Microsoft Office Picture Manager (formerly Microsoft Picture Library) is a

raster graphics editor A raster graphics editor (also called bitmap graphics editor) is a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics file formats (also known as bitmap ...

introduced in

Microsoft Office 2003 Microsoft Office 2003 (codenamed Office 11) is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later released to retail on October 21, ...

and included up to

Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010 (codenamed Office 14) is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with general availability on June 15, 2010. The macOS equi ...

. It is the replacement to Microsoft Photo Editor introduced in Office 97 and included up to

Office XP Microsoft Office XP (codenamed Office 10) is an office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to ret ...

. Basic image editing features include color correct,

crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. In other words, a crop is a plant or plant product that is grown for a specific purpose such as food, Fiber, fibre, or fuel. When plants of the same spe ...

, flip,

resize Size in general is the magnitude or dimensions of a thing. More specifically, ''geometrical size'' (or ''spatial size'') can refer to three geometrical measures: length, area, or volume. Length can be generalized to other linear dimensio ...

, and

rotate Rotation or rotational/rotary motion is the circular movement of an object around a central line, known as an ''axis of rotation''. A plane figure can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise sense around a perpendicular axis interse ...

. To facilitate image organization, Picture Manager includes a shortcut pane to which users can manually—or automatically through a ''Locate Pictures'' command—add shortcuts to folders in a

hierarchical A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an importan ...

file system layout, which eliminates the need to create new categories for images or to import them to a specific folder. Picture Manager allows users to share images in

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

, to an

intranet An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in ...

location, or to a

SharePoint SharePoint is a collection of enterprise content management and knowledge management tools developed by Microsoft. Launched in 2001, it was initially bundled with Windows Server as Windows SharePoint Server, then renamed to Microsoft Office ...

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

. It also allows images to be shared directly with Excel,

Outlook Outlook or The Outlook may refer to: Computing * Microsoft Outlook, also referred to as ''the classic Outlook'' an e-mail client and personal information management software product from Microsoft * Outlook for Windows, also referred to as ''the ...

, PowerPoint, and

Word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

. Microsoft terminated support for Picture Manager with the release of Office 2013 and recommended

Photos A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. The process and prac ...

and Word as replacements because of their

digital imaging Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a digital representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imply or include ...

capabilities.

History

Picture Manager (known at the time as Picture Library) was first released in 2002 alongside Office 2003 (then known as Office 11) Beta 1 and included crop, red-eye removal, resize, and rotate features. In Office 2003 Beta 2, released in March 2003, it retained its preliminary Picture Library name and integrated with SharePoint by automatically opening when users added multiple images to a library; users could access these images from within other Office 2003 applications with the Shared Workspace task pane. Picture Manager is included in Office 2003 through Office 2010; it was no longer included with versions of

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, MS Office, or simply Office, is an office suite and family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. The first version of the Office suite, announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at CO ...

starting with Office 2013. However, it is available as an optional component in SharePoint Designer 2007 and can be installed as a standalone application; SharePoint Designer 2007 was made available in 2009 as

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

. Picture Manager is also available as an optional component of SharePoint Designer 2010. With the release of Microsoft Office 2010 SP2 in 2013, Microsoft updated Picture Manager to resolve an issue that caused it to crash when

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...

compatibility mode A compatibility mode is a software mechanism in which a software either emulates an older version of software, or mimics another operating system in order to allow older or incompatible software or files to remain compatible with the computer's n ...

was active.

Features

The

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

of Picture Manager consists of menus, toolbars, a shortcut pane, and task panes; it supports editing and navigation

keyboard shortcut In computing, a keyboard shortcut (also hotkey/hot key or key binding) is a software-based assignment of an action to one or more keys on a computer keyboard. Most Operating system, operating systems and Application software, applications come ...

s. Users can manually add folder shortcuts to the shortcut pane or automatically populate the pane with folders that include images through a ''Locate Pictures'' command, which eliminates the need for users to create new image categories or to import images from another location. The shortcut pane by default does not list any folders. Images displayed in Picture Manager can be viewed individually or in

filmstrip The filmstrip is a form of still image instructional Media (communication), media, once widely used by educators in primary and secondary schools (K–12) and for corporate presentations (e.g., sales training and new product introductions). ...

thumbnail Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and image-o ...

arrangements, and users can

zoom Zoom may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film * ''Zoom'' (2006 film), starring Tim Allen * ''Zoom'' (2015 film), a Canada-Brazil film by Pedro Morelli * ''Zoom'' (2016 Kannada film), a Kannada film * ''Zoom'' (2016 Sinhala film), a Sr ...

in or out of images. Picture Manager does not display GIF image animation and, like the version of Photo Editor included with Office XP, does not support the PCX image format. Basic image editing features include color correct, crop, flip, resize, and rotate. Advanced features include

brightness Brightness is an attribute of visual perception in which a source appears to be radiating/reflecting light. In other words, brightness is the perception dictated by the luminance of a visual target. The perception is not linear to luminance, and ...

, contrast,

hue In color theory, hue is one of the properties (called color appearance parameters) of a color, defined in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that are described as ...

, and

saturation Saturation, saturated, unsaturation or unsaturated may refer to: Chemistry *Saturated and unsaturated compounds, a classification of compounds related to their ability to resist addition reactions ** Degree of unsaturation **Saturated fat or satu ...

adjustment;

batch processing Computerized batch processing is a method of running software programs called jobs in batches automatically. While users are required to submit the jobs, no other interaction by the user is required to process the batch. Batches may automatically ...

;

compression Compression may refer to: Physical science *Compression (physics), size reduction due to forces *Compression member, a structural element such as a column *Compressibility, susceptibility to compression * Gas compression *Compression ratio, of a ...

; and red-eye removal. An ''AutoCorrect'' command can automatically adjust brightness, contrast, and color. All editing capabilities are listed on an ''Edit Pictures'' task pane. Images can be compressed with options for insertion into

document A document is a writing, written, drawing, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of nonfiction, non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ', which denotes ...

s, email, or

web page A web page (or webpage) is a World Wide Web, Web document that is accessed in a web browser. A website typically consists of many web pages hyperlink, linked together under a common domain name. The term "web page" is therefore a metaphor of pap ...

s. After editing, users can view or discard unsaved changes, overwrite the original image, rename and save the new image, or export it to another location. Users can also share images in email, to an intranet location, or to a SharePoint library. Picture Manager users running

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

cannot print images from the application, as this feature requires a wizard distributed with

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

Comparison with Photo Editor

Picture Manager lacks several

image editing Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are Digital photography, digital photographs, traditional Photographic processing, photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known ...

features of its predecessor, Photo Editor, including

emboss EMBOSS is a free c software analysis package developed for the needs of the molecular biology and bioinformatics user community. The software automatically copes with data in a variety of formats and even allows transparent retrieval of sequence ...

noise reduction Noise reduction is the process of removing noise from a signal. Noise reduction techniques exist for audio and images. Noise reduction algorithms may distort the signal to some degree. Noise rejection is the ability of a circuit to isolate an u ...

RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green, and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three ...

gamma correction Gamma correction or gamma is a Nonlinearity, nonlinear operation used to encode and decode Relative luminance, luminance or CIE 1931 color space#Tristimulus values, tristimulus values in video or still image systems. Gamma correction is, in the s ...

options, smudge, and

unsharp mask Unsharp masking (USM) is an image sharpening technique, first implemented in darkroom photography, but now commonly used in digital image processing software. Its name derives from the fact that the technique uses a blurred, or "unsharp", negat ...

features. The following effects of Photo Editor are not included in Picture Manager: ''Chalk and Charcoal'', ''Edge'', ''Graphic Pen'', '' Negative'', ''Notepaper'', '' Posterize'', '' Sharpen'', ''Soften'', ''

Stained Glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

'', ''Stamp'', ''Texturizer'', and ''

Watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...

''. Picture Manager also cannot create new images from a

digital camera A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in Digital data storage, digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Dig ...

or from a scanner. Microsoft stated that this feature is native to

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application and default desktop environment that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user i ...

in Windows XP and that users are not required to import images to manage them. Microsoft has published instructions on how to reinstall Photo Editor. Historically, a similar reduction in features occurred when Photo Editor of Office 97 replaced Microsoft Imager of Office 95.

References

{{Microsoft Office 2003 software Picture Manager Image viewers Picture Manager Raster graphics editors Windows-only proprietary software

History

Features

Comparison with Photo Editor

See also

References