No Parent Left Behind

I remember sitting in the kitchen, with my old computer waiting… and waiting…. and waiting for my pictures to upload. “There has got to be a better way than this one click at a time system!”, would repeat over and over in my head. Well, there is a better way. It’s called Picasa.

Ahh… finally a program that can find all the ga-zillions of digital image/video files on my computer and organize them faster than you can say, “Oh Jeeves…”. If you haven’t used it give it a try! Version 3 came out recently and it has more bells and whistles than a Chinese Olympic Opening Ceremony.

It is soooooo easy to use I wonder if I should even write any more. Maybe I’ll just show you the basics… (check out our step-by-step tutorials here or navigate to them via the “video” tab above.)

Here’s the steps to Image Organizational Victory:

1. Download the program (CLICK HERE) or type this in your browser address bar http://picasa.google.com/
2. Install it (click the little set up icon when the download is down).
3. Open it up!
4. Now the fun begins.
5. There are so many great tutorials on how to use this program but I decided to just give you the basics. Check out a ton of good video tutorials (not mine) YouTube. My favorite is directly from Google. It has a ton of great overviews like this one. (direct link to YouTube video).

There are so many great new features too! It even has a back up tool for you to back them up to DVD or CDROM. Just go to Tools->Backup Pictures. A couple boxes will pop up and ask you for the backup title (called the backup “set”). Give it a name or use the default. In the second box it will show you the pictures that you have not previously backed up. I clicked “select all”. Up on the top of the box it will tell you how many CDs or DVDs you will need to back up all your pictures. I needed 5 DVDs to get all my pictures. Now all you have to do is click “burn” and Volia! Pictures are back up to disk!

Another great tool is the collage feature. Simply select the the pictures that you want to make into a collage and Picasa does the rest! Up on the “settings” tab you can select what type of collage you’d like. I chose the mosaic but I like the picture pile too, very fun.

I could go on all day but the last new feature that I love is the “make movie” feature. This is perfect as a basic movie maker and lets you use an audio track, cool transitions, and lots of options for captions/titles. Go to Create->Movie and start adding the photos you want to your movie. Caption them before or during the process and you’ll be one step ahead.

Basically the program is really intuitive. It searches your computer and organizes it for you! So, start it up and start to play with it. If you have specific question drop me a comment on this post or email questions@nplb.net and I’ll be happy to answer them. I’ll also be posting a free tutorial soon so come on back and check it out.

Until then… have fun Picasa-ing!

Last Links:

• · Good picture tutorial on how to make a collage in Picasa 3
• · Picture Tutorial on how to Backup your pictures
• · Google’s tutorial site for 2.7 (hopefully updated soon to 3.x)
• · Anything that you ever wanted to know about Picasa (2.x not 3.x yet) can be found at Learning Electric, very nice site.