How To
HOW TO: Picasa Photo Organizer and Editor.
In the first installment of my free and opensource software applications I’m going to introduce you to Picasa, which is a photo organizer and editor brought to you for absolutely nothing by the internet behemoth Google. Picasa was originally founded and created by the business-incubator/think-tank Idealab but was purchased by Google for an undisclosed amount in 2004. Why is this important? Well, it isn’t really except for the fact that had Google not purchased the company you’d probably have to pay the original price of $29 for the software but thanks to the big bank of Google it is absolutely free.
I’m sure you’ve all been there. You’ve gotten that new digital camera, take it out for a night on the town and get home to pull the shots off of the camera and upload them to myspace and bam… it’s like you and all of your friends have been possessed by the devil, red eyes galore. Or, you take your pictures and want to email them around to friends and family just to realize that they are huge in size and take forever to send via email. Or maybe the picture is too dark and you’d like to lighten it up a little bit? Well, Picasa is the program for you. It’s free, it is extremely easy to download and install and best of all it is very easy to use (preview full features).
First thing is first, you’ll need to head to the Picasa website and download the software by hitting the “Try Picasa Now” button. When prompted you can either choose to “Run” or “Save” the .EXE file, the file is only 5Mb in size and should only take a few seconds to download if you have a high speed connection. If you choose the save option then make sure you remember where it is saved at, and double-click on the file after it finishes downloading. After the download the install is pretty simple, hit “I Agree” to the License Agreement and then choose “Install,” it is as easy as that.
After the install you can choose to let Picasa scan your entire computer for pictures or you can direct it to a certain folder (such as your “My Pictures” in your My Documents) and only import those images. I recommend pointing to a specific directy, as the full system scan can pull in a bunch of junk images that you don’t want to or need to manage. Once you have the program installed you can import your pictures directly from your camera as needed.
Once installed open Picasa via the Start Menu or Desktop Shortcut. When you open the program you’ll notice that your images are organized via their folders in the menu on the left side of the screen. Editing your photos are as simple as clicking the folder and then the image of your choice. Take a minute and click around and browse the options for the folders as well as the options given in the menus across the top of the screen. You may notice that you can email and print directly from Picasa using the large buttons across the bottom of the screen.
When you choose a photogragh to work with you will be given a list of options along the left side of the image that allow you to tweak the picture. I’ve chosen a temporary file courtesy of Wikipedia that shows someone with extreme red eye. The options you have are to crop the image, straighten which is for images that may be at a slight angle, redeye which is self explanatory, I’m feeling lucky which is an overall auto-adjustment that sometimes works pretty well, auto contrast which only automatically adjusts the contrast of the image (brightness), an auto color option and then an added light slider. Click around and play with them all until you get a feel for them, it should be noted that Picasa automatically creates a backup of all images you edit so don’t worry about messing up!
The only option I’m going to cover is the Redeye option, as the others are pretty easy to figure out and rather self explanatory. Redeye is simple to use as well but can be tricky for some photographs and can take a few tries to get right. When you click Redeye all you need to do is click and drag a rectangle around the red eye you are trying to correct, you should make the rectangle as small as possible around the eye as sometimes it can discolor skin, especially for people blushing or with a pink hue skin tone. If you mess up, don’t worry simply hit the reset or cancel button and give it another shot. Once you’re happy with your changes hit the Apply button.
Below is a look at the finished product. The image looks a little strange since it is such an extreme shot but I asure you that the Redeye tool works extremely well. With that said I also encourage you to play around with the other options, the Auto Contrast and I’m Feeling Lucky options really can make a dull colored image come to life. Also take a look at some of the other options like creating albums, collages and a custom image screensaver… this is a very impressive application that can improve any photograph collection, especially considering it is absolutely free.
For information about resizing your photos for easier browsing and sharing check out the quick how to instructions from Google here. Don’t forget to check back tomorrow for more on Picasa and my guide to it’s integration with Google’s completely free Picasa Web photo sharing. No more emailing pictures, share them with everyone instanly!
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