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

Where did I put those Pictures?

How often have you just imported pictures, and the next time you sit down at your computer and open Picasa – you can’t find them?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just ask Picasa, “Show me those Pictures that I was just working with please.”  Guess what?  You can.

Picasa Shows you the Latest Pictures Added to your Library

It’s called ‘Recently Updated’ and it’s an automatic album.  Just look at the top of the left column, you should see it there right by the Starred Photos Album.



Whenever you add new pictures to Picasa, either by importing from your camera, or by making a new Collage, Movie, or Screen Capture, they will appear in this album.  I could have sworn that recently edited pictures showed up here to … maybe that was a previous version … but they don’t.  It would be more precise to call it ‘Recently Added’ than ‘Recently Updated’, but there ya go.

Remember, an Album is NOT a Folder

So, that’s the first step – you look at the recently Updated Album and you see your most recent pictures, but they don’t actually live there.  An Album is NOT a location on your computer, it is a feature of Picasa.  Think of Picasa as your picture secretary, the ‘Recently Updated’ folder is simply her way of answering the question, “What are the most recent pictures that we added to the Picture Library?”  The next question is most likely, “Where are these pictures located?”  The answer to this question will be an actual folder on your computer’s hard drive.

Locate Pictures on Disk, or in Picasa

In order to find out *Where* these pictures are, you right-click and choose either “Locate on Disk’ or ‘Locate in Picasa.’  Either one will show you what folder houses the picture in question.  The difference is that choosing ‘Locate on Disk’ will open a new window and use Windows Explorer (or Mac Finder, I presume, on Macintosh) to display the folder.  If you choose “Locate in Picasa” no new window will open up, you will simply be repositioned in the Picasa library so that you are viewing the home folder and the actual picture in question.



If yours just read’s ‘Locate’ rather than ‘Locate on Disk’, that means that you have edited and saved your picture.  The ‘File on Disk’ will be the edited version and the Original on Disk will be the original version that Picasa tucked away in a safe, hidden folder.

Can you Remove the Recently Updated Album?

Yes and No.  You can click on it, press the Delete key and then confirm to delete the Album.  It will disappear – all the pictures will still be located in their respective folders -  but, the album will be gone.  But, it won’t be forgotten!  The Recently Updated Album will be recreated the next time you open Picasa.  It’s an automatic album – that’s what the green color means.  Picasa thinks you should always be able to find the last bunch of pictures.  She is very diligent and will always keep track of the last 250 pictures that were added … whether you want her to or not!  So, you may as well take advantage of it and look there whenever you need to be reminded about your most recent 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.

 

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

Starring Pictures

Folders and Folder Collection

Searching for Pictures

Using Search to Create a Temporary Album

Using Albums for Organizing

 

If you’re a beginner, the best way to learn is with our ‘Beginner’s Guide to Picasa’  Only $10 for the 60 page eBook *plus* access to 2 hours of Show-Me Video linked from the eBook.

 

 

del.icio.us Tags: Picasa,find my 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.

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

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

 

 

Burning Pictures to Disc

A friend of mine, had her house severely damaged in the recent floods in Tennessee.  The house has now been cleaned and gutted and they will spend many months putting it back together.  To help the construction workers in putting shelves etc. back in her desired places, she decided to go thru all her pictures from the last few years and collect appropriate photos of each room.  She then wanted to put all those pictures onto CD to take to a printer to create a large format print to be tacked to the wall in each room.

Pictures in an Album

All the pictures were organized into a Picasa album, but how does she burn them to CD?  She couldn’t find any command to ‘Burn to CD’ or ‘Copy to Disk.’  When she tried to Export and specified the DVD drive, she got an error message, “The Destination Directory could not be Created.”

She was afraid that she had to use Windows and find all the pictures all over again, copying them to CD as she went.  She could have exported the album to another folder, then used Windows to burn that folder to CD.  But Picasa can do the entire job, if you know where to look.

Two Choices

Picasa actually makes it very easy to copy pictures to disk, but you won’t find it listed in quite the way you might expect, so a lot of people miss it.  There are two ways to copy files to disk and both are available on the main menu.

1. Backup (Tools menu, Backup Pictures)
   Just click on the desired album and then Tools, Backup Pictures.  Click ‘New Set’ and give it a name.  This will copy the original pictures *and* all Picasa edits
   


2. Gift CD (Create menu, Create a Gift CD)
   Same start – select the desired album, then choose Create, Create a Gif CD, and Picasa will burn your edited pictures to the CD or DVD in your drive.

Picasa will complete the entire job for you, burning the CD or DVD.  The only difference is that, with Backup, you’ll have your original pictures plus any edits.  To see the photos as edited, you would need to restore and work with the photos using Picasa.   Using the Gift CD method, the .jpg files on the disk will be the edited versions – just as if you Exported 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.


• Backup your Photos to CD


• Backup Monthly to Disk (CD or DVD)


• Get one Picture from a Backup


• Backup to External Hard Drive


• Exporting Pictures for Use in Another Program


• Using Albums for Organizing