Microsoft Unveils New Windows Live Essentials to Compete with iLife
So what makes the new upgrade to Windows Live Essentials so compelling? First of all, it's completely free. While iLife does come with every Mac, purchasing or upgrading to the latest version is $79. Second of all, Microsoft really seems to be innovating mainly in Photo Gallery. Yes, I said innovating. They add a lot of organizational features such as new facial recognition but also some photo editing features such as auto adjust, retouch, and the best one of all: Photo Fuse. Photo Fuse is a great new feature in which you can actually take two or more different photos and merge them together to create one great photo that you actually didn't take at all! It appears to be quite stunning.
There's also quick and easy tools to share photos directly to your favorite social networks or online services, one of the many features Microsoft boasts as making Windows Live Essentials quicker and easier to use than other competing suites. Among those easy-to-use highlights are an elegant slide show feature and sharing a slideshow (or multiple photos) directly to an email message using Windows Live Mail.
As for Windows Live Movie Maker, they do add a significant amount of additional transitions, effects, and themes. Not too much information was released on Movie Maker, but Microsoft says more details will arrive in an upcoming blog post, so expect more. Unfortunately, according to a chart, image stabilization seems to be left out once more which is very disappointing for me. There's always a possibility it could show up in a future build.
As for the other programs in Windows Live Essentials, they all received some updates here and there, but the real star of the show really seems to be Photo Gallery. Microsoft says a broad beta will begin in a few weeks. Read their official blog post here for more and visit their special Windows Live Preview site here for in-depth looks at each of the programs. Or if you aren't into reading (which I suspect you are since you've gotten this far in the article), check out the video below.
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