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

 

Albums vs. Tags

Albums and Tags are both methods of identifying and grouping your photos.  Any given picture can be marked to appear in many Albums.  And, any given picture can have many tags (aka keywords.)  See last week’s article on Tags. The main difference is that Tags are bits of data that are stored with the picture itself and Albums are a creation of Picasa.  You can even see Tags while browsing your pictures in Windows My Pictures.  It works the other way too.  Tags entered using Windows will be useable in Picasa.  Tags are stored with the picture just like the date taken is stored with the picture.

Here’s how tags show up in Windows Explorer:



I love Picasa’s Album feature, but it makes me nervous.  You see, albums are a creation of Picasa alone.  They are easy to lose because the information about a picture belonging to an album is not stored with the picture.  It’s stored in a separate database file, buried in the user Profile, called a .pal file.  If something gets messed up with your Albums, you can use a backup of the .pal file to get them back.  There are lots of messages in the user forum like this message which discusses how to get albums restored.  It is not a simple matter.

Use Albums *and* Tags

Here’s how I do it.  Once I’ve created an album, I’ll select all the pictures in that album and assign a tag.  Now I have the best of both worlds, I have the album in Picasa which can be used just like a folder, but if I should delete that album, I can still find and group all the pictures by searching for the tag.

For example, let’s say I have an album for all the photos I’ve ever taken in Utah.  I use that album to play slideshows.  I will also select all the pictures in the album and apply a tag ‘Utah.’  You do that by clicking on ‘Tags’ in the lower right corner (or shortcut Ctrl-T) typing Utah, and press Enter.

When I tire of playing the Utah slideshow I might delete the Album ‘Utah’, secure in the knowledge that I could re-create it at any time just by searching for ‘Utah.’  My search results will find all the pictures tagged with Utah.  ‘Search results’ is actually a temporary album – that temporary album can now be used just like any other album.  You can play a slideshow from the temporary album.  Or, you can select all pictures in the temporary album and add them to a new, permanent album.

Unique Tags

Be aware that your search might find the word ‘Utah’ in other places besides the tags.  Search uses filenames, captions, and folder names and descriptions as well.  If you really want the tag to be used just to re-create this exact album, you’ll need a unique tag like, “utah-album.”  Also make sure there are no spaces or commas.  Although you can have multi-word tags, if there is a space – search will treat each word separately and you’ll still end up with more than you wanted.

Show Tag as Album

There is also an experimental tool that, with one click, will display a tag as an album.  It’s Tools / Experimental / Show Tag as Album.  When you use this, the album will show up on the very top of the Album list (left side of library) as a green – Picasa generated - album.

If any of you have used this ‘Show Tag as Album’ feature, please leave a comment to tell us if it worked well for you.

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.

• Searching for Pictures


• Using Tags aka Keywords


• Using Search to Create a Temporary Album


• Starring Pictures

 

 

Organize with Tags

The following tip is excerpted from the Beginner’s Guide to Picasa.

Tags are a way to add some identifying words to a photo without using the filename or the caption, and without putting them in a special folder or album.

For example, I take a lot of scenic pictures and I may sometime have a need to find the best picture of a beach or a mountain. I can use Tags for this. One given picture can have many tags, and this will make the picture searchable by any of the words used in the tags. It is recommended to use single word tags.

To add a tag to a picture, select one or more pictures and click on the Tags button in the lower right. You should see a new Pane open on the right side of your Library. You can type a new tag in the space provided at the top,and press the + button to add the tag to the selected picture(s) or you can choose one of the quick tags.



If you spend a few minutes adding tags to photos whenever you import new pictures, you will love yourself later when you can search for anything your heart desires.

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.

• Using Tags aka Keywords


• Searching for Pictures


• Using Search to Create a Temporary Album


• Add Captions to your Photos

 

 

Where did my Pictures Go?

I’ve heard many people say they don’t know where Picasa puts their pictures.  I’m here to tell you that Picasa only puts pictures where *you* tell it to.  If you don’t tell it what folder to import your pictures to, they don’t get imported.

Here is Picasa’s Import screen.



It gives you two places to specify where you want the pictures to be.

1. Import to:


2. Folder title:

Notice that, until you specify something in these boxes, you cannot import your pictures.  the ‘Import all’ and ‘Import Selected’ buttons are grayed out.  You can’t click on them.  As soon as you put something appropriate in the first 2 boxes, then the Import buttons become available.

File Drawer and File Folder

If your computer is your filing cabinet, then box #1 is the drawer, and box #2 is the folder where you want the picture stored (or #1 is folder and #2 is sub-folder).  Notice that box #1 reads ‘Pictures’.  That means, unless you change it, your pictures will be imported to the ‘Pictures’ aka ‘My Pictures’ area of your computer.  Then, you can create a folder within ‘My Pictures’ by typing something into box #2.


This means to import pictures into a *new* folder called South Carolina within My Pictures area.

Import to an Existing Folder

After you have created a folder, it will appear in the drop-down for the first box.  So the next day, when you’ve taken more pictures in South Carolina, you can just click on the ‘Import to:’ drop-down arrow and choose South Carolina from the list.





Now, you can leave the Folder title box blank and click ‘Import all’ or ‘Import Selected.’  Your pictures will be stored in Pictures\South Carolina\.

If the folder you want isn’t on the drop-down list, you can click ‘Choose.’  This will open up a dialog box where you can navigate to any folder on your computer.

Picasa is just your Tool

You can tighten a screw with your thumbnail, or you can use a coin, or you can use a swiss army knife, or you can use a Craftsman screwdriver or a Stanley screwdriver.  They are just different tools for accomplishing the same task.  Once you learn to use a screwdriver – you will probably prefer it.  But the screw doesn’t care – it gets tightened regardless what tool you use.

Picasa is just a tool – it doesn’t actually store your photos – it just helps you put them where you want.  You don’t need to use Picasa to get pictures from your camera to your computer.  You can use the software that came with your camera, you can use the software that came with your computer.  Picasa doesn’t care how the pictures get onto your computer.  As long as the pictures are in a folder that Picasa is watching (see Folder Manager) then Picasa will display them for you.

You can even completely remove Picasa from your computer if you should decide you don’t like it.  Your pictures will remain in whatever folder you put 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.

• Import from Camera


• Folder Manager


• Folders and Folder Collection


• Tree Folder Structure


• Make a New Folder


• Move Folders of Pictures to an External Drive


• Moving Folders Among Multiple Hard Drives

 

 

 

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

 

 

Have you Backed up your Pictures Lately?

I get at least one email every week from someone with a sad tale about losing their pictures.  My first question is, “When did you last back them up?”

silence …

That’s not a good sign.

Monthly Backups

My system is to burn a CD or DVD each month of all the pictures I took that month.  I buy my CD/DVDs in bulk (50 disks - $25) and they come on a spindle.  I use the empty spindles to store my backed up pictures:

Yearly Backups

Then, at the end of the year, I also burn the entire year to DVD.  That way I can put one copy – either the monthlies or the yearly, at my Mom’s house for safekeeping.



There’s just one problem with this system … you gotta remember to do it!  I just took a look at my spindle of backup disks and it ends in December … this is March!  My Bad!  In the video below, I show you exactly how I backup my January 2010 and February 2010 photos.

Continual Backups

Meanwhile, I also backup all my computer data – including pictures – on a nightly basis using Windows 7 backup utility and an External hard drive.  I also use Carbonite to backup all my files to the Internet on a continual basis (whenever they change.)

Backup vs. Archive

The monthly and yearly systems I describe above are actually ‘Archives’ because the pictures they backed up may be removed from my computer altogether.  I know that I can find a picture from August of 2004 by going to my archive of disks regardless of what computer I happen to be using and what is on it.  The ‘nightly and continual backups’ I describe above are for disaster recovery purposes, all those pictures *are* on my computer.  I’m backing them up every night just in case something should happen to my computer.

I keep 2 years worth of pictures on my computer – about 8,000 pictures, but I like having instant access to pictures from years ago.  So, I keep the rest of my pictures (about 23,000) on an external hard drive.  I have Picasa ‘watching’ that hard drive so, when I view my pictures in Picasa I see all 30,000 pictures .  But I know that only the 8,000 on my computer’s C drive are being backed up each night.  If anything should happen to my external hard drive, I always have my archive DVD disks.

Show Me How: Backup your pictures monthly with Picasa.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

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

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

• Backup to External Hard Drive


• Move Folders of Pictures to an External Drive


• Moving Folders Among Multiple Hard Drives


• Backup your Photos to CD


• Backup Monthly to Disk (CD or DVD)


• Get one Picture from a Backup

 

 

 

Find Pictures by Date

When you have thousands of photos on your computer, it’s hard to keep track of them even with the best of tools.  I’ve had some questions lately from people who have just imported their photos and they seem to have disappeared into computer La-La Land.  This happens in Picasa because there are so many options for ways to view your library of photos.  For example maybe the particular options you have set is sorting your new folder down toward the bottom and you don’t realize it.  When it doesn’t appear at the top, you think they’re lost.

Notice the Recently Updated Album

One simple solution is to take a look at the ‘Recently Updated’ Album.  This is an automatic Album that does just that – shows the pictures that were most recently updated.  Automatic albums are displayed as a green folder icon with a star.  Other automatic albums include ‘Starred Photos’ and ‘Recently Emailed Photos.’  These exists at the top of your albums collection – and they are automatically generated just for your convenience.

Use the Date Range Filter

Another way to find photos by date is to use the Date Range Filter.  That’s the slider to the right of the filter section.  It usually is placed all the way at the left end which means, “Show me all pictures no matter how old they are.’  As you drag the slider toward the right, you will be filtering your library of photos to newer and newer ones.  In the screen shot below, notice the position of the slider and the text that indicates the date range is all pictures up to 10 days old.



The problem with this filter is that you can set a beginning for your date range (e.g. 10 days ago) but the range end is always set to today.  I can’t find a way to filter for all pictures taken in September 2007 for example.

You may be saying, “But my folders are already sorted by date.”  Well, yes, but that is Folders.  What if you have a Folder called Christmas and every year, you put your Christmas day photos in there?  That Folder will be sorted according to the date of the Folder which is usually the same as the earliest picture within the folder.

View *ALL* of your Pictures in Order by Date

An advanced trick would be to get all your pictures listed in a Search Results ‘Temporary Album. How?  By searching for .jpg - *every* photo will end in .jpg! If you sort this Album by date, every individual picture will show in order by date regardless of its folder.  Now you need to scroll thru them to find the date in question – a bit of a pain, but do-able.

I have not been able to use the Search feature to look for photos by date, if anyone else has – I’d love to hear from you.

Use Windows 7

Outside of Picasa, using Windows 7, you can view the ‘Pictures Library and view by day or month.  Pretty cool, and certainly a worthy technique if you think you’ve lost some photos but you know when they were taken.  This technique arranges them by date regardless of the folder in which they’re stored.

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.

• Folders and Folder Collection


• Library View


• Using Albums for Organizing


• Using Search to Create a Temporary Album

 


Need to learn the basics?  Check out our Beginner's Guide to Picasa