5 fast photo fixes to improve any picture

Getting great photos isn't just a matter of being skilled with the a camera and knowing what settings to use; even professional photographers aren't guaranteed great shots everytime they open the shutter. Amazing pictures are often the result of taking twenty snaps of the same thing, and more importantly - extensive post-production work.

With Windows Photo Gallery though, you can now tweak and correct your photos in the same way a professional would. To help you get up to speed with how you could make your pictures better, here's five steps to getting the best out of any snap.

1. Adjust exposure

To make any adjustments to your photos, click Fix in Windows Photo Gallery. If your photo is over or under exposed, you can correct these problems (to an extent). You can lighten or darken images with sparing use of the Brightness and Contrast sliders in the Adjust Exposure section. Use the arrow keys to nudge the selected slider.

2. Balance colour

Windows Photo Gallery has a selection of filters for touching up photos. For examples, indoor lighting can give your photos a yellow or blue cast depending on the kind of bulbs you use. Choose Adjust Color and lower the Color Temperature to tame oranges and reds. To change the cast of the image, use Tint.

3. Crop it

You can remove unwanted elements at the edges of an image or change the composition of a shot by using the cropping tool. In Photo Gallery click on Crop Picture and adjust the highlighted retangle around the area you want to keep. When you click Apply only the selected area remains.

4. Correct red eye

The 'red eye' effect you sometimes see in your family snaps is caused by the camera flash bouncing off the bakc of the eye. There is a solution. Click Fix Red Eye then draw a small rectangle around the affected area to restore the colour balance.

5. Edit further in Paint

For jobs that Photo Gallery can't manage, import your pictures into Paint, the drawing program in Windows Vista. Here you can add text, flip an image, invert colours for a negative effect or resize. To open in Paint, right-click the picture in Photo Gallery and choose Open With, then select Paint. When you've finished editing, Paint will prompt you to save the image before returning to Photo Gallery.