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Dave's Garden is a great place to share photos of your garden. Everywhere you look, people are posting photos of beautiful blooms and landscapes. Along with the incredible people that come here, beautiful photos are one of the things that keep us coming back to Dave's Garden. So many of the photos posted have that "WOW" factor that leaves you with a big smile on your face. While there are some fantastic photographers here on Dave's, there are also some not quite so fantastic photographers, like myself, that just have a good photo editor.
Picasa - FREE Photo Editing and Management Software What is it and how do I get it?
If you have photos on your computer, chances are, not all of them are "perfect" photos. There are many programs available for editing photos. Whether it's resizing, cropping, straightening, changing the lighting, or any number of other adjustments, a good photo editor is one of the best programs you can have on your computer as a companion for your prized photographs. I've never used Picasa before, but I've heard of it many times over the past couple of years, and always very favorably. Let's get it and learn how to use it together. First thing we'll have to do it to find Picasa. Join along and we'll see if this program will meet our needs.
According to their home page, Picasa is a software download from our good friends at Google that helps you find, organize, edit, and share your photos. It's free, and easy to use. No credit card information is required. so it seems to me like it's secure to use.
You can click on this link Picasa to see if Picasa will do what you want to do with your gardening photos.
Here's an overview from the above link:
Organize Picasa instantly locates and organizes all the pictures on your computer.
Find the pictures you forgot you had.
Move and re-name pictures from inside Picasa.
Make an album.
Add a star rating.
Keep one picture in multiple albums.
Password-protect collections.
Edit Turn a gray sky into a picture-perfect day.
Basic Fixes are back - and better.
Amazing effects turn so-so pictures into works of art.
Write captions that stay with the picture.
Zoom. Pan. Tilt. Get the angle you intended.
Know how to use a camera in manual mode? Photography aficionados can now fine-tune their photos with Picasa's EXIF display.
Share The hardest part of sharing your pictures is choosing your favorites.
Make beautiful slide shows.
Move to any device or folder.
Prints & Products Print beautiful pictures at home with more custom sizes or order prints, gifts and books from your favorite online companies.
Backup Don't lose your digital memories. Safely back up your photos with Picasa.
Burn to CD or DVD for archive purposes.
Give gift CDs with slide shows.
Create a network backup of your pictures.
Create Enjoy your pictures in fun, creative ways - it's what photography's all about!
Turn your photos into a movie.
Make a personalized desktop picture or screensaver.
Create a poster.
Make picture collages.
Sounds to me like the best thing since Sliced Bread! I've got quite an assortment of gardening photos that need to have adjustments made to them, so I'll be the guinea pig here.
I've never used Picasa before, so writing these articles will be a learning experience for me too. I've heard so many good things about Picasa. I'm excited and I hope you are too!
The first thing we have to do is to Google Picasa. Then, click on the link that is provided to go to the Picasa Website.
Next, click on the TRY PICASA NOW button. (The program downloaded is actually called Picasa2, which must be the latest version of Picasa.)
Click to SAVE the file to your computer.
Once the program has been downloaded, open the SET UP file.
As always, Picasa wants you to sign their license agreement. Click on I agree (after reading all of the fine print there).
Once you've agreed, tell Picasa where you want their program to go. You can accept the default or else type in a new name.
When you've clicked on INSTALL, you'll see the files start to copy to your computer. Let the wizard do it's thing and these files will make Picasa work for you. When it's done, click on Next.
The files have been trasnferred now so all you have to do now is click FINISH for Picasa to be ready to be used.
Now that it's installed, it's time to see what Picasa is made of. The first thing to do is to let it do an INITIAL PICTURE SCAN. Picasa will find every single photo on your computer on all drives. If you already have a lot of photos, this may take considerable amount of time, so be patient.
I have (literally) quite a few thousand photos. Hey, I've got grand babies AND many plants! They were already organized (pretty much) on my computer, but Picasa wants to organize them so they will work within it's program. The whole process took over 2 hours to scan my entire computer. Picasa put all of my photos in directories just like I had them so they are easy for me to access. Notice that little window I've circled. That will show you which file Picasa is scanning while its is doing the initial scan.
My photos have now been scanned. There were 72,699 photos in all, which it put into 1,434 albums for me. I had absolutely no idea I had that many photos on this computer! I have scanned thousand of photos for a family ancestry project that I'm currently working on, so I shouldn't be surprised. Needless to say, it took quite a long time. Most folks don't have as many photos as I do though, so it shouldn't take nearly as long to scan your computer. While Picasa was working on scanning them all in, I was looking around at the cool features in this program. I can see all kinds of neat and useful tools already.
I could be here all day long with just what I caught a glimpse of. So we'll save that for another article. Until then, look around in there and see what you can make it do for you. Pick a photo, or group of photos and play with them. You can't hurt anything. Your photo will remain just as it is until you click on SAVE. The original files will still be there, even after you click on SAVE. Play with Picasa and familiarize yourself with it.
Don't be alarmed when that little box that I circled in the last photo pops up whenever any changes are made to your photos. That's just Picasa working for you.
My next article will be about what I've learned to do to make Picasa work for me (and by the same token, for you!) WOW are you in for a treat!
Here is a sample of a photo correction I was able to make using Picasa. This photo was taken in the evening, right after a rain storm. The lighting was terrible at the time, but I wanted to get some nice photos of the raindrops on my cannas. You can see how much prettier the corrected photo is now. So don't delete those photos that you think are terrible. You might just be able to fix them with Picasa.
All photos, including Screenshots as I was downloading Picasa, are from my own computer.
The Overview of the Picasa Program is the subtitles of the programs features as shown on the Picasa Website.
About Janet Colvin
Living in Southeast Texas, I have always enjoyed tropical plants and warm sunny weather. My gardening has become much more diverse and my plant collection has rapidly multiplied since joining the great folks at Dave's Garden. Working with my sister, we create unique copper garden art. I love to think outside of the box and can be found in the Coleus and Artisans Forum.
Posted by MartyJo (from Fayette, IA) on August 23, 2008 at 12:51 PM:
Janet, my hat's off to you for the great job you did in putting this together. Taking all those screen caps and inserting them had to be very time consuming, but I think that really helps. And it's good to get the perspective of someone learning along with you. I was introduced to Picasa a couple of years ago, and although I do use more expensive editing software, Picasa has become my go-to app for organizing and quick edits. One comment about importing your photos - you do have the option to have it import just certain folders rather than your whole computer. Which is best depends on the individual - but in my case, I have backups of all my photos on an external drive attached to my computer. So if I let it search the whole computer I end up importing everything twice - and that can get really confusing. You lose track of which folder you're in. Also, if you direct it just to My Pictures or even My Documents you won't get folders for every little icon that programs use.
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Posted by UniQueTreasures (from Beaumont, TX) on August 23, 2008 at 04:09 PM:
Thank you for your kind words Marty Jo. I noticed when I was installing the program that I did have options when it came to putting the files into Picasa to work with, but I figured I'd spend more time trying to decide which ones to choose than just letting it do the whole sheebang.
Quoted:
One comment about importing your photos - you do have the option to have it import just certain folders rather than your whole computer. Which is best depends on the individual - but in my case, I have backups of all my photos on an external drive attached to my computer. So if I let it search the whole computer I end up importing everything twice - and that can get really confusing. You lose track of which folder you're in. Also, if you direct it just to My Pictures or even My Documents you won't get folders for every little icon that programs use.
I can appreciate these statements and thank you for bringing that up. Because I work on a home network, I've not used the My Pictures folder in many years. All of my picture files are on shared folders, within named folders. One thing I did notice (after the initial scan was finished) was that I could also set certain extensions for Picasa to work with. Because certain extensions were excluded in the default, many of those program icons didn't show up when it scanned my drive.
One thing I really do appreciate about this program is that I can slide down through my many folders to see all of my photos without having to physically open and close new windows. I do a lot of moving and copying within my folders. So seeing right away what is where helps me to keep up with the photos better. That is especially good when I haven't actually NAMED the photo, but know the general vicinity of where it is.
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Subject: Still learning
Posted by drapelady (from Denham Springs, LA) on August 19, 2008 at 11:54 PM:
I just downloaded Picasa because of the beautiful collages and photos with writing on them ,etc. that I was seeing on the forums. I can't wait til your future articles. Before Picasa, I , like you, also had my photos in albums and when I would click on "my documents, my list would come up in date order or in name order, as I choose. Since I have downloaded Picasa, there is no rhyme or reason to the way they are listed. I'm sure it's a simple fix, but one I'll be glad to figure out. LOL Thanks for starting these articles so I can get my picture organized again.
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Posted by UniQueTreasures (from Beaumont, TX) on August 20, 2008 at 06:54 AM:
Debbie, I haven't figured out the order thing either. The only thing I do know is that the newest photos will be added to the end of the directory.
Oh and sometimes newly added photos take just a bit to show up. Other times they are automatically added.
I haven't found where you can add TEXT to photos yet with Picasa, but I'm still learning new things every day.
Janet
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Posted by UniQueTreasures (from Beaumont, TX) on August 20, 2008 at 06:55 AM:
Look for my article on Friday where I show what I've learned so far about Picasa.
Janet
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Posted by drapelady (from Denham Springs, LA) on August 20, 2008 at 08:05 PM:
Thankyou so much Janet. I don't have the time right now to dig in and figure out everything. Thankyou for doing it for me. If I find something special that you haven't mentioned in your future articles, I'll dmail you. I'll be sure to check out Fridays article and all the following ones. Thanks again for helping the old lady. LOL
Debbie
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Subject: My favourite too
Posted by Dinu (from Mysore, India) on August 18, 2008 at 11:25 AM:
Good that you brought to notice of probably many! Picasa is my favourite too. Ease of operation, simple steps..... and so many likeable benefits. Very convenient. I'm sure many who come across with your article will benefit from it.
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Posted by UniQueTreasures (from Beaumont, TX) on August 18, 2008 at 01:39 PM:
Hi Dinu,
Thanks for your nice comments. I like the program for it's simplicity. Other than putting text on a photo, it does most of what I need a good editor to do and with very little fuss.
Janet
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Posted by Dinu (from Mysore, India) on August 19, 2008 at 10:16 AM:
Yes, you are right Janet. For putting text on photos, I use FastStone. It's a free download with these features in a user-friendly manner. It's a resizer as well.
Dinu
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Subject: PC's only
Posted by cathy4 (from St. Louis County, MO) on August 18, 2008 at 10:16 AM:
Just an FYI for any Mac users, there isn't a version for us, but iPhoto is great, too.
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Posted by UniQueTreasures (from Beaumont, TX) on August 18, 2008 at 01:40 PM:
Thank you for bringing that up about the Macs. I've never used a Mac so I'm glad that something comparable is out there for Mac Users.
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Posted by UniQueTreasures (from Beaumont, TX) on August 18, 2008 at 01:52 PM:
The next article, telling how to use Picasa, was just accepted for approval and is scheduled to run on Friday, August 22, 2008. I hope you all will enjoy it as well.
Janet
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Posted by wannadanc (from Olympia, WA) on August 18, 2008 at 07:04 PM:
Another Macster checking in and feeling again the sting of not being a majority member. Oh well, I have done very well for many years with Photoshop Elements - so I can't see what Picasa would do for me that I can't already do. Cathy, I use iPhoto, of course, but still find that for photo improvement PE is the tool I use. Maybe I just haven't explored iPhoto enough because PE is already familiar turf. Hmmmm.
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Posted by roybird (from Santa Fe, NM) on August 18, 2008 at 08:41 PM:
Another Mac user here. I am using Image Browser that came with my camera ( Canon ) but I want to get Photoshop Elements. Thanks for your post, Wannadanc! Good article about Picasa, too. I just can't use it.
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Posted by pirl (from Southold, NY) on August 18, 2008 at 09:31 PM:
I'm looking forward to the next article on Picasa. I'd love to be able to label photos for my gardens showing where each plant is located in a certain area.
This message was edited Aug 18, 2008 9:33 PM
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Posted by UniQueTreasures (from Beaumont, TX) on August 18, 2008 at 11:49 PM:
Pirl,
Labeling is one of the things Picasa can't do. At least I haven't found that ability yet.
For labeling, I use the same program I've used for years, which also happens to be a free download. http://www.photofiltre.com Click on English and then download the "regular" photofiltre (not the studio version). The studio version is also free, but when 30 days is up, the program no longer works. The regular version continues to work and you can get all kinds of "plugins" for it too. It has most of the same features as Paint Shop Pro, without the ability to use layers. The studio version has layers, but like I said, then you don't have a program anymore.
Janet
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Posted by pirl (from Southold, NY) on August 19, 2008 at 06:41 AM:
Thank you so much, Janet.
This means I should create a file just for the photos I want to layer with labels, for a long cold winter's day (or the month of January), and I'll have a project to keep me busy.
I really do appreciate your reply.
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Posted by UniQueTreasures (from Beaumont, TX) on August 19, 2008 at 07:06 AM:
You are quite welcome Pirl.
Janet
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Posted by wannadanc (from Olympia, WA) on August 19, 2008 at 09:31 AM:
FWIW - I DID pursue the Picassa links that referenced having "something" for Macsters. They will allow you to upload pix - so it is another photo hosting site. Roybird - my first photo editing software also came w/ my digital camera - and I was so happy with it and learned SO much - it was Adobe Photo Deluxe. Eventually, though, I did purchase PE and am quite pleased with it. I don't regret all the time with that first program, however, as I really did "master" what it had to offer and that made the shift to PE a whole lot easier.
I have used any number of photo hosting sites - and Picassa is pretty user friendly. Certainly if one hasn't put any albums together on the Internet, this is a good starting point.
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Subject: Good Article
Posted by doccat5 (from Fredericksburg, VA) on August 18, 2008 at 07:31 AM:
Thanks for the great information. I have the program, but am still having some problems getting it to cooperate. Looking forward to your next article.
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Posted by nanny_56 (from Putnam County, IN) on August 18, 2008 at 11:49 AM:
I tried it too and had a hard time. I will follow your articles and see if I can get some insight to what may ahve been the problem.
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Posted by UniQueTreasures (from Beaumont, TX) on August 18, 2008 at 01:38 PM:
I hope the instructions help you to be able to take advantage of this program. I'm still learning myself all of the many features this program has. I really like it.
Picasa - FREE Photo Editing and Management Software
