Two programs dominate the field--Microsoft's Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery, and before that, as Windows Photo Gallery) and Google's Picasa. Both are excellent, and free.

They also share many features. For instance, both can use the tags (sometimes referred to as generic or descriptive tags) built into the .jpg file format. If you use the

Unfortunately, you need to pick one or the other and stick with it. Gallery and Picasa are nowhere near as compatible as they should be--especially when it comes to people tags (the ones that use face recognition). You may want to play with both programs a bit before deciding which you'll keep.

Note: I have blurred out faces and names in some of the images in this article to protect the privacy of my friends and relatives.

Read the original forum discussion.

Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes about technology and cinema. Email your tech questions to him at answer@pcworld.com, or post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Answer Line forum. Follow Lincoln on Twitter, or subscribe to the Answer Line newsletter, e-mailed weekly.