Mike DelGaudio

This is exciting news for me, as I am working on my next book project. Blurb now offers new book sizes. Here is the email they just sent me:

# New book sizes - By very popular demand we now offer two new distinct sizes: a large format landscape 13×11 book (starting at $54.95 and available in hardcover with dust jacket only) and a square 7×7 book (starting at $12.95 and available in both hardcover and softcover). The large format landscape 13×11 book is a true “coffee-table” book ideal for photographers, while the “highly holdable” quality of the square 7×7 makes it ideal for graphic artists, poets, marketers, and gift-givers who want a smaller, less expensive book.

# Blog Slurper updates - We’ve added Blogger and LiveJournal to the blogs we already support (WordPress.com and TypePad). Automatically slurp your blog content – text and pictures – into a professionally designed book template, and produce a draft book in minutes.

# iPhoto integration - Mac users: No need to import your photos from iPhoto anymore. iPhoto photo libraries, albums, rolls, and individual images now automatically show up in BookSmart.

# New text features - Support for vertical line spacing and smart quotes gives you more text control.

[tags]blurb[/tags]

If you click the folder icon next to the folder name in the library view in Picasa, it will open up that folder in explorer.

[tags]Picasa[/tags]

You can rotate images in Picasa as a batch from the Library view. Simply select all the images that need to be rotated in the SAME DIRECTION and Click CTRL+R to rotate clockwise, or CTRL+SHIFT+R to rotate counterclockwise.

Remember, that Picasa only rotates the images within it’s own view. If you want to use the rotated photo outside Picasa, you’ll need to Save the image after you rotate it. Picasa will make a backup of the original photo.

Here are some helpful key combinations to switch between different views in Picasa.

• CTRL+SHIFT+1 : Takes you to the photo library, with small thumbnail images.
• CTRL+SHIFT+2 : Takes you to the photo library, with larger thumbnail images.
• CTRL+SHIFT+3 : Takes you to the photo detail page for the selected photo.
• CTRL+SHIFT+4 : Takes you to the slideshow starting at the selected photo.
• CTRL_SHIFT+5 : Takes you to the Timeline View starting at the first photo in the timeline.

This tutorial will show how to create new, recolored versions of your pictures using only Picasa.

Lets see how to make this photo

Into this photo:

Step 1, create 3 filtered Black and White images.

Starting with our original image, we want to make three different back and white images, using the filtered back and white feature. To do this, click the “Effects” tab, then “Filtered B&W” Then the “Pick a Color” box.

For the first filtered image, use the eye dropper to select the purest red you can, Should be the upper left most pixel in the color chart.

Click “Apply”. Then make a copy of this filtered image by clicking “File” and “Save a copy”.

Then, undo all the changes to return to the original image.

Repeat this process, only this time, select the purest green filter you can from the color chart.
Save a copy, undo all changes.

Repeat this one last time, selecting the purest blue filter you can from the color chart.
Save a copy, undo all changes.

(By the way, this is essentially what your digital camera does when first creating the image — there are three different “channels” for the Red, Green, and Blue sensitive areas of your sensor)

Step 2, Tint the Filtered Black and White Images.

Good. Now we have base images that we can use to remix into a different color combination. Take each of the Back and white images and Tint them using the “Tint” effect.

Here’s how:
On the first image B&W image we created — the RED filtered one, select the “Effects” tab, then “Tint” the “Pick A color”.
Select any color, OTHER than red. In this case this filter will make any red parts of the picture this color. In my case I wanted the berries to be blue, so I tinted this picture blue.

Move to the next image. This was the GREEN filtered image. Do the same process, but tint with a different color. I tinted this with Blue.

Repeat for the last image. The Blue Filtered one. I chose to filter with green.

Step 3: Putting them back together.

Great. Now we have three separate “channels” that we need Picasa to remix back into one.

This part is easy, just select the three tinted images, and put them together using the Multi-Exposure, picture collage feature. From the Library view, click the “Create menu” then “Picture Collage” then Choose Multi Exposure from the “Type” pulldown box.

This will reassemble the three different images back into one.

I generally find that because of the way Picasa does multi-exposures, that the result comes out a bit dark. Easily remedied.

Once the collage has been generated, select it then On the Basic Fixes Tab, click “I’m Feeling Lucky”. You can further tweak the image using the Tuning Tab, and the “Saturation” effect.

Here is another version using Yellow, Cyan and Magenta Tints

Another one using light tints around the middle of the color chart instead of the top.

I hope you find the tutorial helpful. If you post your pictures, please link to your results in the comments.

Update: Fixed broken link at bottom to the article where I found this.
I just discovered that Picasa also seems to have a mini Web server embedded in it. This allows you to see all of your photos in a web browser. This browser allows to you see your entire Picasa photo library in your web browser.

Simply use the Key Combination of CTRL+SHIFT+L (L for Library). It may take Picasa a few moments to get it started up, I have around 25,000 images in my library, and I got the (Not Responding) note in my title bar for 20 or 30 seconds before the browser window appeared.

The web-based library does have a search feature, although it does not seem to be quite as robust at the search feature that is in Picasa proper — for example the experimental color search did not return any results using the Web library view.

The Library uses frames, and is similar to, but not identical the two-frame “Export as HTML” feature you can use for an individual folder.

Interestingly, I can only view the library in my browser if the URL is either “localhost” or it’s equivalent IP address of 127.0.0.1. Using the IP Address that is assigned by my router, 192.168.xxx.xxx gives an error message.

Can anybody think of a way to get another computer on the local network to see this library view? That would be cool.

Via Chris Pirillo

[tags]picasa, chris pirillo[/tags]

If you are a no-mouse kind of computer geek, you might like to know that you can toggle a star for any selected photo with CTRL+SHIFT+8. Good mnemonic device here. The 8 is the *

I have recently started a new website, called Pictoot.

Pictoot was born out of the idea that finding new and creative things to improve and inspire my photography was a constant cycle of searching blogs, Digg, del.icio.us, flickr, etc. While each of those services does a great job of harnessing the power of the community, they are so broad that finding photography related tutorials meant a lot of great stuff got lost in the noise.

So I thought I would take inspiration from Digg, but narrow it down to just focus on aspects of photography, a topic that is of great interest to me. I’m hoping that other photo buffs like me will share and refer the best resources on the web for making us all better photographers.

If you have written (or know about) any photography related tutorials, please feel free to join up and submit them to Pictoot. That’s what this is all about!

Anyone can submit a story. Be it how-to articles on composition, lighting, editing, Photoshop, Gimp, Picasa, or equipment reviews or the best photo sharing sites — there is so much great stuff out there my goal was to make it easier to find and share the best. I hope my follow photographers will visit, submit stories, “Toot” their favorites and find new inspiration today.

Oh, if you have a website, I’d sure appreciate if you’d give Pictoot a little link love. Thanks!

[tags]photo tutorials, tutorial, photography, photo, pictoot, mike delgaudio[/tags]

The programmers for picasa included a fun little easter egg for us all to find.

If you press CTRL+SHIFT+y, you’ll see a cuddly stuffed bear appear over top of your picasa window.

If you keep pressing the keystroke you’ll get more copies of the bear in different sizes.

Pointless Picasa Phun.

Via TechBuzz.

[tags]Picasa, techbuzz, easteregg, easter egg[/tags]

A few months back I posted how easy it is to create a photo book using the Blurb Booksmart software.

I ordered a few copies of this book from Blurb for myself and for relatives, and wanted to show you what the delivered book looks like so you can get a sense of the quality of the book.

The books arrived packaged in a cardboard box that and each book is individually shrink wrapped. This is a nice touch so that your fingerprints don’t get all over the cover before you give the gift.

This book was pretty thick at nearly 200 pages. As we saw in the pricing showdown for a variety of photobook makers, a book of this size is very reasonably priced with Blurb.

Blurb Hardcovers come with a full color, full bleed dust cover. There are many different layouts, I happened to like the full bleed. You can have full page images on the front and back cover as well as on the inside flaps. This I tried to capture the gloss on the dustcover by showing you the reflectivity of the lights.

The Hardcover is cased with linen, and the pages appear glued into the binding. I can’t find any evidence of stitching on the pages or binding.

As of this writing, blurb does not imprint anything on the linen or spine.

The inside cover of the book is white; you’ll note that there is linen near the spine, which is finished with a glued white sheet of heavy paper on the actual cover. I have been satisfied so far with the quality and durability of the spine. We’ll see what happens in 50 years to see if the adhesive on the spine holds.

Inside, the photos are printed on heavy, glossy paper. The pages feel thicker and glossier than in most books, but certainly not as heavy as actual photo paper. The page weight is consistent with other art / coffee table books I own.

Held at a distance of 12 inches, there are no discernible “dots” in the printing. As you peer in closely you can make out the pattern of the dots that create the image. In comparison to magazine quality, or dust-jackets of “real-bookstore-books” the quality is on par, if only the tiniest bit more coarse. I’ve tried to create an enlargement here so you can see the pattern. This enlargement is a box roughly 5 millimeters on a side in the actual book. Note that the fine detail is preserved.

I learned from the Cool Tools website that Blurb uses the HP Indigo 50000, which according to HP achieves a quality of “812×1624 dpi when printing in high resolution mode” Citation.

Overall, I find the quality of the Blurb product quite impressive, and that is why I am a repeat customer. You can feel comfortable that you’ll get a quality product that showcases your photos.

That said, I agree with the assessment on Cool Tools. In short, bad photos will look bad in higher resolution. Blurry photos, out of focus images, scans of ink-jet-printer prints, scans of old 110 prints, overly-compressed jpgs, all will show less detail than a sharp-direct from digital images. Bear this in mind when you create your book. I have been supremely happy with the images from my 4.0 and 6.1 mega pixel cameras that appear in my Blurb BooksDon’t blame blurb if your source images can’t hold up to such high resolution printing.

[tags] photobook, blurb, booksmart, photo book[/tags]