Since Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011, geotagging and people tagging[4] (with facial detection and recognition) is also supported.

[6] Further, Windows Photo Gallery also includes editing tools such as blemish remover and noise reduction.

Therefore, the supported formats depend on the Windows version, additional WIC codecs for QuickTime/raw image formats/Webp, and platform updates,[10] e.g., JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg), BMP (.bmp), PNG (.png), TIFF (.tif and .tiff), HD Photo .wdp (later replaced by JPEG XR .jxr), and GIF(.gif) images,[11] as well as most common video formats.

[citation needed] The application started development in December 2001 as a new "Photo Library" offering (code named "POD") that was added to the established "Picture It!"

A further "Anniversary edition" that included Windows Vista compatibility fixes was released August 18, 2006.

With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft decided not to bundle Photo Gallery within the operating system.

On December 15, 2008, the "beta refresh" versions of Windows Live Essentials 2009 applications were released including Photo Gallery.

The 2011 version features new additions such as batch people tagging, blemish remover and noise reduction.

New features in Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011 include addition of a ribbon to the user interface, batch processing, a clone tool, facial recognition, geotagging with support for Bing Maps, image stitching, and noise reduction.

[14] The Wave 5 version was released on August 7, 2012, as Windows Photo Gallery 2012; Microsoft dropped the Live branding from its title.

Windows Photo Gallery 2012 introduced an AutoCollage feature that allow users to automatically create a collage of their images, as well as the ability to publish videos to Vimeo.