Photo Fun For Everyone
This week’s question comes from Twitter user Jeannemily. Jeannemily would like to know more about “filing photos, finding them and attaching them to emails.”
Well Jeannemily, the easiest tool I have seen for managing your photos is Picasa 3. Picasa 3 is another great free tool from our friends at Google.
You can find a link to download Picasa on my website http://www.connectutech.com. Just click the Free Downloads icon on the left side of the page. This will take you to our download links page where you will find the link to download Picasa 3. Click Run when prompted and follow the simple install wizard, selecting all of the defaults.
After you have completed the installation, the program automatically launches and prompts you where you would like it to scan for pictures. I would recommend that you select “Completely scan my computer for pictures” so that it will find all the pictures on your computer. You can delete unwanted pictures out of the albums later.
On the next screen, it will ask you what type of files you would like to use the Picasa Photo Viewer to view, I recommend that for ease of use that you Select All and click Finish. Before you are even done clicking Finished, you will start to see files populate
Of all of the picture management tools on the market, Picasa 3 has the easiest interface for you to navigate, so let us take a brief tour.
The first thing you will notice is the two panes in the center of the window. In the left pane you will see folders containing pictures and in the right pane you will see thumbnails of the pictures. As you click on the folders in the left pane, you will notice the pictures scroll in the right pane.
Right click on one of the folders and you will see a menu pop-up. With this menu you can change the description of the folder, find the folder on your hard drive, remove the folder from Picasa (note this does not remote the files from your hard drive, just from Picasa), and upload to a web album for sharing with friends and family.
In the right windows, just below the folder name, you will see a series of buttons. The first button plays a slide show of all the pictures in that folder, the second button creates a photo collage, the third button generates a movie of the photos, the forth button helps you create a CD of the photos to give to someone, the fifth button allows you to filter down to only starred photos and the sixth button finds only photos with faces.
At the bottom of the window are all the tools you will need to share your photos. Once you have selected a photo, photos or an album from the above panes; you can use these tools to upload them to a web album, tag them with keywords like the person’s name or the location, email them to a friend, print them, get them printed for you, Blog them, create a movie or Geo-Tag them (upload them to Google Earth.)
There are too many features in Picasa to go over each one individually, but one of the major features that I would like to go over is ease of use. There is no need to spend hours setting up Picasa, because Picasa will help you set up the features you would like to use. For example, uploading items to a web album. The first time you select photos to upload, Picasa will prompt you for information to help you either log into your existing account or setup an account.
Picasa also has a companion product, Picasa Photos Screensaver. The Photo Screensaver can installed through Google Pack which also be found on the download links page on my website. Once you install the Photo Screensaver you have the functionality to add photos in Picasa 3 by selecting the photo, clicking create on the top menu, then selecting Add to Screensaver…
I would like to thank Jeannemily for her question this week and hope that I have answered her question. If you would like to submit a question for possible inclusion in my weekly Tech Tips article, you can Tweet them to me @ http://www.twitter.com/ConnectU. By following us on Twitter you will receive regular technical tips and updates.
Well Jeannemily, the easiest tool I have seen for managing your photos is Picasa 3. Picasa 3 is another great free tool from our friends at Google.
You can find a link to download Picasa on my website http://www.connectutech.com. Just click the Free Downloads icon on the left side of the page. This will take you to our download links page where you will find the link to download Picasa 3. Click Run when prompted and follow the simple install wizard, selecting all of the defaults.
After you have completed the installation, the program automatically launches and prompts you where you would like it to scan for pictures. I would recommend that you select “Completely scan my computer for pictures” so that it will find all the pictures on your computer. You can delete unwanted pictures out of the albums later.
On the next screen, it will ask you what type of files you would like to use the Picasa Photo Viewer to view, I recommend that for ease of use that you Select All and click Finish. Before you are even done clicking Finished, you will start to see files populate
Of all of the picture management tools on the market, Picasa 3 has the easiest interface for you to navigate, so let us take a brief tour.
The first thing you will notice is the two panes in the center of the window. In the left pane you will see folders containing pictures and in the right pane you will see thumbnails of the pictures. As you click on the folders in the left pane, you will notice the pictures scroll in the right pane.
Right click on one of the folders and you will see a menu pop-up. With this menu you can change the description of the folder, find the folder on your hard drive, remove the folder from Picasa (note this does not remote the files from your hard drive, just from Picasa), and upload to a web album for sharing with friends and family.
In the right windows, just below the folder name, you will see a series of buttons. The first button plays a slide show of all the pictures in that folder, the second button creates a photo collage, the third button generates a movie of the photos, the forth button helps you create a CD of the photos to give to someone, the fifth button allows you to filter down to only starred photos and the sixth button finds only photos with faces.
At the bottom of the window are all the tools you will need to share your photos. Once you have selected a photo, photos or an album from the above panes; you can use these tools to upload them to a web album, tag them with keywords like the person’s name or the location, email them to a friend, print them, get them printed for you, Blog them, create a movie or Geo-Tag them (upload them to Google Earth.)
There are too many features in Picasa to go over each one individually, but one of the major features that I would like to go over is ease of use. There is no need to spend hours setting up Picasa, because Picasa will help you set up the features you would like to use. For example, uploading items to a web album. The first time you select photos to upload, Picasa will prompt you for information to help you either log into your existing account or setup an account.
Picasa also has a companion product, Picasa Photos Screensaver. The Photo Screensaver can installed through Google Pack which also be found on the download links page on my website. Once you install the Photo Screensaver you have the functionality to add photos in Picasa 3 by selecting the photo, clicking create on the top menu, then selecting Add to Screensaver…
I would like to thank Jeannemily for her question this week and hope that I have answered her question. If you would like to submit a question for possible inclusion in my weekly Tech Tips article, you can Tweet them to me @ http://www.twitter.com/ConnectU. By following us on Twitter you will receive regular technical tips and updates.
posted by Eric at
6:22 AM
