Posts Tagged: Picasa

Digital Photography — No Comments
9
Feb 10

Import photos using Picasa 3.5 – Video Tip

Picasa made some nice changes last year with the upgrade to 3.0, then 3.5. 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:

  1. Click Import button in the upper left corner of Picasa
  2. Make sure the Import from box correctly identifies your device or memory card (usually does)
  3. Make sure the Exclude Duplicates box is checked (it is by default)
  4. Highlight the photos you Continue reading →
Digital Photography — 2 Comments
15
Jan 10

How to backup photos using Picasa – Video Tip

Lately, I have showed many people how easy, not to mention vital, it is to backup your digital photos. When a computer crashes, the first thing the computer user does is panic…unless they have a good backup routine.

With photos, there is no easier, safer way to backup than using Picasa. Picasa is a free photo management utility from Google that can be used on any platform; Windows, Mac, or Ubuntu/Linux. You can read more tips I have produced about Picasa by clicking here.

After  you have installed Picasa, it will scan your hard drive for all your photos. If you have many years worth, it could take up to Continue reading →

Digital Photography / Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
22
Sep 09

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 Continue reading →

Riding Shotgun with Rick / Videocasts — No Comments
9
Aug 09

Rick Answers his Email Videocast – 053

The summer has kept me busy and I let a few too many question stack up (remember that you can make a small donation when asking your question to get priority). I answered all the questions you asked the last 2 weeks in these two videos.

The first video contains questions from Doris, Henry, Andrew, Jean, John, Rae Ann, Craig, Janet, Maurice, Leo, Ryan, Shirley, Jason, Donna, Jeannie, Dave, and Scott. They asked questions about CCleaner, Picasa, recovering photos from a corrupt flash disk, netbook shopping, recovering the Mac desktop hard drive icon, shutting down the Windows magnifier and more.

The second video (YouTube only allows 10 minute videos for free accounts) has questions from Dot, Tiffany, Kitty, Anne, Barbara, Peter, Len, Anne and Romero. Their questions ranged from Continue reading →

Digital Photography — No Comments
26
Jun 09

Control Photo Size in Email Attachments with Picasa – Video Tip

For you Picasa users, this quick tip shows how to control the size of the photos that you attach and send via email using Picasa. The default settings might not be to your liking, so leanring how to contol the size of your photos can let you get the results you want.

If you aren’t using Picasa to manage your digital photos yet, I recommend reading some of my other tips here at HelpMeRick.com to get up to speed. Google bought Picasa four or five years and you can download it for free.

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Internet Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
9
Mar 09

Add photos to Facebook quickly and easily – Video Tip

I helped a retired aged computer user today who was cajoled into using Facebook by his family. His Facebook friends hammered him daily about posting some pictures to his online profile. But like many computer users, he juggled time between three different photo management programs. One of them, luckily, was Google’s Picasa and I configured Picasa to locate all his pictures.

A quick web search led me to the Picasa Uploader for Facebook. Not all Facebook applications (small add-ons) are safe, however, so I checked this one out by Continue reading →

Computer User Group / Digital Photography — No Comments
10
Feb 09

Digital Photography Basics – February 2009

DIGITAL

photo credit: Hamed Saber

Adam Cochran ran our Digital Photography Special Interest Group (DPSIG) for almost six years and all that great information he shared during that time is archived here at HelpMeRick.com. Make sure to use that information.

In today’s class we covered the basics about digital photography divided into three quick, hard hitting segments:

  1. Using the camera
  2. Transferring the images
  3. Organizing and using the images (including printing and email).

Using the Camera

  • Unless you are an expert film camera user and know all about f-stops, depth of field, focusing, ISO, light metering, etc, stick with using the Auto or the presets on your camera. For the most part, you will be extremely pleased with the results from using the Auto function.
  • The best tip Adam ever taught me about the digital cameras is how to use the camera’s auto light metering. All cameras have this function and it involved the shutter button. Your shutter button has TWO positions. If you hold the shutter part of the way down, you will see (and sometimes hear) the shutter adjusting to the light it is receiving. Keep the shutter depressed partially for a split second to get the proper light reading, then push it the rest of the way to take your picture. I promise that mastering this tip alone will dramatically improve the quality of your pictures.
  • Learn to use your camera’s flash. Typically that involves toggling the lightning bolt icon on the camera to one of at least three settings:  Automatic, forced, or off.  For the most part, you want to use your flash only in the darkest conditions or to offset a subject that is standing in front of a bright light source. Otherwise, learning the second tip will help you avoid using the flash almost entirely.
  • Hold your camera steady and don’t immediately lower it to view the photo you just took. Give it a split second to finish taking the photo before moving it. Combine this tip with tip #2 and you will see photos that you didn’t think were possible.
  • Your camera memory can hold literally hundreds of photos, you really don’t need to delete the “bad” ones. Wait until you get to your computer, download them, then weed them out. Too many mistakes can be made using the clumsy controls on a camera and the small screen.
  • Don’t install the camera’s software…you don’t need it. The alternatives work much better and are easier to use.

Here are a few good articles covering this topic right here at HelpMeRick.com:

Transferring your images to the computer

The easiest way to transfer images from your camera is to use a card reader. Most new computer users come with them pre-installed, but you can purchase a USB version for less than $20. This method saves wear and tear on your camera and saves battery life.

I recommend using Google’s Picasa to download your images, but the next easiest way is to use Windows’ built-in photo transfer wizard.

The important part of transferring your images is to know where they end up. YOU have the power to control that. Most of the time, they will end up in your My Pictures folder (XP) or Pictures folder (Vista).

Organizing and using your pictures

Again, I believe the easiest and most straight forward method is to use Picasa. The built-in tools Windows provides for emailing are pretty good with some email services as well. Third party tools like Canon’s Zoom Browser, Kodak’s Photo Gallery and others seem too clunky to me compared to polished products like Picasa. Two other photo management programs that do a good job are Adobe’s Photoshop Elements Organizer and Creative Memories.

The important factor is that you pick ONE photo organizer, learn it, master it, and move forward with it.

Once you decide on a photo organizer, use its tools to add keywords, albums, and other organization methods so you don’t end up with a giant digital shoe box (a mess). All the photo organizer programs offer good to very good printing utilities, but I think you get the most bang for your buck by transferring your photos to a service for printing or copying them to a CD and taking them to a developer.

Here are some pertinent tips for organizing and using your pictures that we have shared over the years:

Internet Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — 7 Comments
1
Dec 08

5 Reasons why YOU should be moving to the cloud

Cloud ComputingOver the past two or there years, 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. These computers provide security via the password and user name that you choose. Five reason come immediately to mind on why you should start moving your data and computing power to the cloud.

1.  Although more powerful than ever before, computers have become more unreliable than ever.

In particular, Windows computers require more expertise to keep them safe, updated, and problem free than at any time in the short history of home computers. Macintosh and Linux operating systems certainly require less technical expertise from the security standpoint, but still rely on desktop applications to create, save and edit data. Web based (cloud) applications provide plenty of power and flexibility for the vast majority of computer users while also presenting a simpler interface.

2.  You already spend 90% of your time in the cloud already. 

Non-business computer users spend the majority of their computer time emailing, surfing and researching the web and playing online games. Transitioning to web based mail and web based word processing, spreadsheets and more is easy and free with products like Zoho Office, Google Docs and ThinkFree.

3.  Digital photography is easier in the cloud…and cheaper.

Too many computer users do not know how to properly resize and attach photos to email or gauge how many photos to attach to email. You spend way too much money and time on ink cartridges and paper trying to print good quality pictures. All these problems are solved in the cloud by helping you organize your photos better, share them easier, and print them in higher quality in more formats professionally. Flickr, Picasa Albums, and albums and services from Shutterfly, Snapfish, Winkflash, and others help you do all these things much easier than any desktop application. For those who like to edit their photos, these services offer some limited editing, but Pixlr, Picnik, Fotoflexer, Snipshot, Photoshop Online, and many others provide more than enough power for almost any digital photographer.

4.  You either don’t know how or are too lazy to backup your important data.

I admit that I’m putting a lot of faith in Web 2.0 companies, but I know they will do a better and more regular job of backing up your data than you currently do. These companies have their reputations and big bank rolls on the line to take backing up your data lightly. If your data is truly important to you, learn to back it up. In the interim, your data will be much safer online than it is right now on your unprotected computer with no backup plan at all. If I’ve stirred you a little to think about backing up your current data, read my tips about online backup services that truly do make backing up your data easier and safer than learning to burn DVD’s, setup and configure backup programs and then maintain them.

5.  Using cloud computing strategies sets you free from any computer.

Since your data and applications live on the web and are accessed through a web browser, you no longer are tied to any one computer or operating system. As long as you have an Internet connection (high speed only) and a browser, you can work and play from any computer!

I keep urging you to learn about and use these services because they are coming down the pike and becoming more mainstream every day. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and other stalwarts of the desktop continue to make their own plans to finally come on board and offer more and more cloud computing options.

What do you think? Leave me a comment below to tell me about your cloud computing experiences and questions.

Photo by ewen and donabel

Riding Shotgun with Rick / Videocasts — No Comments
1
Nov 08

Rick’s Answers his email Videocast – 018

Many good questions this week ranging from Cameroon Pet Scams to using Outlook vs. Outlook Express, Picasa printing, sound card problems, and much more. Questions this are brought to you by: Don, Irv, Margie, Rosie, David, Dave, Dave, Marcel, and Tom. Take a look!

Digital Photography / Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
3
Sep 08

Google is on fire – New beta release of Picasa

How can you not get with Google? Here is a company that makes strategic acquisitions, encourages their employees to reach for the stars and challenge themselves and the status quo, and never rests on their considerable laurels.

Today, they have done it again. This time with the release of the beta version Picasa 3. PIcasa 3 offers some great new features that help you share your photos easier, organize them easier, fix some of their flaws easier, and create fun collages and movies from them easier. Look for a review coming soon. In the mean time, try it out for yourself by clicking here to learn more.

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