Fun with Picasa and Picnik

Picnik is the web-based photo editing software that Google bought earlier this year and added it to Picasa.  If you want to play with our pictures, trying out different effects and add-ons, this is *really* fun.

Here’s an example of the fun I had.  It’s called the Crystal Ball effect.  Read on and I’ll tell you how I did it.

Using Picnik

You start in Picasa.  Select the photo you want to play with and click the Picnik button in the Basic Fixes.  Click ‘Yes’ when asked if you want to edit this picture in Picnik.



Then wait …. this part takes a while.  Picnik is completely web based, and it has some very powerful features.  You need a very good Internet connection for this to work.  Once it is loaded, you will now see your picture and have all of Picnik’s editing tools available to you.  The really fun stuff is on the Create tab.



I found ‘Crystal Ball’ on the featured list of tools as part of the Halloween series.  Just click once on the Crystal Ball tool, and here’s what you get:



Then there are lots of options to play with including the color of the crystal ball, the placement of the picture, and how distorted it should be. If you like the results, you click ‘Save to Picasa.’  You can choose to overwrite your original, or make a separate copy.  I make a separate copy.

Have fun!  Notice that some of the tools say ‘Premium.’  That means you have to be a paid subscriber in order to use those.  The fee is quite reasonable at $24.95/year.  They even have a link for you to give a Picnik subscription to someone as a gift.  Could be a great addition to your Christmas list!

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.

Basic Edits

Tuning

Retouching Photos

Fix Redeye

How Picasa Handles Edits

 

 

 

 

 

Sorting Pictures on Picasa and Picasa Web Albums

The latest version of Picasa (3.8) has made a big improvement in sorting.  You can manually sort pictures in Picasa just by dragging them around and, now, if you upload those pictures to the web using the ‘Synchronize’ feature, they will keep your manual sort order.

Sorting Pictures in Picasa

For any given Picasa folder or album, you have 3 choices for automatic sorting: Name, Date, or Size.  Just right-click on the folder or album icon and choose Sort Folder/Album by … When you click Name, they will be automatically sorted alphabetically by their filename.  When you choose Date, they will be sorted from earliest to latest according to the date/time recorded when the picture was taken.

If you don’t like either of those sorts, you can drag the pictures into the order you desire.  As long as you view them using Picasa, they will stay in that order because Picasa is remembering your custom sort order.  This sort order is not understood by any other program.  If you look at the same folder of pictures using Windows Explorer, for example, they will be in Windows Explorer’s specified sort order – usually by filename.

Sorting Pictures in Picasa Web Albums

Picasa Web Albums also gives you options for sorting.  If you’re logged in to your Picasa Web Albums, open whatever album you want to work with simply by cllcking on it, then choose Edit and Organize & Reorder.



Once in the Organize and Reorder screen, you will have the options to sort by name, date, or to drag pictures around to the order you want.

Sorting in Picasa and Synchronizing to Picasa Web Albums

If you have used the ‘Sync to Web’ feature, you know that any folder or album in Picasa can be duplicated automatically in your web albums.  But, up until version 3.8, your custom sort order would not follow.  Now, you can also sync the sort order if you make sure that option is selected.

• Tools


• Options


• Web Albums


• Sync Photo Order – make sure this option is selected.

Now, when you choose to sync a folder or album to the web, you can drag photos around to a custom order in Picasa and you will see the order change in the corresponding web album automatically.  Sometimes this happens instantly, sometimes not – be patient

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.

Sync Photo Sort Order

Upload Photos to the Web

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What does that Symbol Mean?

In Picasa’s Library view, there are many symbols/icons you may see on the picture thumbnails.  These are indicators of certain attributes of the pictures being marked.  They are not part of the picture – they are simply informational.  This article will discuss each one.

	Starred: Shows that this picture has been marked as a Favorite picture.  See this article for a discussion of Stars and Tags.
	Uploaded: Indicates that this picture has been uploaded to your Web Albums.  You can right click on this picture and choose ‘Online Actions.’  This gives you options to: View Online, Copy URL, Update Online Photo, or Refresh Online Status
	Sync’ed: This shows up on any picture in an album or folder that has been ‘Sync’ed’ to your Web Albums.  See this article about synchronized folders/albums with Picasa Web Albums.
	Movie: This thumbnail is a Movie clip.  If you double-click it, the movie will play. Picasa will play any movie file type that is checked in Tools | Options | File Types
	Geotagged: Indicates that this picture has latitude and longitude coordinates of the location where it was taken.  See this article on Geotagging.
	Block from Uploading: This indicates that you have marked this picture as one that Picasa should definitely not upload, even if it’s in a folder or album that is being synchronized to the web.  To do this for a picture, you right-click on it and choose “Block from Uploading.’

So, I have picture thumbnails in my Picasa Library that look like those below.  Notice the icons in the lower right – or lower left.  Each one is described below the picture:

This picture has been uploaded to Picasa Web Albums, and has been marked as a favorite.	This picture has been geotagged and will be properly placed on a map in Places view.	This one has been geotagged and uploaded
This thumbnail is a video clip.	This thumbnail is in a Sync’ed album or folder.  Therefore it is on the Web in addition to the computer.	This picture has been Blocked from Uploading and will not be on the web even if it is in a Sync’ed album.

When you double-click on a picture to see it in Edit/Single picture view, the symbols disappear from the picture itself.  Instead, they are displayed on the blue status bar below the photo.  That status bar starts with the folder and name of the picture file, then the date and size, the tags (if any) and at the far right you’ll see the icons for Star, Upload,

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

Single Picture View

starring-pictures

Geotagging

Upload Photos to the Web

Add Captions to your Photos

Sync Photo Sort Order

make-a-movie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who took that Picture?

Do you and your travel partners both take pictures with different cameras?  If you import them all to your computer and view them with Picasa, you may want to know who took which picture.  It’s easy to do with Picasa’s picture properties panel.

We just returned from taking a cruise on Alaska’s Inside Passage.  It was a family trip with 7 people from our extended family.  Four of us were taking pictures.  I used a Canon Digital Rebel, and sometimes my Droid cellphone.  Jim used our Nikon Coolpix, and sometimes his Droid.  Debbie used a Fujifilm Finepix.  Jo Ellen used a Canon Powershot.  I collected all the pictures from Jim’s and my cameras, plus several from Debbie and Jo Ellen.

Picasa’s Information Panel

You can see all sorts of information about any given picture by using Picasa’s Properties panel – indicated by the i – for Information – in the lower right corner of the screen.  Click on any picture and then view the Properties panel by clicking on the i.



In the example above, you can see that this picture was taken with a Nikon Coolpix camera, which means that Jim took this one.  The sample below shows that the picture was taken with a Canon Digital Rebel, which means that I took it.

Search by Camera Type

What if you wanted to see all the photos taken with a particular camera?  That information is searchable.  To see all the pictures taken by our Droids, I just type Droid in the search box.  Now the only pictures I’m seeing are ones found with that search.  It will find all pictures with Droid in the properties, as well as any that have Droid as part of the caption, filename, or tag.

In my particular case, both Jim and I took some pictures with our Droids, so I also used the Tag feature to identify the ones taken by each of us, using a tag like ‘pix-by-jim.’

Photo Properties on Picasa Web Albums

I’ve uploaded some of our Alaska pictures to a Web Album, you can see them at 2010 Alaska Cruise.  Some of the properties that Picasa shows you are also viewable on Picasa Web Albums.  Just click on any picture, then click on the link for ‘more info’ over in the right sidebar.

GPS Properties

Notice the properties of Latitude and Longitude.  Any of the pictures taken with our Droid cell phones are automatically Geotagged with the Latitude and Longitude because the Droid also happens to be a GPS receiver!  All pictures that are geotagged will show up in the map on the right sidebar.

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.

Geotagging

Using Tags aka Keywords

Single Picture View

Searching for Pictures

Upload Photos to the Web

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