Here's another new toy I stumbled upon - the new AutoCollage tool from Microsoft Research. This is a very easy-to-use image processing program which will automatically create a polished collage from a folder of your favorite pics.

This is a really handy way to create personalized Christmas cards on the fly and avoid the shopping lines at the mall! All you have to do is pick a folder and click a button. Download the one month trial here.

Here's a short video presentation of AutoCollage in action :-)

Check out the latest version of Pro Photo Tools from Microsoft. It's free to download and play with. It's a set of pretty basic but useful tools enabling you to geotag and geocode your pictures in a very cool way: just drag in your image to the map and the GPS coordinates will be calculated automatically for you. Add a whole slew of other data to your image before saving it back to your folder. The product can also interoperate with Photoshop and has support for 64-bit Windows.

You can use Expression Media 2 to leverage even finer details such as three-dimensional maps to accompany your images. This gives you an amazing range of possibilities when it comes to torturing friends and family with the inevitable annual vacation shots... and don't forget the laser pointer ;-)

This version of Photo Tools still has all the original features (from the official site):

    * Determine location name automatically
    * Determine GPS coordinates from location name
    * Identify location on a map
    * View images on Windows Live Maps
    * Use Microsoft Virtual Earth for a 3D view of the image location.
    * Edit image metadata
    * RAW support

Isn't it amazing that just when you have yourself convinced how busy you are, you suddenly find yourself with way too much time on your hands? Well, I've been itching to play around with Microsoft Labs Photosynth for some time now, so I decided to give it a bash without leaving the confines of my little home office. I like the effect but I only achieved a ranking of "36% synthy". We'll do it better next time :-)

There's a definite knack to getting this right. On the Photosynth website you will find an instructional video and a PDF, full of tips of what to do to get the best results. It costs nothing and all you have to do is sign up to get a Photosynth ID which basically uses Windows Live ID.

There is a 20GB limit so I was pretty confident of being able to back in and delete and edit to my heart's content. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the means to do this. Hopefully this will be remedied as people will want the opportunity to improve their synths over time.

While you're at it, check out the new Deep Zoom technology which is incorporated into Silverlight. I just gotta try this one out and see what I can come up with :-)

P.S. The really persistent among you may be able to read the code on the monitor screen! If you're going to do this, remember to put post-its everywhere you have something sensivitive written as this is viewable by everyone out there!