, choose All Programs, choose Windows Live, and click Windows Live Photo Gallery.

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    After a few moments, the program appears on your screen with your photos already cataloged by the date you snapped them.

  2. Click the awful photo, and click the Fix button on the toolbar.

    Windows Live Photo Gallery offers its photo-fixing tools along its right side.
    Windows Live Photo Gallery offers its photo-fixing tools along its right side.

    The photo repair tools quickly appear along the window’s right edge.

  3. Click Auto Adjust.

    The program evaluates your photo and chooses the settings it thinks the photo needs. Surprisingly enough, Auto Adjust usually makes the photo look much better.

    • If you think it’s perfect, click the Back to the Gallery button to save your changes and move on.

    • If it looks worse now, click Undo and move on to Step 4.

    • If it is better but still not quite fixed yet, move on Step 4.

  4. Click Adjust Exposure to find the Brightness, Contrast, Shadows and Highlights settings.

    Slide the bars to further tweak Auto Adjust’s changes. If the photo still doesn’t look right, move to Step 5.

    After using a tool category like Adjust Exposure, click its name to shrink its tools. That makes it easier to find and adjust the other category settings.

  5. Click Adjust Color to adjust the Tint, Color Temperature, and Saturation settings.

    Just as before, slide the bars to the center or edge to either enhance or remove Auto Adjust’s settings. If the photo still doesn’t look right, move to Step 6.

  6. You can continue your way through the Windows Live Photo Gallery's other editing tools.

    The Photo Gallery has tools that you can use to straighten the image, remove red eye, sharpen or soften the image and crop out unwanted items.

  7. Click Back to Gallery button to save your changes or click Revert to discard your changes and move on.

    If want to keep some of the changes but not all, click the Undo button repeatedly to remove the most recent changes.

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Andy Rathbone's computer books, which include Windows? 2000 Professional For Dummies? and Upgrading and Fixing PCs For Dummies?, have sold more than 11 million copies.

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