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

 

 

 

 

 

Posting a Screenshot in a Forum Question

If you’ve ever used a forum to ask a questions, you know that a picture is truly worth 1,000 words.  Let’s say for example that you want to ask, “What are the buttons at the top of each folder in Picasa?”  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a picture of those buttons, so your reader knows exactly what you mean?  That’s called a screen capture and there are several ways to do it, but one of the easiest is by using Picasa and Picasa Web Albums.  Here’s how:

1. Capture the whole screen.  Picasa makes this so easy!  As long as Picasa is open, all you need to do is press the PrtScn key on your keyboard.  That will capture the current screen from your computer and save it as a file in Picasa’s Screen Captures folder. (My Pictures/Picasa/ScreenCaptures)
   


2. Crop to just the part in question.  Now there is no doubt what buttons you’re talking about.  And, to the practiced eye, the screenshot also provides other information.  The different buttons available can indicate what version of Picasa you’re using, the Blue icon indicates that you’re working with an album, etc.
   


3. Upload to your Web Album: Upload this image to an album called Screenshots (or Screen Captures) and make it public.  This makes the image available to link into the forum, or maybe an email.  However you are communicating.


4. Grab the URL for the image by opening the image on your Web Album and clicking on ‘Link to this Photo’.  Make sure to check the box for ‘Image only’ – and probably change the size from 144 to something larger also - then copy the code that appears in ‘Embed image.’  That is the URL or web address for that one image.
   


5. Paste the URL code: Back in your forum, choose whatever tool is provided for inserting an image.  Most of them will accept the URL you copied in the previous step.

In the Picasa User forum, you put that URL below your message in the field for ‘images.’


In the Geeks on Tour forum you would paste that code after clicking the insert image button   - right where it reads, “Image URL”  Then click ‘Insert’

 

My bet is that you’ll receive better answers to your questions when you include a screen capture image.

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

Upload Photos to the Web

 

Picasa Releases Version 3.8

A few days ago, Picasa version 3.8 was released.  You will be getting it automatically at some point.  One day, when you open Picasa, you’ll see a message about a new version being available.  If you want to get it before that day comes, you can re-download it from Picasa’s home page.  For more detail, you can watch a previous Geeks on Tour Tutorial Video on Updating Picasa.

There are quite a few new features introduced with this release, here is Google’s official list of new features in the Release Notes:

Face Movie

If you like the Face Recognition feature of Picasa, you’re gonna *love* Face movies.  The hard work has already been done – recognizing and sorting faces.  If you have Face Albums in Picasa, it is now a single click to make a movie where all the pictures of one person are automatically shown in a slide show.  Just click on any face album, and you’ll see a new button for ‘Create Face Movie.’



All you do is click on it and wait a minute, it will take all the pictures in that Face Album and create a movie.  There are a few options, just like a regular movie.  You can add music, adjust the amount of time allotted to each picture, and change the transition type.  But, you don’t have to do anything.  Just view it, save it if you want, and upload to YouTube if you want to share it.

What’s different between a Face Movie and a regular movie?  Picasa takes each whole picture and aligns it to the face.  So, as dozens of photos of a person play one after the other, you see their smile in the same spot on the screen.  It’s really quite beautiful.  I can see this becoming standard background slideshows for all personal special events: birthdays, graduations, weddings, and funerals.   Something that would have taken a professional film producer hours, days or weeks and thousands of dollars, is now a click of your mouse!

Edit in Picnik

I’ve written about Picnik before – it is a web-based photo editing program that was acquired by Google earlier this year.  With Picsa 3.8, they have made it accessible from within Picasa on the Basic Fixes tab.



If you’ve ever wished you could do more retouching, or more fancying-up (clipart, frames etc.) Picnik is your answer.  In the images below, notice the whiter teeth on the right, and the lack of wrinkles.  That was done with Picnik.  BEWARE – this is a slow process unless you have a very high-speed Internet connection.  When you click on the button to ‘Edit in Picnik’, it first needs to upload your photo to the web, then you edit it there, then it copies it back down to your computer.

Before

After (whiten teeth, remove wrinkles, instathin)

You also need to know that some of Picnik’s features are ‘premium.’ It costs $24.95 for a year of access to the premium features.  In the sample above– whiten teeth is a free feature, remove wrinkles is premium.

Here’s another example: ‘Dodging.’  So often, I have pictures where only one part of it is too dark.  If I use Picasa’s Fill Light feature it lightens everything, but with Picnik’s Dodging feature, I can just lighten the parts that need it, like the faces in the photo below.  I don’t want to wash out the Lincoln Memorial, just lighten the faces a bit.

Before ‘Dodging’

After ‘Dodging’

Dodging is one of those ‘Premium’ features.



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.

• Updating the Picasa Software


• Basic Edits


• Retouching Photos


• People Albums: Viewing Faces or Entire Picture


• Naming Faces


• Make a Movie

Making a Banner Picture

I keep a personal blog, and I like to have a personalized top banner.  Here’s what my blog looks like today.  Notice the top banner with the title and picture at the right.  I made that using Picasa and this tip will tell you how.

Create a Collage

I used Picasa’s collage feature to make that banner.  You might not think to use the collage feature when you’re only working with one picture.  That’s why I decided to write this tip.  I started by selecting that photo of Jim and me and Odie in front of our Visited States Map.  With just that one pictures selected, I clicked the collage button.  I set the background to a solid red, and move the picture over to the right side, and create the collage.

Add the Text

Once the collage is done and I’m back at the Picasa library, I use the Text Tool to type ‘Geeks on Tour Blog.’  Using all the text formatting tools, I choose our special ‘geeky’ font (Coolvetica) and set the colors so they look good against the dark red background.  After applying that, I add another block of text for the blog description.

Crop and Export

Now I have all the elements I want in my banner, I just need to make it banner-size.  So I crop it.  And finally, I export it to a separate folder that I use for uploading to my blog.



The export feature allows me to specify a size.  The instructions for Blogger header images tell me to make it 910 pixels, so that’s what I specify:



There’s a lot you can do with Picasa’s collage feature … get creative!

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

Adding Text to Pictures

Crop Size Options

Basic Edits

Exporting Pictures for Use in Another Program

Resizing Pictures to Width and Height

 

 

 

 

del.icio.us Tags: Picasa Collage

Finding Pictures with Two People

Some people adore the Face Recognition feature in Picasa – just ask anyone researching their family genealogy!  Some people find it a nuisance.  I fall somewhere in the middle.  But, I have found a really good use for it myself and I want to pass that along.

Have you ever needed to find a photo of you and your spouse together?  I recently did.  How long do you think it took me to go thru my 25,000 pictures and find the best one that has both me and Jim in it?  1 hour?  2 hours?

How about 2 seconds!.  Here’s how I did it:

1. Click on the People album for Jim (that one click narrowed it down to 347 pictures selected)


2. Click on the People button in the lower right corner – that opens up the People pane and you will see all the other faces that appear in the selected pictures.


3. In the people pane, click on a picture of me.

Now I’m looking at 62 pictures where both Jim and I are in the photo.  It’s a pretty easy task to find the best one now.



Oh yeah … I like this picture from our travels last summer.  Recognize the famous house in the background?  That’s Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright.

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


• Searching for Pictures


• People Albums: Viewing Faces or Entire Picture


• Add Captions to your Photos


• Geotagging

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

 

Framing a Picture

Picasa’s collage tool can allow you to be very creative.  One thing it can do is to frame your picture.  If you just want a single color frame, you can

1. choose one picture,


2. click Collage,


3. choose the ‘Picture Pile’ style of collage


4. Set the background color – this will be your ‘frame’


5. Arrange and size the picture for the best fit


6. Create Collage


7. Now you can crop it if you need to even off the frame

If you want to have a double frame – two different colored borders framing your picture – you need to get even more creative.  I use the technique in a recent tip about Cover Slides and Collages to create the second frame.  The video below shows you how I do it.  If this video is a bit advanced for you, here are other videos that show you how to do everything involved:

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

• Basic Edits


• Crop Size Options


• Adding Text to Pictures


• Quick Collage


• Collage Tip – Framing a Picture


• Printing Photos

 

If you’re not a Geeks on Tour member, you can join now.  Or, better yet – buy the ‘Beginner’s Guide to Picasa 3.5’ complete with a DVD of all the basic videos.

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 3.5: How to Turn Off Face Recognition

Picasa came out with a new version last week … version 3.5.  The biggest new feature is face recognition and name tags.  Picasa will scan through all your photos, mark the ones with faces, and put them in a group called ‘unnamed people.’  Then, you can look at those people and give them names.  After you have given a few pictures names, Picasa will try to match the other unnamed people to the ones you have identified. ·  (Tutorial Videos:Naming Faces)

This is all way cool, but it also is a bit time consuming.  If you have thousands of photos, it could take 24 hours or even more for Picasa to go through the first scan.  You may want to turn it off temporarily so that you can work on other things in Picasa without being interrupted.  Or you may not be interested in the face recognition feature at all.

To turn it off:

1. Tools / Options


2. Uncheck ‘Enable Face Detection’

When you’re ready to let it resume working on face detection, you can go back and check the box again.

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

• People Albums: Viewing Faces or Entire Picture


• Naming Faces

 

Picasa 3.5 released

Yesterday afternoon, Google announced that they had released a new version of Picasa – version 3.5.  Probably the biggest new feature is that Face recognition (that has been part of Picasa Web Albums for a while) is now part of Picasa on your computer.

But, more than Faces, I’m excited about Places.  Geotagging has been greatly improved in this version, instead of requiring that you use Google Earth, they have embedded a full Google Maps ‘Places’ pane right into Picasa.  Placing a photo at a place on the map is as simple as clicking on the photo and clicking at the place on the map.  I show you how to do this in the video below. (Tutorial Videos:Geotagging)

Geotagging Video:

Other welcome new features include the ability to edit captions – you can now insert, delete, copy and paste – whereas, in earlier versions, all you could do is type and backspace. (Tutorial Videos: Add Captions to your Photos)

For some people the new ability to change the date on a photo will be a godsend.  Didn’t notice that your camera had the wrong date on it?  No problem, just select the affected photos and click Tools, Adjust Date and Time!

You will see a big change in the import feature. ( Tutorial Videos:Import from Camera ) They’ve put all the options on one screen rather than making you click ‘Next’ – and they’ve added the ability to upload to your web albums at the same time you import to your computer.  I’m not sure I like all the changes here – my advice is to be careful.  Don’t just click ‘OK’ – make sure to read the screen and understand all the options.

One very exciting thing to me is that Picasa now recognizes the 3g2 format of video that my cell phone takes.

Over the next few weeks, Picasa will be prompting you to download the upgrade.  If you want it now – and I don’t see any reason why not – you can manually download it at Picasa.Google.com

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


• Import Pictures from an Android Smartphone

 

Picasa Tip: Fill-in Preprinted Forms

One of our Geeks on Tour members recently posted a question in our forum about scanning a preprinted form.  A past Picasa tip explains how you can scan things just using your scanner and Picasa - no scanner software to learn.  This member needed to scan a preprinted form and she was disappointed that she couldn't bring it into Word and fill in the blanks.

I started explaining to her that you can't scan a form and then fill it in unless you were using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software and that would be a lot more work.  She would either have to handwrite in the blanks, or find an old typewriter somewhere.

Then I got to thinking ... 'If it was just one fill in the blank, I'd try doing it with Picasa's text tool!' (Member Tutorial Video: Adding Text to Pictures)

So, for the fun of it, I scanned a form I had from a doctor's office and tried using Picasa to fill out the first blank.  Here's the blank form after scanning it and viewing with Picasa:



It was pretty easy to use the text tool, size and position today's date to fill in the first blank.  I assumed that you could only use Picasa's text tool once per picture.  I was ecstatically wrong!

Just click apply after filling in each blank and you can then click the text tool and start over for the next blank.

OMG that was soo easy!

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: Photos as Wallpaper

Did you know you can take any photo that you see with Picasa and set your desktop background (wallpaper) to that photo?

You know what I'm talking about, right?  The 'wallpaper' or 'desktop background' is what you see when you first start your computer.  In Vista a normal desktop looks like this:



Let's say you have a photo of a flamingo that you'd like to see every time you started your computer - so much more meaningful than what comes with your computer:



Picasa does everything you need.  All you do is view the photo you want, click the Create menu and then Set as Desktop ...

Check it out.  It's done!

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.