Picasa Tutorials

Picasa Tip: Import from Camera

Many people use the software that came with their camera to import pictures to their computers. That’s fine. Picasa doesn’t care how your pictures get onto your computer. As long as they get saved into a folder that is being watched by Picasa (like your Pictures folder), you will see them next time you open Picasa.

But you can use Picasa to do the import process as well. Then, you don’t need the software that came with the camera. As soon as you plug in the cable from your camera to your computer, or insert the camera card into a card-reader in your computer, you should see a screen pop up that looks like this image.

You may have more options. You may even have another pop-up window from your camera’s software. You can ignore, or close, any other popups and select ‘Copy pictures and view them using Picasa3′, as shown in the image at left.

Once you click on ‘Copy pictures and view them using Picasa3′, you will see the ‘Import Tray.’

Can you tell I’m writing this tip right after Valentine’s Day?! The roses Jim gave me keep getting prettier every day. I just have to get out the camera and take a few more pictures as they unfold! I even got a little creative and laid my black bathrobe on the ground to make the background go away.

Ok, anyway … this will take a minute for Picasa to see all the photos. Wait till you see the message ‘Copying 15 of 15′ – your number will be different – the point is that it has finished getting all of them. Then click on ‘Import All.’ Now you will see this screen:

If you want these photos to get saved into an existing folder, you just click the Browse button and find the existing folder. If you want to put them into a new folder, you first make sure the ‘parent’ folder is selected in the ‘Location’ field, then enter the name of the subfolder you want to create in the top line. Make your choice for what to do with the camera card after the copy, and click ‘Finish.’ I usually choose the ‘Safe Delete.’ So, every time I use Picasa to transfer photos from my camera to the computer, the end result is a clean card to put back in my camera.

So now all my photos of the roses show up in Picasa and I can crop, sharpen, make collages and add text. Wanna see the end result?

Geeks on Tour Members can watch ‘Show-Me-How’ videos on:

Importing from Camera
First Time Scan and Folder Manager (free)
Cropping and Print sizes
Picasa 3 Collage
Adding Text to Photos

Chris Guld, www.GeeksOnTour.com

Computer Education for Travelers

Related posts:

1. Picasa 3.5 Import Screen
2. Picasa Tip: Scanning Old Photos
3. Five Deadly Sins of Picasa
4. Importing and Folders
5. You have a Digital Camera … Now What?

Tags: collage, import photos, my pictures folder, picasa 3, remove photos from camera card, safe delete