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

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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.

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• 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

 

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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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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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

 

Sort Photos in Picasa Web Albums

Question from a Geeks on Tour member:
I made a web album from a recent holiday, gave pics a descriptive title. eg Florence, Petra etc. Now they are out of chronological order. I have used right click to go and request they go back to Ascending Date order, but nothing happens.

Picasa Web Albums has it’s own procedure for sorting pictures in an album.  To put a web album into date order, follow these steps:

1. Open the Web Album in question. Be sure you are logged in to your google account (you should see your gmail address on the top line of the web album.)


2. Click 'Edit' then Organize and Reorder


3. You should see an option top-middle to 'Sort photos by ...'
   click on that drop down arrow and choose date


4. Click Done (upper left)

You can also drag pictures around in this view.  When you click ‘Done’ they will stay in whatever order you left them.

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 Orde

Upload Photos to the Web

Picasa's Latest: Picnik for online Photo Editing

I had never heard of the website Picnik.com until I got the message that Google bought Picnik as part of the Picasa group.  Picnik has been around for a while as an online editing tool for photos that you upload from your computer, or that you link to on Picasa Web Albums and many other Photo Sharing Websites like Flickr, Facebook, and Photo Bucket.

Why would you want to use Picnik?

If you don’t have Picasa or any other program on your computer for cropping, color-correcting, and retouching your photos, Picnik will do it for you completely web-based.  Even if you do have Picasa, Picnik has features that Picasa lacks, like the ability to add frames and round the corners, callouts, and special clipart images called ‘stickers.’  Here’s the results from my playing for just a few minutes with one of my photos:

Is Picnik Free?

Yes and No.  A lot of the editing tools, frames, and stickers are completely free.  You can start using Picnik for free.  Then, you may discover some more advanced tools, like Curves, Levels, and Cloning, that require a Premium Account.  For $24.95/year you get all the tools, plus Priority Help Support.

What Will Google Do?

Hopefully they’ll make it faster.  Picnik is very bandwidth intensive, if you have a slow connection, you better have a lot of patience!   I expect that Google will keep maintaining the Picasa software for your computer, but they are looking to the future when nothing is on your computer!  Your pictures will go directly online from the camera to Picasa Web Albums, and you’ll do your editing with Picnik. I’m certainly not ready for this yet .. but that’s what my crystal ball sees for 5-10 years from now.

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.

• Basic Edits

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.

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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

 

 

Deleting from Picasa Web Albums

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

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

Log In to your Web Album

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

Delete an Album

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

Delete a Picture

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

Don’t Delete – Make it Private

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

Five Deadly Sins of Picasa

Have you heard the one about the lumberjack who decides to turn in his trusty old axe for a new chainsaw?  After struggling for several days with the chainsaw and not felling even one tree, he decides to return it to the store.  He tells the salesman that the chainsaw doesn’t work and he wants his axe back.  The salesman decides to see what is wrong with the chainsaw so he starts it up.  The lumberjack jumps back with surprise saying, ‘What’s that Noise?’

Picasa is easy, but it’s not foolproof.  It’s important to take some time up front to learn how it works.  There are 5 things I keep seeing people do with Picasa that are wrong.  Because they don’t have a good foundation of understanding the program, they use tools the way they *think* they work, rather than learning how they really work.  The results is a mess.

1. Using the Import tool instead of the Folder Manager.
   As you collect more and more photos, I see people putting photos on an external hard drive.  This is a wonderful idea, BUT – when they open Picasa they use the Import tool to be able to see them.  The Import tool is meant to copy pictures from an external device (usually your camera) to your computer.  Now they have the pictures twice!  Once on the External Hard Drive, and again on their computer’s built-in Hard Drive.  What they should have used is the Folder Manager.  The Folder Manager tells Picasa to watch the pictures in their original location – not copy them.


2. Create an Album – then delete the original picture
   Picasa is designed to be an efficient manager of all your pictures.  You store your pictures in Windows (or Mac) Folders with some simple, logical storage system either by event or by month.  Without changing your folders, Picasa gives you tools to view your pictures in different ways.  The Album feature is a way to create different categories of pictures regardless of the folder in which they’re stored.  (Note: This is *not* Picasa Web Albums I’m talking about here … it’s just ‘Albums’ in the Picasa software on your computer.)
   So often, I hear people say, “I copied my picture into an album, then I deleted it from the folder.”  NO!!  The picture only exists once – and that is in the folder – albums are like playlists, they just point to the picture in whatever folder it is stored.  If you delete it from the folder … IT’S GONE.


3. Moving pictures with computer tools outside of Picasa
   If you want to move pictures from your computer to an external hard drive, *don’t* do it with Windows Explorer (or Mac Finder.)  If you do, your Albums in Picasa will be destroyed.  Remember, an album is a list of pointers to pictures in their folders.  If you move a folder’s location the album pointer needs to know about the change.  PIcasa makes it very easy to move folders and, when you do it with Picasa, it will update all the album information to follow the new locations.


4. Using Export instead of Save
   When you edit a picture, Picasa doesn’t change the actual picture.  Picasa remembers all your edits and displays the picture to you accordingly, but if you look at the picture outside of Picasa you won’t see any of the edits.  To make a picture outside of Picasa that looks like the edited version, many people use the Export command.  This creates an entirely new picture … now they have two!  If they had used the Save command instead, it would have applied the edits to the one existing photo.


5. “I don’t Need Backups because I use Picasa”
   This one truly surprises me, but I hear it over and over.  People have heard that Picasa includes Picasa Web Albums and, for some reason they think that it automatically puts all your pictures on the Web Albums.  No, No, No.  Picasa is software on your computer, PIcasa Web Albums is a free online photo-sharing website that is a companion to Picasa.  First of all, even if you do upload your pictures to Picasa Web Albums, I don’t consider that a backup.  Picasa Web Albums is a method to share your pictures with friends and family.  You still want your original safe on your computer and backed up to CD/DVD or external Hard Drive. Secondly, Picasa doesn’t do anything automatically … it’s good, but it’s not magic!  Picasa includes a command to ‘Backup Pictures’ … it’s very easy … USE IT!

Standard links for Geeks

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.

 

• Folder Manager


• Import from Camera


• Folders and Folder Collection


• Move Folders of Pictures to an External Drive


• Using Albums for Organizing


• Backup to External Hard Drive


• Backup your Photos to CD


• Exporting Pictures for Use in Another Program

Although Picasa is easy to use, it is SO important to understand how it works.  A little up-front time spent learning will save you so much time in the long run.  We have lots of resources to help:

• Buy the Beginner’s Guide to Picasa


• Become a member of Geeks on Tour to watch all the videos and as questions in the forum

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: 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: Download photos from a Web Album

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

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



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

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

 

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

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



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

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

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

 

Don't Delete your Original Photos

I've had a few emails from Picasa users lately that got me worried. They said that they uploaded some photos to their web albums then deleted them off their computer.

What?!

NO! Picasa Web Albums is not a way to backup or store your photos. It is a way to share your photos with others over the Internet. If you want an online storage website, we recommend Carbonite.

Photo size, and file size, is important
When you upload photos to Picasa Web Albums, you should be using a much smaller size than your original photo. My camera is a 6.3 megapixel camera - yours may be more or less. That means a picture taken by my camera at highest resolution will have 6.3 million pixels - the little dots. Usually that's 3,072 pixels wide by 2048 high. When a photo is displayed on a computer screen (which is the whole purpose of Picasa Web Albums) an 800 by 600 pixel picture looks big.

Most computer monitors are set to 1024 pixels wide, so an 800 wide picture will take up 80% of the screen. I upload my photos at the 1024 pixel setting. This is 1/3 of the pixels in my original photo. This also means the file size is a lot smaller. I have several hundred photos online and I'm only using 60% of my alloted 1Gigabyte of free space.

Deleting your original photo because you have it uploaded to a web album is like throwing away your original Van Gogh painting because you have a copy print.

Even if you upload to Picasa Web Album at full size, it will be compressed, and the result is not as good as your original. If you ever want to print it, you'll want your original.

Who's in Control?
But, probably the main point though, is that once you've uploaded your pictures to a free website like Picasa Web Albums, things could happen to them beyond your control. I've heard of people who had Web Albums that had been tagged as violating the Terms of Service and were then deleted by Google. Even if it's a mistake, it can take a long time to clear it up. I know other websites that got hacked and the content destroyed. Admittedly, this is unlikely, but if you still had your pictures on your computer, it's a simple matter of re-uploading them.

So, what is a good procedure?
Here's what I do:

1. Transfer pictures from camera to computer. Keep them all in folders by month.
   (Members, see video: Import from Camera)


2. Upload just a sampling of the best ones to Picasa Web Albums to share with others.
   (Members, see video: Introduction to Web Albums)


3. Backup-Copy all photos for each month to a CD (or DVD if CD isn't big enough) Store CD in a safe place.
   (see free video: Backup pictures)


4. Each year I move all photos for prior year to external hard drive. This external hard drive is usually connected to my computer - so, when I'm in Picasa I have access to all years.
   (Members, see video: Move Folders to External Hard Drive)

You don't have to follow that exact procedure - just make sure you follow a procedure that allows you to work with all your pictures, share a few of them, and have a duplicate set of all your originals in case catastrophe hits.

Don't Delete your Original Photos

I've had a few emails from Picasa users lately that got me worried. They said that they uploaded some photos to their web albums then deleted them off their computer.

What?!

NO! Picasa Web Albums is not a way to backup or store your photos. It is a way to share your photos with others over the Internet. If you want an online storage website, we recommend Carbonite.

Photo size, and file size, is important
When you upload photos to Picasa Web Albums, you should be using a much smaller size than your original photo. My camera is a 6.3 megapixel camera - yours may be more or less. That means a picture taken by my camera at highest resolution will have 6.3 million pixels - the little dots. Usually that's 3,072 pixels wide by 2048 high. When a photo is displayed on a computer screen (which is the whole purpose of Picasa Web Albums) an 800 by 600 pixel picture looks big.

Most computer monitors are set to 1024 pixels wide, so an 800 wide picture will take up 80% of the screen. I upload my photos at the 1024 pixel setting. This is 1/3 of the pixels in my original photo. This also means the file size is a lot smaller. I have several hundred photos online and I'm only using 60% of my alloted 1Gigabyte of free space.

Deleting your original photo because you have it uploaded to a web album is like throwing away your original Van Gogh painting because you have a copy print.

Even if you upload to Picasa Web Album at full size, it will be compressed, and the result is not as good as your original. If you ever want to print it, you'll want your original.

Who's in Control?
But, probably the main point though, is that once you've uploaded your pictures to a free website like Picasa Web Albums, things could happen to them beyond your control. I've heard of people who had Web Albums that had been tagged as violating the Terms of Service and were then deleted by Google. Even if it's a mistake, it can take a long time to clear it up. I know other websites that got hacked and the content destroyed. Admittedly, this is unlikely, but if you still had your pictures on your computer, it's a simple matter of re-uploading them.

So, what is a good procedure?
Here's what I do:

1. Transfer pictures from camera to computer. Keep them all in folders by month.(Member Tutorial Video:Import from Camera)


2. Upload just a sampling of the best ones to Picasa Web Albums to share with others.(Member Tutorial Video:Upload Photos to the Web)


3. Backup-Copy all photos for each month to a CD (or DVD if CD isn't big enough) Store CD in a safe place.(Member Tutorial Video:Backup your Photos to CD)


4. Each year I move all photos for prior year to external hard drive. This external hard drive is usually connected to my computer - so, when I'm in Picasa I have access to all years.(Member Tutorial Video:Backup to External Hard Drive)

You don't have to follow that exact procedure - just make sure you follow a procedure that allows you to work with all your pictures, share a few of them, and have a duplicate set of all your originals in case catastrophe hits.

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.

• Move Folders of Pictures to an External Drive


• Backup Monthly to Disk (CD or DVD)

 

 

 

 

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: 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: 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!.

Picasa 3 and Video Files

Many point and shoot digital cameras today have a video mode.  If your video files are stored in a supported format, Picasa will manage them right along with your photo files.  The supported formats are: .avi, .mpg, .asf, .wmv and .mov.  If any of those files exist on your camera card when you import, they will be imported as well.  You will see them in your picasa library.  They will look just like a photo, except you will see a movie icon in the lower left corner, like the image at right.  And, when you double-click on it, it will play.

Viewing Video files in Picasa 3

You may have several video files in your library right now and not even know it!  Picasa 3 gives you an easy way to find out.  Just click the filter, 'Show Movies Only.'  You'll find the filters at the top of the Picasa window in the middle.  Movies is the 4th filter, and it looks like a little piece of movie film.  Click that once and now the only items that will be showing in your library are video files.

Uploading Video Files to Web Albums

You can select video files just like you can select photos.  When you click once on it, it appears in the 'picture tray' or 'selection area.'  Then, anything that is selected will get uploaded to your Picasa Web Album just by clicking the Upload button (in Picasa 2 this was the Web Album button.)  When your friends and family view your Picasa Web Album, they will be able to play your video as easily as as viewing your photos! 

Uploading Video Files to Youtube

Picasa 3 has added a lot of new functionality for video files, including a single-click method to upload to Youtube. When you double-click on any video file, you will see the 'Upload to Youtube' button at the left.  Click on that, make sure you are logged in to your Youtube account, fill out the information fields, and click 'Upload Video.'  Picasa 3 takes care of all the rest.  Just sit back and wait - this will take a while.  And, once it's uploaded, then Youtube still takes more time to 'process' it.  It may even take a day, but then you can go to youtube.com, log in to your account, and view the video.  You can also send a link to anyone else so they can view it too.  OR  embed it in your blog.

Related Videos at www.GeeksonTour.com*:
Create a Web Album (instructions for Picasa 2, still relavant for Picasa 3)
Creating movies from photos with Picasa 3
Managing and sharing movie files with Picasa 3
*available to members of Geeks on Tour classroom