How to View and Edit Photos with your iPad or iPho...

With the last major software update to iPhone and iPad, Apple added some basic yet helpful tools to touch up your photos. This short video explains how to use those tools to crop, make changes to light and color, remove red eye (if you are still using the flash), and rotate your photos. Enjoy and share!

How to take a great picture with your new iPhone o...

Throughout my week, I help many people learn about their new (and sometimes not so new) iPhones or iPads. These devices are truly every bit as remarkable as the hoopla that surrounds them. Learning how to use their built-in features well can greatly increase their utility for those who choose to buy them. Today’s, tip focuses on the camera. With just a little practice and knowing how to use the tools built-in to these...

Using Picasa to Manage Your Photos

I have been using Picasa to manage my photos for over 6 years and still haven’t found another photo management system that works so well with minimum effort. It just takes a little front end work to learn the basics of what Picasa can do for you and master a few of its basic features. After that, you can learn about and add new skills as you go. In today’s Grand Valley Computer Users Group meeting, I gave an...

Import photos using Picasa 3.5+ – Video Tip

Picasa made some nice changes last year with the upgrade to 3.0, then 3.5 and this year to 3.8 and 3.9. My favorite has to be the new streamlined import feature. Admittedly, the previous import wizard was a little clunky and took a few times to become comfortable. Not so with this newest version. To import photos using the newest version of Picasa, follow these steps: Click Import button in the upper left corner of...

Adding Photos to an iPad or iPhone using Picasa &#...

This week I worked with a gentleman ironing out how to use Picasa to add photos to his iPad. These are the notes (download PDF version here) I took for him and left with him. The only steps not shown in the notes below are how to create a folder called iPad (or iPhone) then configure that folder in iTunes to sync to your iPad or iPhone. Here’s how to do that (click the screen shot below the steps to see a larger...

How to Scan a Picture with HP Scan and Windows 7

HP continues to refine and change their scanning software…mostly for the better. However, many computer users detest change. These notes are ones I created for a long time Windows XP user who just moved to Windows 7 and needed some help with scanning. I have some previous HP Scanning notes you can read here, and these notes can be downloaded in PDF format...

How to create a photo book using Shutterfly.com &#...

Digital photography allows us to take thousands of photos, but they don’t do much good if they stay on your computer and you never get to share or enjoy them. For sharing, nothing beats printing. And I highly suggest you do NOT print your own photos at home unless you have two things: 1) an enormous amount of time, 2) it’s your love and hobby and you have take some of that time to properly learn how to print at...

5 Reasons why YOU should be moving to the cloud

I have written many articles about Web 2.0 or cloud computing. Cloud computing means that you work with programs and/or data that are not installed or saved on your computer. Instead, the programs and/or data live on an Internet connected computer (server) somewhere else in the world. Among other things, these computers/services provide: Security via the password and user name that you choose. Access to the service from any...

Outdoor Photography 101

I dug this article from our friend Adam out of the archives from 5 or 6 years ago…enjoy! Composition: Outdoor photography is traditionally considered more of a “fine art” than other types of photography. This means that an outdoor photo is evaluated more like a painting than a snapshot. Here are some rules to keep in mind for composing an outdoor photo: 1. Start with a foreground - While the background may...

Picture Resizer for Windows 7 & Vista –...

Many years ago, a long time friend of the show and web site alerted us to a Microsoft Power Toy that allowed easy and fast resizing of digital photos in Windows XP. You can read that tip and get the link for the tool here. Since Vista arrived on the scene almost 4 years ago, I have been searching for a suitable replacement since Microsoft did not update the tool for Vista. Persistence pays off, and I finally found a free open...

How to transfer photos from computer to a SD Card ...

One of my client’s today did not know how to transfer photos from her computer to a SD Card so she could utilize her digital picture frame she received at Christmas. She was amazed and relieved at how simple the steps were once I walked her through the process. This method works for transferring any type of file from your computer to an external drive like a USB flash drive, external hard drive, or a memory card like...

How to use Picasa to backup ALL your photos to an ...

One of my long time customers called me the other day with a question about not being able to backup his photos using Picasa without errors. Upon some research, I discovered that he was simply hitting the burn button to quick. To avoid repeating his problem, wait for Picasa to finish calculating the backup job before hitting the burn button. While doing this research, I also discovered how to use Picasa to backup all your...

How to locate where your photos are saved – ...

Many of us use photo management software (Picasa, Photoshop Elements, Corel, Kodak Easy Share, Canon Zoom Browser, etc) to manipulate, organize, and share our photos. Unfortunately, too many computer users think their photos exist in these programs. They don’t. Our digital photos are like any other piece of information on our computer…they exist in a folder somewhere on our hard drives. Most of these photo...

Picasa – Still the best

I get to see tons of software in my weekly travels, and that includes photo management software. Picasa, from Google, remains my favorite photo management and downloading system for Windows, Macintosh, AND Linux (Ubuntu). It offers: Great flexibility in organizing and tagging photos Easy to use download function Good integration with online photo ordering services Wonderful way to share photos via online albums, Facebook...

Picasa brings face recognition to the desktop app

Google continues to make Picasa the photo orgainzer to beat. Not only is it fast, intuitive, and clean, the feature set continues to grow. Today, Google released an update to Picasa, Picasa 3.5. They brought in the face recognition feature that was available in the online photo album version of Picasa and enhanced it for the destkop application. Have a look at this video from Google introducing the new...