Photo Editing With Google Picasa

Start by downloading Picasa from picasa.google.com. Once you've downloaded the program, open and install it.

Tip! It's a good idea to save the program to your desktop - this makes it easier to find for installing.

When you first start up Picasa, it gives the option of sorting your photos. Allow Picasa to do this - it makes it easy to navigate through your collection of pictures. When it's finished, the first screen you see will look like Fig.01.

Fig.01

Navigating your photos couldn't be simpler. See Fig.01 - folders containing pictures are listed on the left and thumbnails of your photos are on the right. You can scroll through the thumbnails, or click on a folder to display all the pictures in that folder. To select a photo for editing simply double click a thumbnail and you will see this screen: (Fig.02)

Fig.02

On the right is your selected photo and on the left are some editing buttons. Don't be frightened to press any of these buttons to see what affect they have - just below is the option to "Undo" what you have done while experimenting. If you decide you like any editing you have done, save your work and Picasa will make a back up copy of the original photo. Notice the buttons under the photo, this is the area we will be looking at first.

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Fig.03

The simplest way to rotate your photo is to click the Rotate Left or Rotate Right buttons below the main picture in the area circled in red (Fig.03). Another way is to use the short cut keys - press Ctrl+R for clockwise or Ctrl+Shift+R for counter clockwise.

You can also rotate your picture from thumbnail view (Library view) - click your photo once to select it and press the rotate button. If you look to the left of the main picture, there is a button in the top left corner (just below "File", "Edit") marked "Back to Library" - this button will return you to thumbnail view.

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The only way to flip an image with Picasa is using the shortcut keys. To flip/mirror your image horizontally press Ctrl+Shift+H and to flip it vertically press Ctrl+Shift+V. At the bottom of this tutorial is a list of all the shortcut keys - these are useful to know as you get more proficient.

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Red-eye removal with Picasa is a breeze. From the picture editing screen view click the "Redeye" button on the left hand side, and select the area around the eye by left clicking and dragging the mouse (see Fig.04)

Fig.04

When you release the mouse button, Picasa will remove the red-eye. Repeat the process for the other eye and click "Apply" on the left to save your work.

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The "Crop" tool is located on the left of the picture editing screen. You can crop your photo to a preset size (6x4in, 10x8in etc). The preset sizes are useful for printing, and slotting your picture into a standard photo frame. If you prefer, you can manually crop the picture and decide for yourself how you want it to look (Fig.05).

Fig.05

To select the area to crop, just left click and drag the mouse cursor from the top left to bottom right of the area you want to keep. The shaded area is the bit that will be cropped.

Don't worry about being too precise at first as you can move your mouse to any edge and by left clicking and dragging it, you can widen or narrow your selection. When you are happy with your selection, click the "Apply" button and the cropping will be complete.

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Resizing is particularly useful for uploading images to the internet - you don't need 5 megabyte poster size pictures for viewing on a monitor. The advantages of reducing the size of your picture is to reduce upload times with little visible loss of quality to your picture. Resizing your photo with Picasa creates an "Export" file and does not touch your original (you can save that for high quality printing).

Look at the buttons below the picture (Fig.06) - click on the the far right button labelled "Export".

Fig.06

You will now see the Export box pop up (Fig.06). Picasa offers plenty of flexibility - you can resize your picture by simply clicking and dragging the slider, or you can enter your own pixel size. When you enter your own pixel size in the box left to the slider, Picasa reduces the photo size by reducing the longest edge of the picture, and reduces the other edge by the same ratio. I would recommend entering a maximum of 800 pixels.

Directly under the slider, is the "Image quality" drop down menu. If you are uploading to the internet keep this box at "Normal" quality, this will give a good balance between quality and size. When you have done click "OK", your picture will be saved in the export folder.

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Shortcuts for Selecting Photos

• Ctrl-A: Select all photos in album
• Ctrl-D: De-select photos
• Ctrl-I: Invert photo selection
• Home: Select the first photo in your album
• End: Select the last photo in your album
• Ctrl-H: Hold selected photos in Photo Tray
• Ctrl-Enter: Locate the photo file on your computer
• Ctrl-O: Open a file on your computer

Shortcuts for Viewing Photos

• Ctrl-1: View your photos as small thumbnails
• Ctrl-2: View your photos as large thumbnails
• F11: Use Picasa in full-screen mode
• Ctrl-4: Start a slideshow
• Ctrl-5: View your timeline

Shortcuts for Editing Photos

• Ctrl-3: Open an image in "Edit Mode"
• Ctrl-R: Rotate the image clockwise
• Ctrl-Shift-R: Rotate the image counter-clockwise
• Ctrl-Shift-H: Flip image horizontally
• Ctrl-Shift-V: Flip image vertically
• Ctrl-Shift-B: Add black and white effect

Miscellaneous Shortcuts

• Ctrl-E: Email selected photos
• Ctrl-P: Print selected images
• Ctrl-Shift-P: Print album contact sheet
• Ctrl-F: Search
• Ctrl-K: Add keywords to your photos
• Ctrl-N: Create a new album
• F1: View help content
• X: Exclude a photo in import mode

Shortcuts for Watching Videos

• / [slash]: Pause or play video
• , [comma]: Rewind video
• . [period]: Fast forward video

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