Photo Gifts Made Easy with Picasa

Still have some people on your gift list?  There are lots of gift ideas that can be made from your own photographs.  Some of them can be ready to pick up at your local Walmart or Walgreens today, and some can be mailed overnight for an extra charge.  Normally, it takes a week or so to receive the gift.  You can even have it shipped directly to your recipient.  It’s all done online with your digital photos, a credit card, and a shipping address.

What can you Order?

You can order anything from simple prints of your photos, to framed or ‘floated’ wall masterpieces.  You can also order professional hard-bound books of your pictures – I love these books for special keepsake gifts.  Then there’s the fun stuff.  Photo gifts that are also useful, like mugs, tshirts, or mouse pads.  Most of the providers listed offer all of these things, but they each have their specialties.  You can check them out on their various websites before selecting one thru Picasa.  Here’s a partial list of the websites, but make sure to come back to Picasa before actually ordering!  Read on to see why.

Check out the offerings at these providers, then come back to Picasa to order:
CVS, Kodak Gallery, PhotoStamps, fotoflōt, Walmart FOTO.com, Lifepics, Snapfish, Walgreens, RITZPIX, Shutterfly, American Greetings PhotoWorks, Snaptotes

Picasa’s ‘Shop’ button makes it easy

If you use Picasa, all you have to do is select the photo, or photos you want to use and click the Shop button.  Whatever pictures you select will be uploaded with all edits applied – what you see is what you’ll get.



After you click ‘Shop’, you will see the list of providers.  More are added all the time, so be sure to look them over carefully.  Once you choose a provider, you will be asked to create an account – it’s free – they just need some identification for your photos.  Fill in your email and a desired password.  When you click OK, the photos you had previously selected will be uploaded to the provider’s servers under your account.  This takes a while because it is uploading the full-sized file.  It needs the full size to create the best print possible.

Picasa hands you off to the print provider

Once your photos are uploaded, you will find yourself on the provider’s website.  Each one will have very different procedures.  If you are ordering a coffee mug, for example, it is a simple matter of selecting the mug, and selecting the picture you want on it. That should only take a few minutes.

If you are ordering a photo book with 50 photos, this will take you some time to learn how to use their software for designing the book, placing the pictures, adding text etc.  It took me several hours before I was happy with the finished product.  I also kept changing my mind about the pictures I wanted, so I had to go back to Picasa and re-upload each time I added more!  But the finished product, with 80 pictures, is a keepsake that I am confident will be a cherished gift.  It cost me about $50, plus another $12 for expedited shipping … I’m always a little late!

When you’re done with creating your products, you will need to provide a shipping address, or select a store where your gifts can be picked up.  You will also need to provide a credit card.  That’s it!

Happy Holidays everyone!

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.

Where’d the Buttons Go?

 

Emailing Pictures thru Gmail withOUT using a gmail address

We’ve had lots of questions lately about how to email pictures from Picasa if you don’t use a @gmail.com address, so we’re going to visit this topic again.

Emailing pictures with Picasa is SO easy.

Simply select the picture or pictures you want to email and click the Email button at the bottom.  Picasa takes care of resizing and applying your edits.  It’s single-click easy …

IF … you use Gmail or Outlook as your email program.

If instead you use AOL, or Yahoo, or MSN for your email program then it’s not so easy.  I have heard people getting it to work but they’ve had to jump thru a lot of hoops to do so.  I often tell people,

“Just use Google Mail, it works great.”

But they respond,

“I don’t use my Gmail address and I don’t want my recipient to see that address, I only want them to receive mail from me at my yahoo/AOL/MSN address.”

I say,

“That’s fine.  You can configure Gmail to pretend the mail is coming from your Yahoo/AOL/MSN address.  So, you will be using the Gmail program to send your mail, but it will use your Yahoo/AOL/MSN address to do so.  It’s the best of both worlds.”

Here’s how you do it:

Create a custom ‘From’ address in Gmail

1. Step 1: Open your Gmail account and click on ‘Settings’ in the upper right corner


2. Step 2: Click on ‘Accounts and Import’ then click the button to ‘Send mail from another Address.’


3. Step 3: Follow the prompts:
   a) Fill in the form with the name you want displayed in the ‘From’ field, and the email address you want displayed.  For example, Emma Woodhouse, EmmaW@Yahoo.com  Click ‘Next Step.’
   b) Select the button for “Send thru Gmail” Click ‘Next Step.’
   c) Verify that you own that email address by clicking on the button for ‘Send Verification.’


4. Find the email that was sent to that address (EmmaW@yahoo.com) and click the link to verify it.

Set your default address

Now you have two addresses that your Gmail program can use (I have 5!) = the @gmail.com address and the @yahoo.com address.  You want to set the default to be your @yahoo.com address.  In the Gmail settings for Accounts and Import, you should see both addresses listed.  Over to the right, you should see links that look like the image below.

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

Emailing Photos



For your Yahoo/AOL/MSN … address, click the ‘Make Default’ link.

From now on, if you use the ‘Email’ button in Picasa and choose Gmail, your email will reach your recipient with the From field showing EmmaW@Yahoo.com.  They will never see your gmail address.  If they reply to the email, that reply will come to your Yahoo/AOL/MSN … inbox.

Import your Address book

If you choose to use the above technique you may miss having your Yahoo/AOL/MSN … address book as you use Gmail to send your pictures.  That is easily remedied.  On the same Accounts and Import Settings screen, click on “Import Mail and Contacts”  You will be prompted for the email address and password, then you can choose to import just the Contacts.

Voila!  You now have all the benefits of using Gmail to send pictures with Picasa and you’re not showing your Gmail address to anyone.

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 Web Albums Basics

I want to know how to set up a Picasa account. What I want to do is have pictures of various occasions on my Picasa site and be able to let specific friends be able to view and download any pictures they would like. Is all this possible?

What you want is provided by Picasa Web Albums.  You can upload groups of pictures from your computer to Web Albums.  Each album will have whatever name you give it, and each album can be shared with the whole world, or just selected friends.

Step 1 – a Google Account

You will need a Google account in order to use Picasa Web Albums.  It is your Google account that identifies your photos as yours.  If you don’t already have a Google account, the easiest way to do that is to sign up for Gmail.  Gmail is Google’s free email system.  If you have a gmail account, that is also your Google account.

Step 2 – Upload your Pictures

Picasa Web Albums is located at www.Picasaweb.google.com.  Your web albums will be located at www.Picasaweb.google.com/youraccountname

So … if you have Picasa and you have a Google account, here’s how you upload a photo to Picasa Web Albums:

• Select the photos you want to upload, you will see them in the selection tray – lower left


• Click the upload button- The very first time you’ll be prompted to set up your web albums using your Google account, thereafter just be sure you’re logged in – upper right.

• Review the name of web album or click New to , visibility of album, and upload size (medium is recommended)


• Click Upload – all photos uploaded will now have a green arrow added to their thumbnail in the Library view

Public = the world can see your pictures

You’re done.  You should be able to go to www.picasaweb.google.com/youraccountname and see these photos.  And, as long as you selected ‘Public’ in the Visibility option, anyone else in the world can also see your photos at that location.  All you have to tell them is the web address: www.picasaweb.google.com/youraccountname.

Don’t want the world to see?

While viewing the Web Album in question, click on Edit / Album Properties.  here is where you can change the option for Visibility.  If you choose ‘Anyone with the link’ that means that people cannot stumble upon your pictures and they will not show up in any kind of search.  Only people that you send the link to will be able to see them.  If you choose private, then you get to list the specific people who have access and they must log in to their google accounts to prove they are the right people before being able to view your album.

Allowing people to download your pictures

Allowing viewers to download your pictures is another setting, but it is an overall setting for *all* your Web Albums.  It cannot be set one way for album 1 and another way for album 2.  You will find the setting in the upper right corner beside your login.  Click Settings, then click Privacy and Permissions.  You will see an option for “Allow any visitor to Download my Photos.”

Collaborate

A relatively new feature in Picasa Web Albums is the ability to collaborate.  That means you can share an album with a friend or family member and give them the ability to upload photos to the same album.  This is a great way to build a family photo album, or a club photo album.  It’s very easy to set up.  All you have to do is click the Share icon above any Picasa Web Album and make sure to check the box for, “Let people I share with contribute photos.”  See more about collaboration in Picasa’s Help Articles.

Show-Me-How Tutorial Video

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.

• Get a gmail account (Free)


• Upload to Web Albums (Membership required).


• Embedding Web Album Photos Elsewhere on the Web

 

Sync’ing versus Uploading to Picasa Web Albums

This past week we had a discussion on our Geeks on Tour Members’ Forum on Picasa that I thought would be good to share with all of you:

Catherine: I am trying to understand which path I should take.  If I sync and something happens to the folder on the local computer does the album disappear from the clouds.  Am I better just to upload?

Chris’ Answer:

I think you've got the idea.  Sync'ing to web makes it Oh so easy to get a folder or an album onto the web.  But, yes, if photos get deleted on Picasa on your computer, then they will be deleted on the web.  If really don't want that then Uploading may be better.

Here's the official word from Picasa's help page of what gets sync'ed:

Once you've enabled the Sync to Web feature, you can sync the following changes from Picasa to Picasa Web Albums:

• Photo edits (Basic Fixes, Tuning, and Effects)


• Added or deleted photos


• Added captions, tags, or geotags


• Edits made in other applications that are saved to your hard drive


• The order of your photos

Catherine: So does this mean that if I take a picture from a folder I have synched and do something in Photoshop and save it back in the picture file it will change in Web Albums?

That would be cool but I am thinking that I might be safer uploading pictures…I do think of Web Albums as storage.  By the way, Picnik in Web Albums is really fun.

Chris’ continued discussion on Sync vs Upload

Yes, it is way cool how any editing done to a picture – even editing outside of Picasa, like with Photoshop – will be synchronized with your web album.

But, if you think of Picasa Web Albums as another form of storage – a kind of a backup – then I agree that uploading is a better way to go.

My standard procedure is still to upload my best pictures … ones I want to share for some reason.  And, although I don't consider that a backup because they are much smaller pictures, it is good to know that if something happened to my originals – and to my backups – at least I would still have the pictures that are in my web albums.  That wouldn't be the case for synchronized albums.

I use synchronzed web albums for special groups of photos – like our Alaska cruise.  In Picasa I have 900 pictures from that cruise in a Folder called Alaska Cruise.  Then I made an album in Picasa where I put the pictures I want to share, and I made that a synchronized album so whatever I put in that Album will automatically appear in my Picasa Web Album as well.  There are only 120 pictures in that Album.  This is great because I worked on those pictures over a matter of days – I might change my mind and decide that picture 8 was better than picture 7 - when I remove picture 7 from my local album and put picture 8 there instead, I know that the change will be automatically reflected on the Picasa Web Album.  No action, or even thought, required by me.  Same thing if I come up with a better caption for a photo – just change the caption on my local copy, and it will automatically be synchronized with the web album.

When I know I'm completely finished making any changes, I can Disable Sync – by clicking on the down arrow next to the Share button in Picasa – then my web album will be safe from anything happening to my local copy.

Bottom line – I use Sync sparingly, and only on Albums – not Folders.  I don't synchronize folders.  I use it as a way to set up and manage an online Web Album without having to go to the web.  Kind of like being a puppeteer – I'm pulling the strings with my local copy and the web album reacts accordingly.  But I can cut those strings any time I want.

Synchronize only Starred Photos

hmmm – I just noticed the option to synchronize only Starred photos – using this option, I might change my mind about not synchronizing folders!.  Synchronizing just the starred pictures in a folder sounds like a very efficient way to go.  I generally keep my pictures in folders by month – if I sync'ed just the starred photos, then it would automatically be building my Web Album throughout the month, just by starring the ones I want to share.  Then, at the end of the month, I could disable Sync.

Always learning ….
Thanks for the question!

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

Starring Pictures

 

Using a Digital Picture Frame

You’d think I see my pictures enough on my computer since I’m sitting at my computer at least 10 hours/day and I almost always have Picasa open.  I also upload pictures to my Web Album and post them to my Blog every few days as well.  We travel all the time, I LOVE pictures, I never get tired of looking at them.

With all the above ways to view my pictures, it never occurred to me to buy a digital picture frame, so I was not that excited when last year, a friend gave us a frame as a gift.



What a surprise!  We put a thousand pictures on it, set it on the dinette table, and now I often find myself glancing at the picture frame and dreaming wonderful memories.  And, they look SO good the way the slideshow is displayed!  That picture frame quickly became one of my most treasured possessions (thanks John!)

How to Transfer Photos to the Frame

For me, it was easy, most all of my good photos I have uploaded to a Web Album.  So, in Picasa, I just filtered to those pictures which had been uploaded, then I use the Export command to send the pictures to the CF Card for the Photo Frame.  If you have a Photo Frame, it may have different devices to store the photos.  Some frames can even connect to the Internet and get its photos there.



Here’s a video to show you all the details:

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.

Putting Pictures on a Digital Photo Frame



If you’re a beginner, the best way to learn is with our ‘Beginner’s Guide to Picasa’

del.icio.us Tags: Digital Photo Frame,Picasa

You can buy it as an eBook for $10 or have a printed book with DVD mailed to you for $29.95.

Emailing Photos with Picasa and Gmail

Picasa makes it very easy to email your photos.  It even takes care of resizing the pictures appropriately.  All you have to do is select the picture(s) you want to send and click the Email button.  If you use this technique you are also guaranteed that your recipient will see the picture as it looks in Picasa – with all your edits applied.

Gmail is the best way to send

You must already have an email program.  Picasa doesn’t actually perform the emailing for you – it just prepares the photos for attaching, then opens your email program.  All you have to do is address it and click Send.  Picasa can use your default email program installed on your computer – like Outlook, or Eudora, or Thunderbird.  If you don’t have an email program on your computer, you need to use Gmail.



Gmail is free and easy – and you know it will work well with Picasa since it is also part of the Google family of software.  The only objection I hear from users is that they don’t want to use a gmail address.  Everyone knows them at another address (e.g. JoeSmith@juno.com) that they’ve used for years and they don’t want to change.

You don’t need to change your email address!

Gmail has a cool feature called ‘Custom From Address.’  So, using Joe Smith’s example above, he can have a Gmail address called JoeSmith123@gmail.com.  But he can change the settings in Gmail so that all mail that is sent is From JoeSmith@juno.com.  You must of course prove to Gmail that you own the other address, and follow the  Custom From Address instructions to set it up.  Make sure to assign the ‘Default’ designation to the address that you want to be used most often.

You can set up Gmail to send and/or receive from many different email addresses.  I have my account set up to reply to messages using whatever address was used in the original email.  So if you send an email to me@xyz.com and I reply, the reply will be From me@xyz.com.  If I send a new email, it will be From whatever address I have set up as the Default.  Even though I use Gmail for all my email, you will almost never see an email from me@gmail.com.

Juno, AOL, MSN, Earthlink, Yahoo

I get a lot of questions about problems using Picasa to send email with the above accounts.  Although  I do know that people have been able to configure their Default Email to work successfully with them, it is a lot of trouble, and a subsequent upgrade to Picasa, or the email software, or your browser, can render it useless.  I say don’t bother!  Just get a free Gmail account and set it up to use your other address as the default ‘From’ address.

Use Picasa Web Albums

Of course, the best solution is not to email pictures at all but to upload them to your Picasa Web Albums instead. Then just email your friends to go look at them there

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.

Emailing Photos

Upload Photos to the Web

How Picasa Handles Edits

 

 

Get a Gmail Account (Free)

del.icio.us Tags: email pictures with Picasa

Automatically Geotag Pictures with Droid

First, just what is geotagging?  It’s attaching the lattitude and longitude coordinates to a picture, a .jpg file, so it can be placed on a map in the location where it was taken.  When a photo is geotagged, these coordinates are part of the ‘metadata’ embedded in the file itself, just like the date and time where it was taken.

Picasa displays Geotagged pictures in ‘Places’

In the screenshot of Picasa below, you can tell which pictures have been geotagged by the little red balloon icon in the lower right of the picture.  If you open up the ‘Places’ pane, you will see the markers on the map.  Click on a marker, and you’ll see the picture.



We all take for granted that the date and time of a photo is stored with the photo.  Someday (soon) we will also take for granted that the place of a photo is also automatically stored with the picture.

Manual Geotagging

In previous articles I’ve written about how you can manually geotag a photo. They’ve, made it pretty easy, but it’s still something that takes a bit of time and thought.  For me, I’m just too lazy to make the effort.  But, if it can be done automatically, now that’s a different story!  I’d love to be able to see all my travel pictures pinned to the spot on the map where they were taken.  And, now I can as long as I take the picture with my Droid cell phone.

How Droid does Geotagging

I have the Motorola Droid cellphone from Verizon.  Other devices have this capability, but Droid is what I know.  You see, in addition to being a phone, and a camera, the Droid is also a GPS receiver.  It knows exactly where it is, so it can stamp the pictures taken with that information if you turn the setting on.

You’ll find the setting on the camera app.  Touch the menu option: then ‘Settings’ and finally ‘Store Location’ and touch ‘Yes.’  From now on, when you take a picture with the Droid, it will include the location.  When you import that onto your computer and view it with Picasa, you will see the little red balloon and, if you open the Places pane, you’ll see the picture in place.  Here’s a little video:



I’ve even been known to snap a photo at a location when I’m not really taking it for the picture, I’m just taking it for the location.  I can later use that picture on the map to navigate back to the same spot.

Other methods to Auto-Geotag

The Droid isn’t the only device that will auto-geotag photos.  Other cell phone/cameras have a similar capability and you can also buy SD cards to Geotag. If you use any of these methods, please leave a comment and tell us about it.

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

 

 

DVD of Pictures that Plays on your TV

Picasa makes it nice and easy to burn pictures to a DVD with it’s Gift CD feature, but that DVD will only play its slideshow in a computer, not in a TV or standalone DVD player.  That’s because Picasa is creating a data DVD, not a video DVD.

DVD Maker is Free

If you want to be able to play it in a TV, you need to use some other software.  Windows DVD Maker comes free with Windows Vista, or Windows 7.  Just click on Start and type DVD – you should see Windows DVD Maker in the list and you can click on it.

In DVD maker, you click on Add Items.  That takes you to your file system where you can find ‘My Pictures’ and select whatever pictures you want.  All the pictures you select will be added to one slide show.  Any videos you select will become separate items on the DVD.

Prepare your Pictures First

Realize that this is using the picture files on disk, they won’t include your Picasa edits unless you saved those edits to disk.  My preferred method is to Export all the photos to a new Folder, then it’s easy to select all pictures from that folder. They also won’t be in your custom order, they will be in the order that they are on your disk.  See the article on keeping your pictures sorted.

When you have all the items added, you may want to change the disk name and/or change some of the options before clicking Next.  The question mark in the upper right is the help menu – read thru that for the complete process.

On the next screen there is an option to add music to your slideshow.

 

When you’re done customizing, just click the Burn button in the lower right.  You should use DVD-R or DVD+R.  DVD RWs work in fewer players.  You may need to research the particular requirements of your player.  See this informative website on DVDs and DVD players.

The resulting DVD should play in either a computer or a DVD player.

Other Ways to Make a DVD with Pictures from Picasa

If you use Picasa's 'Movie' feature - you will have control, in Picasa, of the slide order and the music.  The result is a .wmv file.  Then use your DVD maker to put that wmv file on a DVD. If you want to narrate your slide show as well, we highly recommend the free program from Microsoft called Photo Story 3 (Windows only).  See the Geeks on Tour Photo Story page for more information.

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

• Preparing Photos for Use in Other Programs


• Search and Temporary Albums


• Ways to Save your Edited Photos


• Keep Pictures in your Sort Order


• Make a Movie with Picasa 


• Using Photo Story


• Back up your Photo to CD

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.

 




 

Do you use Picasa Web Albums?

Most all of the articles in this Picasa Tutorials blog are about the Picasa software that runs locally on your computer and manages your photos.  If you want to share your photos with family, friends, or the world, you can upload them from your computer to Picasa Web Albums.

[poll id="2"]

Share your Pictures Using Picasa Web Albums

I think everyone who uses Picasa, should also use Picasa Web Albums.  No more printing, no more emailing.  If you’re connected to the Internet, Picasa makes it a single click to upload your selected photos to Picasa Web Albums.  Simply select the picture (or pictures) you want on your Web Album, and click the Upload button.  There is a little bit of one-time setup to establish your Google Web Album account, and there are some options with each upload.  Once you’re set up and have your options selected, each upload is really that easy … two clicks.



With your free Google account, you get 1 Gigabyte of free Picasa Web Albums space.  The number of pictures that will hold depend on the size of your uploads.  I use the middle size option (1024 pixels) and I have nearly 4,000 pictures uploaded over 3 1/2 years.  I still haven’t reached my free 1GB limit.  And, when I do, I’ll pay the $5/yr for 5 GB of space.

Don’t *Store* your Pictures on Picasa Web Albums

Some people seem to think that, just because they are using Picasa, their pictures are on the web and they can delete them from their computer.  There’s two things wrong with this thinking:

1. Pictures only go to Picasa Web Albums if you manually Upload them, or set a folder to ‘Synchronize’ to the web.  None of this happens automatically.


2. Even if you have uploaded all your photos to your Web Album, I wouldn’t trust the Web with my originals.  They should be on your computer, and backed up to Disk.
   see past article: Don’t Delete your Original Photos

Using Picasa Web Albums as a Backup?

If you use Picasa Web Albums (PWA) like I do – uploading the smaller sized picture – then it’s definitely not a good backup.  I don’t think PWA was ever designed to be a backup system for your photos, however, recent enhancements may make it possible.  You can now upload full-resolution pictures, and, with Synchronized folders – it will automatically upload all pictures in that folder.  This is going to take a *lot* more space, but for $5/5 GB – maybe that’s OK.  It looks to me like Google has future plans to convert PWA to a place where we keep our photos online … period.  With increased Internet speed, and cheap storage it becomes possible.

But, I don’t think it’s here yet.  If you should happen to lose the pictures on your computer – having them on PWA is certainly better than nothing, but I’d rather use something like Carbonitewhich is designed as an online backup system.

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.

• Upload Photos to the Web


• Embedding Web Album Photos Elsewhere on the Web


• Picasa 3.9 and Google Plus Sharing


• Backup to External Hard Drive

 

Picasa Tip: Error Emailing a Picture with Gmail

4/1/10 Note: this error has been fixed by the folks at Google.  The article is still worth a read to see how to find out what has been fixed or not, as well as how to use Web Albums to share your photos instead of emailing.

Several people this week told me they were having a problem when they tried to email a picture using Picasa’s email button and choosing ‘Gmail.’  So I tried it and, sure enough, I got the same error message:



I checked the PIcasa user forum and found that lots of people were having the same problem.  Google has acknowledged the problem.  They’ve been working on it and have now posted a notice that they’ve identified the problem and they know how to fix it.  The fix will be in the automatic Picasa updates that will be pushed out to all users starting next week (3/29/10.)  It’s always a good idea to check the Picasa ‘Known Issues’ page when you get an error so you know if it’s a problem they’re working on before you go to too much trouble trying to fix it yourself.

Meanwhile, here’s another way to share your photos.

Upload your photos to a Picasa Web Album. Once it’s there, you can view it in the Album, then click the ‘Share’ button.  You just address it like any other email, write a message and send.



Your friend who receives the email will see something like this:



They can see the thumbnail (small version) of the photo right in the email.  If they click on ‘View Photo’ that will take them to the photo on your Web Album.

I think this is a better way to share photos anyway.  What do you think?  Leave a comment.

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.

• Upload Photos to the Web


•  Google Plus Sharing


• Removing Google Plus to Use Picasa Web Album


• Photo Sort Order

 

 

Cover Slides and Collages

So you have some beautiful photos of your summer travels (after improving them with Picasa’s edit tools!) and you know how to play a slide show – even to accompany it with some music – but you need some section headings for each portion of your travels.  Like ‘Drive through Vermont’ and ‘Boston Harbor cruise’ and ‘Cathy’s Wedding.’  How do you do that with Picasa?

If you want to get fancy with artwork, gradient backgrounds, and curved text – you need something other than Picasa.  I recommend something like Powerpoint.  You create the slide in Powerpoint, then export it as a .jpg picture file and Picasa can use it like any other picture.

But, if you just want a Cover slides and some occasional titles, Picasa’s Collage and text features can fit the bill quite nicely.

I have a lot of pictures from our stays at the Thousand Trails parks around the US.  To make a cover slide for them, I’ll select several of the photos and then click on ‘Collage.’  Using the picture pile style, I’ll arrange the photos leaving plenty of space for the Title.



After creating the collage, I add text using the Text tool.  That’s a pretty nice cover slide for my slide show.



Now I want some simpler title slides for the rest of the show.  I just want a blank background, no pictures.  If you understand Picasa, you know that it *only* works with pictures.  So, we have to trick it into making a ‘picture’ with no pictures!  Once again, we start with a collage.

Select one picture in your library – any old picture – because we’re just going to get rid of it.  Then click Collage.  If you use the Picture Pile type of collage you know that you can move a picture anywhere on the slide … you can even drag it off the slide altogether!  That leaves you with a blank background.  And, you can make the background be any color you like with the Background options on the left.



When you ‘Create’ this collage – you get a blank picture that you can now add text to.  Pretty slick.  Now you can arrange your pictures and your titles all in an album for a great slide show!

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.

• Adding Text to Pictures


• Collage Tip – Framing a Picture


• Quick Collage


• Basic Edits


• Tuning


• Make a Movie


• Keeping your Slideshow in a Specified Sort Order


• Playing Slideshows with Music

If you want to add narration to your slide show we highly recommend the free program from Microsoft called Photo Story 3.  Geeks on Tour has several ‘Show-Me-How’ videos on Photo Story.

If you need to learn Picasa, the best way is with the book ‘Beginner’s Guide to Picasa 3.5’  it includes Show-Me-How videos.

Professional Prints

Today’s inkjet printers do a pretty good job of printing photos, but you’ll still get better results from a professional processor.  They’ll be printed on good photo-quality paper with a photographic process that lasts longer than ink.  You can order them from a nearby store and pick them up in an hour, or ask that they be mailed to you.  You can even ask that they be mailed to someone else – and maybe framed as a gift!

Picasa makes it so simple to order prints, and the cost is so cheap (9-10 cents per 4X6), my bet is that you spend more on ink that you will ordering prints online.

Your choice of vendors

All you do is select the photos you want printed, then click the ‘Shop’ button at the bottom of Picasa’s screen.  You will have your pick of several online photo processors.  The links below will take you to their websites so you can compare.  When you click on one of these links after clicking on ‘Shop’ in Picasa – you will need to set up an account and your photos will be uploaded to that store.

Research which vendor you want to use with these links, but use the Picasa screen when you’re ready to order:
Walmart | Lifepics | Fotoflot | Winkflash | PhotoWorks | Photogize | Zazzle | PhotoStamps | Foto.com | Shutterfly | CVS | RitzPics | Kodak Gallery | SnapFish | SnapTotes

Easy as 1-2-3

Here’s how you do it:

1. In Picasa: Select the photos you want to print and click the ‘Shop’ button
   


2. Select your vendor and click the ‘Choose’ button.  You will need to login to your account with that vendor – or create an account if this is your first time.  Your photos will begin uploading at this point.  For prints, you want the highest resolution possible, so this part can take some time.


3. You should now be on the vendor’s site and you need to make your selections, type of paper (glossy or matte) size of print, quantity etc.  You can even order the photos printed on coffee mugs, or mouse pads, or t-shirts!  When you’re done, you check out and pay with a credit card. You can also specify whether to have the pictures mailed to you, or, if there is a nearby location for the store, you can choose to pick them up.

That’s it!

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: Make a Movie

Picasa 3 has a very easy way to take a bunch of photos, add a song you like, and create a movie.  All you do is select the photos you want in the movie and click the Movie button at the bottom of the screen.  Once in the ‘Movie Maker’ you can add a song from your computer’s music library.  It will even time the playback of the photos to match the length of the song.  You can also choose among several choices for the transition between photos.  Pan and Zoom is the default transition.



Show-Me-How Videos:

• Tutorial Videos Make a Movie


• Tutorial Videos: Movie Files from your Camera


• Tutorial Videos:39.Record a Movie from your Webcam

 

This is different from Picasa’s slideshow feature in that the end result is a single file – a .wmv movie file.  Once the movie is created, you can upload it to your Picasa Web Album, or better yet, to Youtube.  It’s a single click to create movie and upload to Youtube.  You must already have a Youtube account.  The .wmv file will playback on any computer with Windows Media Player.  If you want to play it on a TV’s DVD player, you need one more step.  In Vista there is a DVDMaker that comes with Windows.  Just open that up and add your .wmv file to it – then burn DVD.  If you’re on XP, you need some other software like MyDVD from Roxio. For Macintosh, I believe iDVD will do the trick.

The movie maker capability in Picasa is very basic.  For example, if you would like one song for the first 10 slides and another song for the remaining slides – it can’t do it – one song per movie … period.  Our favorite *free* program for making fancier slide show movies is Photo Story 3. (Tutorial video: download and install Photo Story 3).  It allows for many different songs on the sound track.  It will even create the music for you and make it end at the right place.  You can also add narration.

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.

Show-Me-How Videos about photo story:

• Download and Install Photo Story 3


• Make a Quick Movie


• Adding Narration


• Adding Music

 

 

Picasa Tip: A Picasa Plug-In for Live-Writer

This is actually a Picasa tip and a Blogging tip.  Many travelers have blogs (simple, instant, websites used as journals, photo albums, or opinion pages) to share their travels with friends and family.  Two very popular (and free) blogging platforms are Blogger, and Wordpress.  I use them both.  Blogger is the easier of the two.  Microsoft Live also offers a blogging platform on Windows Live and Microsoft offers a blog-writing tool called Live Writer.  See this video on Live Writer(member tutorial video).  The beauty of Live Writer is that it works for all the popular blogging platforms, not just Windows Live.

Although I like Live Writer a lot, I haven’t been using it for my personal blog (on Blogger) because I use a lot of pictures and the pictures come from my Picasa Web Album.  I use Picasa Web Album’s ‘link to this picture’ feature, and it just seems easier to do that while working in Blogger than with Live Writer.

UNTIL …

I discovered the Picasa Web Album plug-in for Live Writer!  How cool!  Now all my Picasa Web Album photos are available to me with just a couple clicks.  I am using Live Writer for all my blog posts now.

If you use Live Writer, you’re familiar with the Insert section of the sidebar.  This contains all the basic tools for creating links, photos, and maps.  If you look at the bottom of the list, you’ll see the option to Add a plug-in.  Click on that and you can spend hours perusing all the possibilities.  The one I’m talking about is called Picasa Image Plugin.  If you don’t see it in browsing around, you can search for Picasa.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed it, you will see ‘Picasa Link…’ in your Insert bar.  Click on that, enter your username and password for your Picasa Web Album, and in a couple seconds, you should see a list of all your albums.

Select the album to work with and you’ll see all the photos.  Adding a photo to your blog is as simple as clicking on the little left arrow next to the photo you want.  The picture will be inserted exactly at the point where your cursor is in your text.

You must be online

In my previous article about Live Writer, I promoted the fact that you can create your blog entries while you are offline.  This is a big reason to use Live Writer for travelers who don’t always have a good Internet connection.  But, to use this Picasa plug-in, you must have an Internet connection to your Web Albums.  You can always use the ‘Insert Picture …’ button to get photos from your My Pictures folder on your computer.  Then Live Writer will upload them to Blogger (or whatever Blog system you’re using.)

If you don’t have a blog now, then just stow this tip away.  The point to learn is that Picasa has gained support from lots of directions.  It’s good to be popular!

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.

• Embedding Web Album Photos Elsewhere on the Web


• Upload Photos to the Web

 

 

 

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: Synchronized Web Albums

If you haven't made a Web Album yet, you really need to. It is just the best way to share photos with friends and family. Picasa Web Albumsis actually a separate program.(Member Tutorial Video.Upload Photos to the Web)

It's a website that anyone can use whether they have Picasa on their computers or not. But, if you do have Picasa on your computer, it makes it so much easier to make a Web Album. The two programs are partners, if you will. In Picasa, you just select the photos you want in a web album and click the Upload button. See this previous article for more.

A new feature in Picasa 3 is the ability to Synchronize a folder or Album on your computer with an album on the Web. What that means is that you don't even have to click the Upload button! All you have to do is add a photo to the folder or album in Picasa, and as long as you're online, Picasa will automatically upload that photo to the Web Album.

Here's how I use it. We have a membership to Thousand Trails (TT) and Resorts of Distinction (ROD), so we like to stay in those parks whenever we can. If we stay in a TT park in January, the pictures will go in my January folder, stay in an ROD in June and those go in my June folder. Then, I will add the best ones to my TT-ROD Album. This is just to have them all together for organization. You can see the web album at this link.  I have another one for State Signs.

With the Album selected in Picasa, all I have to do is to click on the 'Sync to Web' button. It will pop up a dialog box, but if you don't want to make any special settings, you can just click Yes. From now on, any picture in the album on my computer will be automatically uploaded to the one on the Web.



Not only will it upload the picture once, but, if you change the picture on your computer, it will re-upload the picture to the Web.

It truly boggles my mind how easy this is. Try it. You'll like it

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.

• Sync Photo Sort Order

 

Picasa Tip: Outdoor-Indoor Collage

When you think of a collage, most people think of a bunch of photos strewn about on a page. I want to use Picasa's background feature to make you think of other ideas. Here's a collage I did of our motorhome. Click on it for a larger version - then click your Back button to return.


Seems to me this would be great for pictures of a house for sale - as one example. So, how did I do it? First, you select the two pictures, then click on the collage button at the bottom. Choose Picture Pile as the top level setting. Under Background options, select Use Image. You can also use the tabs above the collage itself to select an image and Set As Background.


Now, you probably have the background photo also in the foreground. Just select it and click on the Remove button at the top. The remaining image looks best, I think, with a white border to set it apart. Just click on it and click the Picture border option in the middle.

You're done, Create your collage.

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.

• Quick Collage


• Collage Tip – Framing a Picture

 

Picasa Tip: Picasa Web Albums

1. Picasa is free software for managing your photos on your computer.


2. Picasa Web Albums is a free online photo-sharing website.

These two are both made by Google but they are completely separate.  People can upload photos to Picasa Web Albums even if they don't have Picasa on their computers.  And people can use Picasa to manage their photos without ever knowing about Picasa Web Albums.

BUT ...

They work together SO beautifully!

If you want to share your photos by putting them online, you have lots of choices: Flickr, PhotoBucket, Snapfish, Smugmug - to name just a few.  But, using Picasa to upload to Picasa Web Albums is by far the easiest way to do it.  You will need a Google account in order to use Picasa Web Albums.  It is your Google account that identifies your photos as yours.

Picasa Web Albums is located at www.Picasaweb.google.com.  Your web albums will be located at www.Picasaweb.google.com/youraccountname.  If you don't already have a Google account, the easiest way to do that is to sign up for Gmail.  Gmail is Google's free email system.  If you have a gmail account, that is also your Google account.

So ... if you have Picasa and you have a Google account, here's how you upload a photo to Picasa Web Albums:

1. Select the photos you want to upload


2. Click the upload button


3. Review the options: name of web album, visibility of album


4. Click Upload

You're done.  You should be able to go to www.picasaweb.google.com/youraccountname and see these photos.  And, as long as you selected 'Public' in the Visibility option, anyone else in the world can also see your photos at that location.  All you have to tell them is the web address: www.picasaweb.google.com/youraccountname.  If they can't see it, then it's probably because you left the Visibility option set to 'Unlisted.'  Unlisted is the default for that particular option.  See a previous GOT Picasa Tip on how to change the default options.

You can fix that.

While viewing the Web Album in question, click on Edit / Album Properties.  here is where you can change the option for Visibility.



 

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

• Upload Photos to the Web


• Exporting Pictures for Use in Another Program


• Embedding Web Album Photos Elsewhere on the Web


• Removing Google Plus to Use Picasa Web Albums

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: Make a Banner Collage

Question: I want a header on my blog that's like yours - multiple pictures across the screen - but Blogger only allows me to put in one photo. How do you make a photo that combines several photos into a banner like that?



Answer: Until recently you had to have special photo editing software like Photoshop, or Fireworks. But, now, you can do it quite easily with Picasa 3.

First step is to select the photos you want on your banner. When they are all collected in the selection tray, click the collage button. Make sure to select the 'Picture Pile' type of collage so you can drag the photos into just the right order. A collage is normally a standard print or paper size, but in this case we want it to be a banner, so line up your photos anywhere on the page.

Our Geeks On Tour Classroom has a free video on how to make collages.



When you finish and close your collage, you have a new picture. Next is to crop it, using the 'manual' size setting, into a banner, short and wide. And last is to Export it to the width required by Blogger, I believe that was 750. GOT Class Members can view a video on how to add a banner photo to blogger.

Here's the final banner. It's SOO easy!

.

Join ‘GOT Class’ - that’s the Geeks On Tour online classroom, and you will have instant access to over 120 tutorial videos on Picasa, Blogger, Vista, Google Earth, and more.

Picasa Tip: Web Albums default settings

When you upload photos to a Picasa Web Album, there are a few options you want to set. I always make my albums 'Public' as opposed to Unlisted and I choose Medium size so I can store more photos in my web albums.



At first, I was making these selections every time I uploaded, because the default settings were Large Size and Unlisted Album. Then, I found the place to change the default!

The term 'default', in case you're not familiar, means the automatic setting. The default is what's going to happen if you do nothing.

To set the default settings for Web Albums, click on the Tools menu and Options, then the Web Albums tab. You can change any setting you like. My personal preference is for pictures to be uploaded in the medium size, make the albums public, and add a copyright notice to every photo. Once I make the selections below, and click OK, my defaults have been changed. Now, when I'm ready to upload photos to a web album, I don't have to pay attention to the options - I know they're already set the way I want! I just click 'Upload' and then 'OK.'



If you have already uploaded a Web Album and then realize that no-one can see it because it is set to Unlisted, you can change that on the web by clicking on the Edit drop-down button at the top of the album. On that menu is an option for Album properties. Scroll down to the bottom of the properties box, and you'll see the place to select 'Public.'

Lots of new Picasa 3 tutorial videos are now online! Just go visit the Geeks On Tour Classroom ... Picasa page and you'll have your choice of

1. Picasa 3: Overview (Free)


2. Install Picasa 3 (Free)


3. First time using Picasa 3 (Members Only)


4. Folders (Members Only)


5. Orientation to the Library Screen (Free)


6. Adding Text to Photos (Members Only)


7. Tree Folder View (Members Only)


8. Move Folders to External Hard Drive (Members Only)


9. Make a movie from photos (Members Only)


10. Viewing and Sharing Video files (Members Only)


11. Individual Photo View (Free)


12. Search for pictures (Members Only)


13. Selecting Pictures (Members Only)


14. Starrred Photos (Members Only)


15. Importing from Camera (Members Only)

Plus the 25 videos on Picasa 2 are still valid for Picasa 3. Most features still work the same, the screen may look a little different, and there are more features now.

Please Join 'GOT Class' - that's the Geeks On Tour online classroom, so you can watch all the videos. A gift membership makes a great present too!.