Using Picasa. Installing Picasa. Adding Photos to Your Library

Transcription

1 Using Picasa Picasa is a free product that enables you to easily view, edit, and organize your photos. You can also create slideshows, or share your images online with Picasa Web Albums. Installing Picasa To install Picasa, go to: If you are using a Mac, go to: At the web site, click the Download Picasa button. An installation fi le will be downloaded onto your computer. Open this fi le and follow the instructions to complete the installation process. Adding Photos to Your Library The fi rst time you open Picasa, you will be prompted to choose from which folders on your computer you want Picasa to get pictures. Picasa will then scan these folders and put any photos (or videos) it fi nds into your Picasa library. You can always add additional fi les to your library, from your computer or another source. To add a folder from your computer, go to the File menu and select Add Folder to Picasa.... This will bring up a window that enables you to manage which folders Picasa scans for images and how often it checks them. This window can also be found under Tools > Folder Manager. To control what fi le types are displayed, go to Tools > Options. (On a Mac, go to Picasa > Preferences.) To import photos from a camera, CD, memory card, etc., click the Import button in the upper lefthand corner of the Picasa window. From the Import from drop-down menu, select the source from which you wish to take images (e.g. your camera). Next, from the Import to drop-down menu at the bottom of your window, select the folder in which you want Picasa to save the images. Finally, click Import All to import all the photos shown, or select specifi c ones and click Import Selected. University of Wisconsin-Stout

2 Organizing Your Photos Picasa helps you organize your photos and fi nd them again quickly. The folder list on the left-hand side shows three collections: Folders on your computer that Picasa scans and displays Albums that you create in Picasa to display select photos from multiple folders People whose faces have been tagged in your photos To create a new album, click the small icon to the right of the Import button. It is a blue photo album with a plus sign. Fill out the information for your new album, and then drag photos into it from your Picasa library. This does not create copies of the photos on your computer. Albums only exist in the Picasa program. When tagging people in your photos, Picasa does a lot of the work for you. In the People collection, there is an Unnamed group of faces that Picasa has found. You can add a name tag to each face, or, if there is already a name tag created for that person, just drag the face into its respective people album. If Picasa suspects that a photo is of a specifi c person, it will automatically place it in that people album with a question mark next to it. You can then confi rm or remove the photo. You can also tag faces while viewing a specifi c photo. In the bottom right -hand corner, click the People icon. This will show a panel with all the named and unnamed faces in the photo you are viewing. To tag a face that Picasa did not find on its own, click Add a person manually at the bottom of the tab. One more method for keeping your photos organized is attaching tags. Near the People icon in the bottom right-hand corner, there is an icon for the Tags panel. With this panel showing, select the photos that you want to tag. Then, in the text box at the top of the panel, enter the tag you want to be associated with those photos. Click the green plus sign to apply the tag to the selected photos. Once your photos are organized in your Picasa library, fi nding the one you want is simple. Use the People collection to fi nd photos of a specifi c person, or type a keyword into the search bar on top to fi nd matching tagged photos. You can also add stars to your favorites and come back to them later. University of Wisconsin-Stout 2

3 Editing Your Photos To edit a photo, open it in your Picasa library and use the tools from the editing tabs on the left. The Basic Fixes tab enables you to make simple edits such as cropping, straightening, and retouching. The I m Feeling Lucky button is a one-click fi x that will automatically adjust your photo to have ideal lighting and contrast. The Tuning tab has sliders you can move to adjust the color and lighting. The Effects tab enables you to apply several effects, such as convert to sepia or black & white, saturate, add a soft focus, and more. Holding your cursor over any of the icons in these tabs will give you a short description of what the effect will be. All the edits you make to photos in Picasa can be undone, even after you save. This is because Picasa does not alter or delete the original fi le. When you save your changes, Picasa creates a new version of the fi le with your edits applied. Creating Movie Slideshows You can easily combine photos, videos, and music into a movie slideshow using Picasa s Movie Maker feature. First, select the photos and/or videos that you want to include in your slideshow. Then click the Movie button in the bottom toolbar. To use all the photos in a folder or album, you can also click the Create Movie Presentation icon in the folder or album header. Picasa will then put your selected photos into a movie fi lmstrip with an intro slide at the beginning. You can use the tabs on the right-hand side to change the settings of your movie, add text, or insert new photos. In the Movie tab, you can load an audio fi le and sync it to your photos. You can also choose a transition style and your video dimensions. The Slide tab is where you can add text to your images. Select any of the slides in the fi lmstrip below to edit them. In the Clips tab, you can get more photos from your library and add them to your fi lmstrip. University of Wisconsin-Stout 3

4 To delete a slide from your fi lmstrip, click the red X below the play button. Rearrange the slides by grabbing and dragging them to a new position. If you close Movie Maker before producing your movie, Picasa will prompt you to save a draft so you can come back to work on it later. Your draft will be located in the Projects section of your main folder list. To work on a draft, open it and click the Edit Movie button in the top left-hand corner. Finally, to produce your movie, click the Create Movie button. Depending on how many images you have and the size of your audio fi le, Picasa could take a signifi cant amount of time to produce your movie. Fortunately, you can do other tasks in Picasa while the movie fi le saves in the background. By default, your movie fi le will be saved in the Movies folder, located inside the Picasa folder in your My Pictures folder (or Pictures folder on a Mac). In Windows, your video will be saved as a Windows Media Video (wmv) fi le. On a Mac, it will be a Quicktime (mov) fi le. Sharing Images Online Picasa Web Albums is an online service that provides 1 GB of free storage for sharing your photos. To use Picasa Web Albums, all you need is a free Google account. If you use Gmail, for example, you already have an account. To access Picasa Web Albums, go to: and sign in with your Google account. To create a Google account, just click on the Create an Account button. Once signed into Picasa Web Albums, you can change the way other people see your profi le by clicking on Settings in the top right-hand corner and choosing Photo settings. To upload your photos, you can use either the Picasa software or Picasa Web Albums. To upload photos using the Picasa software: Open Picasa and select the photos you want to upload. Then, click either the Upload button in the bottom panel or the Share button in the folder or album header. The Upload button will put the photos in your Picasa Web Albums. The Share button uploads the photos and sends invitations to people with whom you want to share. Enter the people s addresses in the To box and they will be sent invites with links to your album. You can also allow them to contribute to your album. University of Wisconsin-Stout 4

5 Picasa will have you choose a few settings, such as the image size to upload and the visibility for the album (privacy setting which decides who can see your album... see below for details). Once you have chosen your settings, click either Upload or Send and Picasa will add the photos to your Picasa Web Albums. To get to your web albums from Picasa, click on the link in the upper right-hand corner of the program window. To upload photos using Picasa Web Albums: From your home page in Picasa Web Albums, click the Upload button in the header. Create an album to which you ll upload your photos, or choose an album that already exists in your web albums. You will then be brought to a page where you can browse for photos from folders on your computer. Click the Browse button, fi nd your fi le, and click Open. Select up to fi ve photos and then click Start Upload. (Internet Explorer allows you to upload more than five photos at a time.) Back at the home page (under the My Photos tab), you will see all the albums that you have uploaded. Click on any album to view the photos. In an album header, there are several options: Slideshow displays your photos full screen. Share enables you to send out invitations so other people can view your photos. Add photos will bring up the upload page again. Download enables you to download the photos from Web Albums to your computer. Prints enables you to order prints of the photos. Edit enables you to change the album settings and organize the photos in it. Also, any tags you made in Picasa will transfer to Picasa Web Albums. You can view these from the right-hand side bar of your My Photos page. Album visibility levels: Public means that anyone can search for and see your album. Anyone can leave comments. Your Fans (people who add you as a Favorite) are updated when you upload public photos. Unlisted means only people with the exact web address for the album can view it. Sign-in required to view means that visitors must sign into their Google account to verify their identity, and only people who you specify are allowed to view the album. For even more tips on using Picasa or Picasa Web Albums, visit: University of Wisconsin-Stout 5