Help Using Windows Photo Gallery and Pictures in Vista

[hychamaz]

A lot of things are supposed to be so much better with Windows Vista but I really miss XP sometimes . Hopefully some one can help me out here. I am by no means a computer genious or anything so please bare with me if my question sounds stupid.
Whenever pictures are emailed to me or I download them from my digital camera onto the computer they go into Windows Photo Gallery. According to what I have read from Microsoft, this is supposed to be such a great improvement over the old My Pictures folder since you can tag pictures, arrange them orderly, find them easily, blah, blah. They have though kept the "Pictures" folder also under the Start button in Vista.
Now here is my problem. Whenever I am using a Program such as Paint or opening a picture to send in an email, I have to drag it to the desktop (out of Windows Photo Gallery) in order to find it. If I try to open a Picture from Windows Photo Gallery nothing is ever there. If I move a picture to the Picture folder I can open it from there as well as the desktop.
Can anyone tell me how you open a picture from Windows Photo Gallery to say send in a simple email. I can't seem to figure this out and googling it just confuses me more.
I hope someone knows what I mean. Thanks in advance.

[superiorinferior]

If you use a pop type email (not web based like gmail or yahoo) like outlook then all you do is find the picture you want to send, preview it in the windows viewer and there at the top center is an "email" icon which you click and then choose if you want to resize the picture for easier mailing. It will then automatically open your email program and it will be pretty clear how to proceed.

If you use web based email it seems the gallery does not do you any extra favors and you will have to mark down the number or name of the picture and then go looking for it when you create the attachment.

Is this what you are wondering?

[hychamaz]

Well not really. My problem is with every program, where I need to open a picture to use. For example opening a picture with Kodak, opening a picture in Paint, choosing a picture to upload to Myspace, using Gmail, etc., basically anything where I need to open a pic. When I click on say "Browse", "Open File", etc. etc. the program shows you the menu of where you want to get the picture from:
-My Files
-Desktop
-Documents
(C:)-Program Files
-Temp
-Users (the program just wants to know where the picture is that you want) Just like any Program does.
(D:)

The problem is when you go into Program Files, then click on "Windows Photo Gallery" nothing is there to open.
If you go to Users, then click on Pictures, that folder opens (again, for some reason Microsoft kept "Pictures" even though in Vista everything goes to Windows Photo Gallery.) You can I guess manually move all of your pictures to the folder "Pictures" but that defeats the whole purpose of Windows new invention "Windows Photo Gallery.

To clarify in a nutshell. I can click on the start button, the Windows Photo Gallery and look at all of my pictures. GREAT! Its just when you are using a program, want to open a picture, go to open it, and nothing is in Windows Photo Gallery. This is a new feature of Vista so you really have to be using Vista to know what Im talking about. Thanks again.

[Ciprian]

just install Google Picasa2

you'll be able to easily see/send/publish/share/blog/backup photos; what do you need more?

[superiorinferior]

This is a new feature of Vista so you really have to be using Vista to know what Im talking about. Thanks again.

Unfortunately I do use vista.

[sbk]

If I understand right, Windows Media gallery is just a program that shows your pictures. All your pictures are actually in your 'Pictures' folder, thats why you donu st see them where you are searching for them

[hychamaz]

Thats my problem as well. None of my pictures are under the Pictures folder. I finally figured out how to find them but it is ridiculous. I have to go under Users->Public->Public Pictures->Kodak Pictures->and then the date. Why cant they just go under the Pictures folder for me.

[annekmc]

When you plug in your camera to download pictures, the import window appears, click options. When the import options window appears, you can choose to import to pictures and save your settings.

[sinikala]

It seems to strongly depends on how the PC has been setup... and whether you decide where to put the image files or if you let Windows do it or your camera software.

The PC I use for fiddling with photos has Vista Home Basic, playing with / moving / finding photos is straight forward, I set the camera as though it's just a USB drive, create a directory under "Public / Pictures" or whatever it is called nowadays ... and copy-paste the photos over manually, so I know very well where to find them.

MIL has the Home Premium flavour of Vista and imports photos from their camera via the camera software... consequently the files are scattered around like a wild wo'an's sh**e and viewing them is a nightmare, but hey, it's not my computer, so I'm not going to fiddle with it.

[hychamaz]

It seems to strongly depends on how the PC has been setup... and whether you decide where to put the image files or if you let Windows do it or your camera software.

The PC I use for fiddling with photos has Vista Home Basic, playing with / moving / finding photos is straight forward, I set the camera as though it's just a USB drive, create a directory under "Public / Pictures" or whatever it is called nowadays ... and copy-paste the photos over manually, so I know very well where to find them.

MIL has the Home Premium flavour of Vista and imports photos from their camera via the camera software... consequently the files are scattered around like a wild wo'an's sh**e and viewing them is a nightmare, but hey, it's not my computer, so I'm not going to fiddle with it.

That is exactly how this computer seems to be set for now. I am using Vista Home Premium and the files seem to be scattered everywhere as well. I havent touched any settings since we bought this new computer. Just installed Kodak for our camera and I guess that it has its own settings of where it wants to place the pics. I guess that I have to fiddle with Kodaks settings. It would be nice for everything to just go under Pictures (the one in the Start Menu). I'll try to figure it out.