Brandon LeBlanc over at the Windows Vista Blog has been playing with Windows Live Photo Gallery, and has a nice post up on it. He describes some of the new features, extensions to the Photo Gallery in Vista:

"Windows Live Photo Gallery includes all of the features of Windows Photo Gallery in Windows Vista - but extends the experience by adding new functionality as well as integration with Windows Live services such as Windows Live Spaces. Here is a list of a few new things you'll find in the initial beta release of Windows Live Photo Gallery:

• Improved image editing features like Panoramic stitch, histogram, and sharpen image.
• Improved tagging and organization including the ability to quickly sort by name, file type, tag or date.
• Publish photos directly to your photo galleries on Windows Live Spaces.
• Auto event grouping and tagging when importing photos (and video) from your camera to PC.
• Improved Photo Import Tool."

Brandon goes on to describe some other improvements, including RAW image support, and improvements to the photo import tool.  Good work, Brandon!

While the beta doesn't appear to have actually started yet, a (non-working, so far) download page has appeared, so we should be getting close.

The link may be US only, and doesn't give us too much information, as the beta will be by invitation only, but still it shouldn't be too long before we get a chance to play, too