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Digital Photography

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.

Backup your digital photos with iPhoto – Video Tip

Macintosh users take digital photos too. And they also need to make sure their photos are backed up safely. Thankfully, the bright men and women at Apple computers have built in a great picture management software called iPhoto. Within iPhoto, you will find a straight forward method of backing up your photos.

Here’s how:

1. Start iPhoto
2. Hold down the Command key on your keyboard and select which folders, albums, or events you want to backup
3. Click Share from the menus
4. Click Burn button on the menu that appears
5. Once the burn is finished, the disk will eject.

I am still partial to Picasa for picture management, but Google still hasn’t released a version for the Mac yet. However, as you can see, the iPhoto makes pretty easy work of backing up your photos.

Quick and easy photo slide show using Picasa – Video Tip

Last week, I demonstrated how to make a fantastic photo slide show using an online application. If you missed it, shame on you, but you can see it by clicking here.

In this week’s tip, I’m going to show you a slightly hidden feature of Google’s Picasa that lets you also create a quick and dirty slide show of your digital photos. Follow these steps and then watch the video below to see the steps in action and view a sample slide show:

Start Picasa and select some photos you want to make into a slide show. The more photos you choose, the longer it will take Picasa to make the movie and the larger the movie file will be. Start out with a dozen or so pictures to get the feel for it.

  1. Click Create –> Movie from the menus
  2. Choose how many seconds you want each picture to display
  3. Choose the size of movie you want…probably the mid-size or largest size.
  4. Click OK
  5. Click OK again on the next screen
  6. Wait for Picasa to complete the creation of the movie.
  7. When Picasa finishes, it will open the folder where it saved the file. Double-click the file to view the slide show.
  8. Use Microsoft’s Movie Maker (or any other movie editor) to add music to the slide show then burn it to a CD/DVD, etc.

Watch the video below to see these steps in action and a sample movie that Picasa made from some of my pictures.

Create photo slide shows online in minutes! – Video Tip

Some may say I drank the Web 2.0 cool-aid, but I say bring me another glass! This week I bring you yet another astounding piece of online technology that gives you the power to create a professional photo slide show complete with music and transitions in minutes!

I frequently get asked to make suggestions for creating a photo slide show, but I know that most programs require too much time and expertise to be useful. Enter Roxio’s Photoshow.com. This online application creates great looking photo slide shows in literally just a

Fun, private, and easy-to-use photo sharing web site

Last week, a customer of mine sent me a site called Schwup from Muvee Technologies. Muvee designed Schwup from the ground up to be site where multiple people could contribute to the same web photo album. For example, if you just returned from a weekend trip to San Diego to see the U.S. Open and play golf, you and your buddies could return home and all upload photos to the same album so each could have access to them.

There are many photo sharing options on the web, but Schwup aims to be slightly different by offering a free service that can be accessed by multiple people through an invite system, and currently offers no storage limitations.

Why print pictures at home?

We talk about this topic many times here at HelpMeRick.com, but too few people are reaping the benefits (and cost savings) of printing their digital photos via a print shop instead of at home. Printing pictures at home costs a lot of money and takes up way too much time. And unless you spring for the more expensive printers, inks, and paper, the results of home printing are sub-par at best.

Understanding exposure

Theory and Practice of Photography

Aperture:

Aperture is the setting of the iris of the camera lens. Just as your pupils in your eyes expand and contract to let in more or less light, you can do the same with your camera by setting the Aperture.

The Aperture measurement is called F-stop. The higher the F-stop number, the smaller the iris is set in your camera.

The trade-off: Each concept of photography seems to have a trade-off that prevents you from wanting to use it all the time.

Stop the Photoshop Elements Browser Popup – VIDEO TIP

Adobe Photoshop Elements has a built-in program that searches for all of the photos on your computer and catalogs them. It then displays thumbnails of all of the photos it finds so that you can get to photos faster.

This seems great, but Adobe did a pretty terrible job with the program. It is slow and way to difficult to use for a basic program. Picasa is free and it works much better.

The worst part of the Photoshop Elements browser program is that it takes over. After installing Photoshop Elements version 3 on up to the current version 5, the browser program pops up whenever you plug in a digital camera or memory card. This is very annoying since the program is slow to load and difficult to understand, especially when you aren't expecting it.

Here is a quick video tip. That demonstrates how to turn off the browser popup feature.

Using Picasa to make a CD of your favorite pictures – Video Tip

Lately I have had several people ask me how to make a CD from only certain pictures from several folders. Here is a short video explaining how it's done.

The background music came out pretty bad, but the rest of the video should run OK. (click "read more if the video isn't already showing)

Picasa Picture Manager Video Tip – Part 2

In Part 1 of our Picasa Video tip , we discussed how to use many of the editing and organizing tools available in Picasa. In this tip, you will learn about:

  • Transferring your digital camera photos to your computer with Picasa
  • Selecting photos from multiple folders
  • Creating a web album
  • Printing your photos
  • Ordering prints from your photos
  • and more!

Click the Read More option below to start the video if it has not already started, and be patient as the video loads.