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Book on Editing in Picasa

Site: Washtenaw ISD
Course: Google Docs, Doodle, Picasa
Book: Book on Editing in Picasa
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Friday, April 19, 2024, 2:10 AM

Table of contents

Edit Photos

Picasa provides a variety of fixes and effects to you improve almost any photo or to create something totally unique. Double-click a photo to find five tabs full of tools:

Basic Fixes Tuning
Make simple edits -- such as cropping, straightening, removing redeye, retouching blemishes, or adding text -- to your photos. Or click I'm Feeling Lucky to try Picasa's all-in-one lighting and contrast fix. Learn more about Basic Fixes Use the sliders to adjust the color and lighting aspects of your photo to produce a more visually enhanced image. Learn more about Tuning

Effects Picnik Effects
Choose from 12 effects to make your photos more interesting: Sharpen, convert to sepia or black and white, warm the photo, apply tint, saturate the colors, and more. Learn more about Effects Editing tools powered by the good people at Picnik. We've built two tabs worth of Picnik effects - like Vignette, Orton-ish, Cross Process, and Comic Book - directly into the Picasa software. Learn more.

Don't worry -- Picasa always preserves your original photo. The photo edits you make are only viewable in Picasa until you decide to save your changes. Even then, Picasa creates a new version of the photo with your edits applied, leaving the original totally preserved.

Editing features

Picasa provides you with the editing tools you need to fix common problems and create unique effects in your photos. Double-click the photo you'd like to edit and use the editing tabs to the left:

Basic Fixes: Make simple fixes to your photos. Fixes range from removing red-eye to cropping photos to one-click fixes for color and contrast.
Tuning: Use these advanced editing features to fix contrast and remove color cast. Adjust shadows and highlights to add some dimension to your photos or brighten up the foreground with fill light to salvage otherwise dark photos.
Effects: Choose from 12 effects, ranging from simple filters such as black and white coloring and sharpening to more advanced photographic filters.
Picnik Effects: Editing tools powered by the good people at Picnik. We've built two tabs worth of Picnik effects - like Vignette, Orton-ish, Cross Process, and Comic Book - directly into the Picasa software.

Saving Photos

Picasa is designed to keep your original photos safe when you save your photo edits. This is done by creating a new JPEG file that's a copy of the original with your edits applied. The original photo is never altered, but depending on how you save the file, its location on your hard drive may change. Here's a brief overview of the different save options in Picasa, based on how they affect the location of your original photos.

Move your original photo

When you use the Save to Disk save to disk and the File > Save options, Picasa creates a copy of your photo with all edits applied and moves the original to a subfolder called '.picasaoriginals'. This subfolder is hidden on your computer and isn't visible in Picasa. This automatic backup lets you undo or revert your saves.

Save to Disk save to disk

The Save to Disk button appears in the folder or album header when you've made edits to a photo included therein. This option is useful to save changes to all photos in a folder or album at one time.

File > Save

Alternatively, use the Save option to save changes on an individual picture (or a group of pictures that you select). To save your edited photo, you can select the photo and then select File > Save.

Keep your original photo in its current location

Unlike Save to Disk and the File > Save function, the following options don't move your original photos. These options create and save a new copy of your photo with all edits applied, leaving your original photo unmoved. The new copy with edits applied is saved to a different location depending on the option you choose.

Export

If you'd like to easily create edited copies of a large number of pictures, you can export your photos to a location of your choice. When you export your photos, you can resize your photos and control the JPEG compression level when applying photo edits.

File > Save a Copy

This option automatically exports a copy of the original photo, including all edits applied, into the same folder. The photo's filename will have '-1' appended to the end to distinguish it from the original. Select the photo, and click File > Save a Copy.

File > Save As

This option is similar to Save a Copy by creating a copy of the original photo with all edits applied, but lets you specify the filename and location of the new copy before saving the file. To access this option, select the photo, and click File > Save as.
When you save a copy, Picasa tries to match the JPEG quality level of the original photo. Picasa's default JPEG quality level is 85%, and will be applied if it's unable to determine JPEG quality. If you are saving a non-JPEG photo, it will be converted and saved as a JPEG.

Control Folders and File Types that Display

You don't need toimport photos and videos from a device to Picasa if they are already saved onyour computer. Instead, Picasa gives you two tools which let you choose exactlywhich photos and videos are displayed.
Picasa shows you the photo and video file types that you tell it to find ,in the folders that you tell it to search .

Control the folders that display Control the file types that display
Click Tools > Folder Manager to control which folders are displayed: Click Tools > Options (PC) or Picasa > Preferences (Mac) to control which file types are displayed