Storing Pictures on an External Hard Drive

I’ve written about this before, in Moving Folders to an External Hard Drive.  There is also a Geeks on Tour video: (Member Tutorial Video: Move Folders of Pictures to an External Drive)

I wanted to talk about it again because I don’t think people realize just how useful, important and easy it is to store photos on an external hard drive and use them in Picasa.  I have over 20,000 pictures that I’ve taken in our RV travels since 2004 and I love being able to browse thru all of them.  In Picasa I can search for ‘Odie’ and see photos of our dog throughout all the years.  Or I can make an album of photos from Austin, Texas which includes every time we’ve visited (2004, 06, 08 & 09.)  Picasa can make this album because it has access to all my photos.

But, those 20,000 photos take up a bit over 50 Gigabytes of hard drive space. On a 200 GB hard drive, that means that my photos would take up 1/4 of all the space available.  If that was the main thing on my computer it would be OK, but I need the space for lots of other stuff as well.  So, all the pictures more than a couple year’s old are stored on the external hard drive – a Western Digital ‘Passport’ drive which I have designated as drive letter P:

The screen shot below is what it looks like in Picasa.  I can’t even tell which folders are on my computer and which are on the Passport when I’m in flat folder view.  All 20,000 photos are in the library, they’re searchable, and they’re available for Albums, emailing, uploading, printing etc.



If you switch to Tree Structure view, you can see that the 200612 folder is indeed on the P: drive.



Here’s my system: Whenever I take pictures, I copy them from the camera to the computer into a folder for the current month.  All my pictures are in folders by month that they were taken.  I keep a year or two on my computer.  When I want to move some over to the USB Hard drive, I use Picasa to do it.  It moves the whole folder off of my computer and onto the external hard drive.  Using Picasa to make the move means that it keeps track of the new location for all the photos, this maintains their placement in any folders.

Works great!

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

Members may want to view the following tutorial videos.  Not a member?  Join now.

• Tree Folder Structure


• Backup to External Hard Drive


• Moving Folders Among Multiple Hard Drives


• Using Albums for Organizing


• Import from Camera

 

 

Picasa Tip: Download photos from a Web Album

Do you have photos you want to share with others?  If so, Picasa Web Albums is the best way to go.  Maybe you currently use email to send photos to your friends.  Do you ever wonder if you’re sending them more than they want?  How about letting them view all your pictures, then they can download any that they really want?  That’s what Picasa Web Albums allows you to do.

I belong to a club where one person takes all the photos for the club and uploads them to the club’s Picasa Web Album.  Then, any member of the club, can visit the Web Album and look at the pictures.  If I see a picture I want to have for my own, maybe a nice photo of me, I can download that photo to my computer.



You can download a single photo, or an entire album.  Just go to the album in question and look for the ‘Download’ button at the top.  If you’re viewing a single photo, you will see ‘Download photo’ as the only option.  If you’re viewing an album, the download command will download the entire album to your computer.  You’ll see a couple of prompts that you need to approve, then finally, click on Download.

If you don’t see these options, it means that the owner of the album has disabled it.

 

Once you successfully download the photos … where are they?  You don’t get an option of what folder you want them in.  It automatically puts them in My Pictures/Downloaded Albums/nameofalbum.  You’ll see them in a special collection in Picasa under all your folders called Downloaded Albums, or Web Albums.

What if you are the owner of the album and you don’t want people to be able to  download your pictures?  That’s a setting.  If you visit your web albums and make sure you’re logged in, you should see a link called Settings in the upper right.  Click on that, and then on Privacy and Permissions.  You’ll see lots of options, we’re talking about allowing visitors to download your photos.  If you want to allow it, make sure the option is checked, if not, make it unchecked.  Then make sure to click on Save Changes.



This will take effect right away.  So, you can even allow a visitor to download just for a few minutes then turn it back off again.  This is an easy way to give family or a friend all your photos

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

 

Picasa Tip: Picasa to Facebook

If you have a Facebook page - you may want to upload photos from Picasa to Facebook.

The long way is to prepare your photos in Picasa and Export them to a separate folder.  Then, using Facebook's upload utility, you can select all the photos in that folder.
see Video: Member Tutorial Video: Exporting Pictures for Use in AnotherProgram

The short way is to download a third party tool called Picasa Uploader.  The purpose of this program is to add a button to the bottom row of buttons in Picasa.  It is a Facebook button and it will work like all the others.  Simply select the photos you want to upload to Facebook, click the facebook button, and follow the prompts.

 


Here's the step-by-step: Go to the  Picasa Uploader page, and click on the big button to Install Now.'  Follow the prompts and click 'Allow' or 'Yes' or 'Ok' for any messages that come up.  Shortly you should see the 'Configure Buttons' screen.  Click on the Facebook Button and click 'Add>>



When you click OK, you should see the Facebook button at the bottom of your screen with all the other Picasa buttons.  To get back to that 'Configure Buttons' screen in order to add, remove, or rearrange your buttons, click on the Tools menu and 'Configure buttons.'

So, for example, if you don't have enough screen room for all of them, you might want to remove the BlogThis! button (I never use that one because it limits me to 4 pictures). To change the order of the buttons, click on a button to move, then click on the Move Up or Move Down button.  To clean up the buttons and return to basic Picasa, click on 'Reset to Defaults.'

Now you should have a Facebook button at the bottom of your Picasa screen.  To upload photos to Facebook, simply select them and click that button!



The first time you do this, you will need to log in with your Facebook username and password.  Then you should see a screen where you can specify an existing Facebook album, or make a new one.  You can also specify whether the album should be private or public.



The final step is to 'Approve' all your photos.  Be sure they are all selected, then click 'Approve Selected Photos.'



If you've ever tried to use Facebook's album feature, you can appreciate how much easier this is!  Although I'm not a big fan of Facebook, so many people use it, that it's become almost a necessity.  The connections that are made on Facebook just by the sheer volume of people who use it are quite impressive.

With this great plug-in tool, at least the photo album part of Facebook has become *very* easy.  The Picasa Facebook button takes care of resizing your photos appropriately, it also keeps your Picasa caption and displays it on the Facebook album.  This button works on both Windows and Macintosh versions of Picasa.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

Members may want to view the following tutorial video.  Not a member?  Join now.

• Where’d the Buttons Go?

 

Picasa Tip: 4 Clicks to Dramatically Improve your Photos

 



I got an email today from someone asking me about my camera because he likes the pictures in our blog so much.  I do get compliments on my photos often - thank you!  But, I answered him the way I answer all the others - "Yes, I have a good digital SLR camera (Canon Digital Rebel) but I believe what makes the difference is just a few seconds spent with each photo in Picasa!"

The picture of the split rail fence above was in my blog post from yesterday and it's one of my current favorites.  It was taken in a city park in Winterset, Iowa.  The main attraction of this park is a covered bridge.  I like taking photos of things that aren't the main attraction.  This is just an old fence and big tree trunk off in a corner of the park.

I liked the picture right from the camera.  But I *really* liked it after 4 clicks in Picasa ...

1. I'm Feeling Lucky - this is a one-click automatic color and contrast adjustment.  I click on this with every picture.  If I don't like what it does, I just click on Undo.  I liked what it did on this photo. (Member Tutorial Video:Basic Edits)


2. Sharpen - this is on the effects tab.  Right now you have to hold down on Shift as you click it to see the results.  (See past tip on sharpen) (Member Tutorial Video:Picasa’s 12 Effects)


3. Saturation - this is a button on the Effects tab, just one click and it applies an automatic amount of saturation - you can adjust the amount with the slider, then click Apply.  Saturation means more color.  Just like adding another coat of paint.  Saturation makes your picture richer and brighter.  Not always something you want, but you can Undo if you don't like it.(Member Tutorial Video:Picasa’s 12 Effects)


4. Shadows - this is a feature on the Tuning tab.  I just moved the slider to the right a tiny bit.  It does exactly what it says ... increases the shadows.  For this picture, I think it made it richer. (Member Tutorial Video:Tuning)

So, that's it.  I spent no more than 4 seconds on this photo to turn it from a nice picture to a really nice picture.  Click 'upload' and now it's on the web to share.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

Members may want to view the following tutorial videos.  Not a member?  Join now.

• Crop Size Options


• Editing Tip – Cut thru the Haze


• How Picasa Handles Edits


• Using Special Effects for an artsy-fartsy Miami Skyline

 

Picasa Tip: Folders and Subfolders

The most common complaint I hear about Picasa is that you don't like how it organizes your folders. I keep explaining that Picasa doesn't do anything to your folders, it just sees the folders that exist in your 'My Pictures' area of Windows XP or Vista.

It finally dawned on me that what people objected to is the fact that they made folders and subfolders to organize their photos and yet, when they look at Picasa they don't see the folders or subfolders in the order they made them.

Aha!

You need to understand the 'Flat View' vs. the 'Tree View' in Picasa. Although it's true that Picasa does not *do* anything to your folders - it does display them in two very different ways. And the default way is Flat - which doesn't look like the nested folders that you see when using Windows.

I've covered this before in the article Nested Folders. There is also a members-only Show-Me-How video that goes into depth on Tree View. (Member Tutorial Video:Tree Folder Structure)

If you've ever made a collage, or captured a screen using Picasa 3, you've probably noticed the collection called 'Projects.' Collages are automatically saved in a folder called 'Collages' and it shows up in the Projects collection in the left sidebar.



That is ... it shows up there *IF* you're using the Flat Folder view. Notice the button that is circled in the screenshot above. If you're using Tree view (the button just to the right of Flat View) then the Collages folder is forced to show up in it's nested location under My Pictures\Picasa\Collages. It's not much different than holding a hand of cards ... you can put them in order by suit, or by rank - they're still all in your hand!



The very first time I used Picasa - I also didn't like how it flattened my folders. I have since learned to appreciate the flexibility of that view and I use it a lot. But, if I need to find a folder by knowing exactly where it is on my drive structure - all I have to do is click on the Tree View button.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

Members may want to view the following tutorial videos.  Not a member?  Join now.

• Library View


• Folders and Folder Collection


• Folder Manager