Microsoft announced that Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011 now supports raw format images.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with raw format, it is the uncompressed output from each of the original pixels on the camera?s image sensors. Raw files have several advantages over JPEG files including higher image quality, finer control, and more image information.

Dealing with raw images on Windows hasn?t always been easy. While there is software that works well to convert raw files to JPEG, Windows is offering a built-in Windows solution.

Just download the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack for Windows 7 and Windows Vista to be able to view raw photo files from more than 120 DSLR cameras in Photo Gallery, as well as in Windows Explorer.

Viewing is only part of the story. Photo Gallery will also support editing copies of your raw images. Because raw files are like digital negatives, they?re protected originals, not to be altered or harmed. So if you want to alter a raw image, Photo Gallery makes a copy of the raw original and converts it to either JPEG or the far superior JPEG-XR (or HD Photo) format. With JPEG-XR, all of the quality of the raw original is there so you can fine-tune different editing effects. You can fix red-eye, remove blemishes, or make detailed image adjustments with confidence knowing your original raw file is safe. When you use your raw files to construct a panoramic stitch or Photo Fuse, a new file is generated and you get an even higher quality result than before.

With the new codec pack, Windows will now support viewing and editing a wide range of photo file formats including raw, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and more.