About Picasa
Picasa is free software that you download to your computer from Picasa.Google.com. It is available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. Examples in this blog are from the Windows version.
- Download Picasa for Windows at www.picasa.google.com
- Download Picasa for Macintosh at http://picasa.google.com/mac/
- It’s the only software you’ll need for managing your digital photos
- It’s fast and easy
- It’s Free
The Process
No matter what software you use, you need to:
- Transfer photos from camera to computer
- Delete the bad, rename or caption the keepers
- Organize the photos with folders, albums and tags
- Find and View photos on your computer
- Edit pictures; make them look better
- Prepare and Resize pictures for use in other programs
- Share via Print, Email and Websites
- Back them up!
Picasa does all of the above. It is the only software you’ll need to manage your photos on a day-to-day basis. The only thing it doesn’t do is serious editing and drawing like removing a person from a photo, or adding a bird to the sky, or drawing a logo.
It is especially good at backing up your photos and burning the CDs or DVDs to store them. You don’t need any extra disk-burning software.
Here is an overview of Picasa’s features:
Here is a sample of our ‘Show-Me-How’ tutorial videos on Picasa. This one shows you the very basics of looking at your individual pictures in Picasa. For many, many more videos go to Geeks on Tour Picasa Tutorials.
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I have had Picasa for some time but am still only stumbling around and trying to get things done. And now I have just learned that there is some kind of Picasa that I need to be a member of.
Please, isn’t there a written manual, that tells me EVERYTHING, available? And things keep changing. I thought I had the text option nailed, but just today I had to resort to entering text one line at a time. Gadzooks, bro!
I am, as you know, in Tutorials now. I suppose I could examine and print every single item……but wheeeew!
Please tell me what the score is.
Thanks a meg.
Sincerely, Rod O’Connor
I like to take landscape pics. When I print them often a small slice at either side of the pic is missing, how can I stop this from happening please?
How can I make the border equal at top, bottom and sides of pic when printing please?
That’s a function of the size of the picture and the size specified for printing. So, for example, if you make sure to crop the picture to a ratio for 4X6, then print 4X6, it should have an equal border.
Make sure to check ‘Shrink to fit’ rather than ‘Crop to Fit’ when printing. See this article: http://picasatutorials.com/2009/08/picasa-tip-printing-options-white-borders/
Rod,
We do have a printed book, and it’s available as an e-book as well. You will find it on this page: http://www.geeksontour.com/shopping/picasabook.cfm Thanks for the reminder … I need to add it to this ‘PicasaTutorials’ site as well!
I note some messages mentioning Windows 7; however, no messages regarding all the problems with Picasa 3 and Win 7 especially Win 7, X64. Is there no source for this information? I loved Picasa, but it is worthless in Win 7, x64 due to being extremely slow and hanging constantly. I’ve almost given up after having searched the web and found nothing that really works. Google, help?? where?? Thanks.
Kallie,
I use Picasa 3 on Windows 7 – 64 bit. I don’t notice any of the problems you mention. How much RAM memory do you have? I recommend minimum 4GB.
Also, if you have Quicktime on your computer, you need to upgrade it at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/player/. I know it sounds weird, but that has fixed several people’s Picasa-crashes-on-windows-7 problems.
I am using picasa but I keep getting duplicates in differant folders but its the same pic. Can this program sort and get rid of the doubles?
Does Picasa has any video edit tool that can correct for exposure, low light conditions? Similar to what it has for still digitals photos? I only came across video file trimming (clipping) tool but no other video editing features.
Vijay – Nope, in order to edit the quality of video you need real video editing software. Picasa doesn’t do it. MovieMaker will increase/decrease brightness but not much else. I use Adobe Premiere Elements. Other products include Pinnacle, Nero, and Roxio.
A simple but powerful editor is Apple Quicktime Pro for Windows. It is useful and only $30 (doesn’t want more money for constant upgrades either). You probably want to install Quicktime for playback anyway.
Help! I can ‘t figure out how to add slide shows from picassa albums to my blog. I want to upload albums and have readers click on the arrow on the first picture and then see a slide show…can this be done?
To add a slideshow to your blog you need to first upload all the photos into one web album. Then, go to that web album and click the link to Link to Album – grab the code to embed the album, then go to your blog and paste the code into your post.
Here’s a ‘Show-Me-How’ video:
http://www.geeksontour.com/showme/picasa/pica25_slideshow.cfm