Uploading Photo’s

I get asked all the time how to do this and seen recently where someone else was trying to figure out how to upload photo’s to Live spaces and realized that I did not have a blog about this subject in my “Learning Tree”

Uploading photo’s to Windows Live Spaces is a relatively easy process and we will walk you through the steps below!  Of course there is one other way to upload photo’s directly to your site and that is by using Windows Photo Gallery.  We will talk more about that later!

Getting Started

You realize that you have all these wonderful photo’s stored on your computer and now you are ready to share them with the world!  Uploading photo’s is a simple process and does not require technical savvy to do so!  My first suggestion is to create a special folder in your pictures location and place the photo’s you want to share in them.  This at the very least will make organizing your photo’s easy to choose from.  This, also, can be done with Live Photo Gallery.  Once you have them organized and know which ones you want to put onto your Live Spaces it is pretty easy as one, two, three.

Where Do I Start – Click on photo’s from either your Live Space or the landing page you are taken too after you have logged into your account!  The illustration to the left shows you what you will see after doing so.  Notice that right below the yellow text there is a box where you can input a name for your album…..this is important as it will bring organization to your photo’s by topic and make for ease of use and further customization of you Live Space, which will be discussed a little later in this post.

Once you have given your photo album a name, you are now ready to select which photos you desire to appear within it!  Now you are ready to click on the box that say’s “Add Photo’s”.

Individually or Multiple Files

Making The Selection – Once you have clicked on the “Add Photos” button you should see a screen that looks similar to this!  If this is your first time doing so, if you are using IE a notice will appear at top asking you to allow “Active X” application.  Allow it as it is totally safe and is part of what allows you to make uploading photo’s a snap!

Notice on the very far left of this illustration there is an expandable tree of files and folders.  Click to expand “My Pictures” and then select the folder where you have store your photo’s that you desire to upload to spaces then you will see one just like that appears on the right side of the illustration I have provided here.

If you will notice there is a little “Check Box” on each photo…..you can select one photo ore several photo’s that you wish to upload to your new album.  Make your selection then at the very top right hand corner of this dialogue box click on “Upload Now”.  Once completed you will have your very first photo album on “Live spaces”

Manipulating Your Albums and Customization

Some of you have noticed that from time to time I change the lineup of the order of given photo albums that I have stored on “Live Spaces”.  This is a very easy task to accomplish. 

Choose Random Ordering – This is where truly tailoring and customizing your Live Space can be fun and add fresh content to your page when your friend’s and visitor’s return.  Let’s say you have created several photo albums.  Me personally I have several albums with photos within them, however, I only want to have maybe three or four of the albums displayed upon my “Live Spaces”.  This is easy to do!  From your actual “Live Space” locate your photo module and click on the link that say’s “ Edit Module”.  What you will see next is like the illustration to the left!

From here you will need to select the option that says “Custom Album Selection”.  Notice that by each album there is a check box.  Now, select the albums that you want to feature on your site and choose the order in which you desire for them to appear in.  The boxes out to the right is how you decide the ordering.  This is done numerically.

I Want A Caption Below Each Photo

Now that you know how to get your photo’s uploaded and organized onto your “Live Space” let’s look at some other unique features that will bring your photo’s to life.  Most of you have noticed that below all of my photo’s that appear on my site have captions or saying under them.  Pictures are worth a thousand words, however, adding a little text to them truly brings them to life from your point of view.

 Add Some Words – Ok, you have spent all day uploading photo’s and now have several albums to choose from within your gallery!  Let’s take a closer look at how to really add some flair to them and bring them to live.  Once you have completed your uploads and have all your pictures contained within albums, click on “Photo’s” link again and now you will see a complete page like the one illustrated to the left!  Notice that mine is filled with several categories.  Locate the category from the far left you want to add captions to then right below each picture click on it and it will create a dialogue box for you to enter some catchy phrases to each on of them.

I can’t stress this enough…..in every aspect of uploading and editing pictures it is imperative that you remember to SAVE all of your work or everything you have done would be in vain!

See and you thought this was going to be difficult!  If you just give it a whirl for yourself you will see what you have been missing out on and how to truly bring your “Live Space” to life with photo’s that tell “The Whole Story”.  As I said previously ……pictures are worth a thousand words and believe me there is no greater truth! 

Happy Blogging & Spaces Development

Greg A. Hyatt