Gift CDs and Temporary Albums

I’ve had a couple questions this week about making Gift CDs.  The readers had photos scattered throughout their computer’s folders and they wanted to burn them as a group to a CD to give to someone else.  The Gift CD process is very quick and simple:

1. Select the folder or album with the photos


2. Click the Create menu, then Create a Gift CD


3. It will tell you if your selection will fit on the CD
   


4. You can include more folders or albums by clicking the ‘Add More…’ button.


5. When you’ve selected all you want, click Burn Disc.

The resulting CD will have all the pictures – the edited versions – and it will automatically play a slideshow after being inserted into a computer’s CD/DVD drive.

The point of this article is how you can use Albums to collect all the photos you want to group together.  You *don’t* need all the pictures to be in a folder.  Anything you can do with a folder, you can do with an album.  Think of albums as ‘virtual folders.’

Now, here’s the really cool part … temporary albums.  Any time you search for something the search results can be shown as a temporary album.  With the temporary album selected, you can play a slideshow, create a collage or a movie with all the pictures in the temporary album.  You can also Export, Upload, Email, Shop, or anything you can do with pictures in the selection tray.



One thing you cannot do with a temporary album is create a Gift CD.  But, not to worry, you can simply create an Album from the pictures selected in the temporary album.  After burning the Gift CD – you can simply delete the Album you created.



 

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.

Searching for Pictures

Starring Pictures

Using Albums for Organizing

Using Tags aka Keywords

Using Search to Create a Temporary Album

 

People Albums – View Whole Picture

Question: I like the face recognition feature.  I would like to be able to create albums based on the recognition of a single person, but I want the original photo that the face came from not the face only photo.  Is there a way to do this?  ; Tom 

Answer: Oh boy!  This is an easy one – and very exciting once you discover it.  First, you need to understand that the People collection in Picasa *are* Albums.  They are special albums created automatically by the face recognition feature.  By default, Picasa just displays the face for you, but the whole picture is there, you just need to click on the button – at the upper left of the group of faces – that says, ‘View Zoomed out to the whole picture’  instead of the one that is automatically selected, ‘View zoomed in to the face.’

Here’s the video to show you how:

People Albums – View Whole Picture

Question: I like the face recognition feature.  I would like to be able to create albums based on the recognition of a single person, but I want the original photo that the face came from not the face only photo.  Is there a way to do this?  ; Tom

Answer: Oh boy!  This is an easy one – and very exciting once you discover it.  First, you need to understand that the People collection in Picasa *are* Albums.  They are special albums created automatically by the face recognition feature.  By default, Picasa just displays the face for you, but the whole picture is there, you just need to click on the button – at the upper left of the group of faces – that says, ‘View Zoomed out to the whole picture’  instead of the one that is automatically selected, ‘View zoomed in to the face.’

Here’s the video to show you how:

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.

• Naming Faces


• People Albums: Viewing Faces or Entire Picture


• Using Search to Create a Temporary Album

 

Deleting from Picasa Web Albums

Q: I was just trying out something new with Picasa web albums but didn't realize that they would be available for all to see via the web. Could you please tell me how do I delete them from the web albums please.

A: I know a lot of people have this question, so let’s take a look.

Log In to your Web Album

First you must be logged in to your Picasa Web Albums.  Just go to www.picasaweb.google.com/yourusername and make sure you are logged in.  If you are, you will see your email address appear on the top row – over towards the right of the screen.  If you’re not logged in you will see a link to ‘Sign In’ at the top right.

Delete an Album

Now, you should be seeing all your Albums.  Click on the album you want to delete.  Click on the Edit menu and then Delete Album.

Delete a Picture

If instead, you only wanted to delete a picture or two, then just click on the picture first.  Now when you click on the Edit menu, you will have a choice to Delete picture.

Don’t Delete – Make it Private

From the original question, it sounds like you may actually have wanted the Album to stay – you just don’t want everyone to be able to see it.  For that, you can click the Edit menu and choose Album properties.and then Permissions.  You will see an option for Share: Public, Unlisted, Sign-in required to view.  If you choose Unlisted, then anyone visiting your web albums page will simply not see that album.  When you’re logged in, you will see the album and it will show a little lock on it to indicate that it is private.  You can share (click the little envelope icon) a private album with anyone you choose, but the public won’t see it.

Importing and Folders

I’ve written (and said on video) many times that, when I import pictures from my camera, I like to Import All into a folder for the current month.  Two points to be made here:

1. Import All: It’s just a one-click, no choices method.  This way, I know that I’m getting all the pictures from my camera card – I can delete any bad ones later in Picasa.  If instead, I selected photos to import into separate folders, I may miss some pictures by accident.  Also, after importing all, I let Picasa delete them from the card.  This way I always have a fresh card for use in my camera.


2. One folder per month: my first import at the beginning of each month requires me to make a new folder.  I just enter 201002 (Feb 2010) in the place for folder name.  Every subsequent import, I just use the drop-down list to select an existing folder for ‘Import To:’  It remembers the previous folders I have used.
   

But, not everyone wants to use my system … they may have their own system – go figure!  Many people like to have their photos in folders by individual date – sounds like *way* too many folders to me, but to each his own  :-).  The latest version of Picasa can do this for you automatically, just click on the drop-down by ‘Folder title:’ and choose ‘Date Taken’ – that will automatically create folders for each date on your photos and import the photos into their respective folder:

Make New Folders after you Import

Sometimes I do want specific folders other than my main, monthly folder.  After I import my photos, I will select the one(s) I want in a new folder, right click and choose ‘Move to New Folder.’  Clicking on ‘Move to New Folder’ accomplishes two things, 1)it creates the new folder and 2)it moves the selected photos into it.  After that first step, you can now drag other photos into that same folder.

New Video on Importing with Picasa 3.5/6:

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.

• Import from Camera


• Delete or Rename Photos


• Folders and Folder Collection


• Make a New Folder


• Moving Folders Among Multiple Hard Drives

Related article

http://picasatutorials.com/2009/02/picasa-tip-picasa-web-albums/
Need to learn the basics?  Check out our ‘Beginner’s Guide to Picasa’ complete withshow-me videos