Mike DelGaudio

PicasaWeb user Dave is clearly a fan of Picasa, but he wants it to go a whole lot further. He has created a Picasaweb set showing a “theoretical Picasa 3″ user interface. He has some good ideas especially around items that I think Picasa could use help with — such as tagging and descriptions.

Let’s hope a “Picasa 3″ is in the works somewhere in the depths of Google, and that we’ll see some improvements on an already great program.

You can flip an image horizontally using CTRL+SHIFT+H
FLip it vertically with CTRL+SHIFT+V

So far as I know this can only be done with these keystrokes, there is not other way to get a mirror image in Picasa.

I just activated my account on the new AuctionAds service, so you’ll see some interesting Auctions in the sidebar. First glance shows a number of “Vintage nude photos” oohhh-kayyy. We’ll see how it works. I use the ads to help pay for the hosting of this site. I hope you don’t find them intrusive.

If you’re using the latest version of Picasa, just follow the steps below to upload videos from Picasa to your online Web Album. If you see a “Web Album” button at the bottom of the Picasa window, you’re using the latest version.

To upload your videos:

1. Open Picasa.
2. Select the videos you want to upload. To select multiple videos, press the Ctrl key or click “Hold” at the bottom of the window. The selected videos will appear in the “Photo Tray” in the lower-left corner of Picasa.
3. Click the “Web Album” button at the bottom of the page. If you’re not signed in to your Picasa Web Albums Account, you’ll be prompted to sign in.
4. Select the album you’d like to add videos to, or create a new album.
5. The Upload Manager will display the status of the upload. Once the upload is complete, you can click “View Online” to launch the album in your browser.

Video Uploading is only available using Picasa. If you are using Mac uploading tools to upload photos to picasa web, you will not be able to upload video.

Good news for Picasa users. Google has extended the amount of storage available to free users to 1 GB. According to the official Google blog, this means you can now store around “4,000 standard resolution photos.” which is great compared to services like Flickr who — to my knowledge still has a 200 photo limit for free users. (You can store as many as you want, but only the most recent 200 images will be visible.)

According to my gallery page, it says that I have 1GB (and counting!), so perhaps they are dribbling new storage the same way that gmail does.

The best and easiest way to start uploading to Picasa web is via Picasa itself.

[tags] picasa, picasaweb, flickr [/tags]

The official Google blog reports that free users now have 1 GB of storage play with. According to Google that means “around 4,000 standard resolution photos). According to my gallery it is 1 GB (and counting), so maybe they are dribbling in the extra bytes a la Gmail.

There are several choices you can make when creating your own photo book. You can make a photobook from most major photo printing services — Kodak Photo Gallery, Snapfish, Photoworks, shutterfly, the list goes on. Most of those services require that you upload your photos top those services, use their web based book creator interface, and often are quite expensive.

If you want a high degree of control over your book, use photos already present on your computer, you have a few options, most popular are Blurb and Lulu. Let’s compare and contrast to see what is the bset situation for your needs:

NOTE: Lulu does offer a photobook option, similar to a Blurb softcover. In this option you must upload your photos to Lulu. For the purposes of this comparison, we will look at the options for creating your Lulu book on your computer. I.E. NOT using the Lulu photobook option.

Cover:
Both services offer both hardcover and softcover versions.
Blurb offers a glossy print softcover, or a cloth covered hardcover with a full-color, full-bleed dust jacket.
Lulu offers a a glossy print softcover, and two types of hardcover:

• Dust Jacket Hardcover: A book bound in navy blue linen with a full-color dust jacket (6×9 book only).
• Casewrap Hardcover: Full-color or Black and white, glossy cover. Does not come with a dust jacket.

Sizes:
Blurb Hardcovers and softcovers can be in 4 possible sizes: (height x width) 8″ x 10″ , 10″ x 8″, 13″ X 11″ and 7″ x 7″
Lulu Hardcovers can be in 2 possible sizes (height x width): 6″ x 9″ and 8.25″ x 10.75″
Lulu softcovers are also available 6″ x 9″, 8.5″ x 11″, 9″ x 7″, 7.5″ x 7.5″ — What size you can choose depends on the type of softcover binding option you select. More Info

Paper:
Blurb uses a glossy, heavy paper.
Lulu uses a matte, heavy paper.

Templates:
Blurb books can be made ONLY using the premade page templates that come with the blurb booksmart software. This limits layout choices, but increases the chances that the book will come out properly formatted and the way you expect it the first time.

Lulu hardcovers do not come with any template, you create every book from scratch. You can create the document in word, or another application like OpenOffice.org and convert the document to PDF (I used Impress from openoffice.org to create my lulu book). This offers a greater level of flexibility, but requires a greater level of expertise, and increases the likelihood that your book could be incorrectly formatted the first time you print.

Pricing:
Blurb books are priced as follows:

Lulu offers a pricing calculator to determine price based on a variety of factors: Type of binding, type of cover, color cover or black and white, number of pages, number of copies etc… These prices are based on results for the calculator:

As you can see the pricing for the two services are very similar.

Quality

Previously, I have given reviews as the quality of books from both Blurb and Lulu.

• Review of a Blurb Book
• Review of a Lulu Book

Important to note is that Lulu and Blurb use different printing techniques. Both are very high quality, with Lulu having an edge on pure resolution. Read the linked reviews above for more.

Summary
In summary, both Blurb and Lulu offer high quality, print on demand services. Which you choose will depend on what you need / want.

Do you want a Dustjacket (Blurb) or Glossy hardcover (Lulu)?
Do you want glossy paper (Blurb) or matte (Lulu)?
Do you want to use a template (Blurb) or have fine control over every detail (Lulu)?

Which is important to you? Do you have a preferred provider? Let me know in the comments!

[tags]Blurb, lulu, photobooks, photo books[/tags]

There are several choices you can make when creating your own photo book. You can make a photobook from most major photo printing services — Kodak Photo Gallery, Snapfish, Photoworks, shutterfly, the list goes on. Most of those services require that you upload your photos top those services, use their web based book creator interface, and often are quite expensive.

If you want a high degree of control over your book, use photos already present on your computer, you have a few options, most popular are Blurb and Lulu. Let’s compare and contrast to see what is the bset situation for your needs:

NOTE: Lulu does offer a photobook option, similar to a Blurb softcover. In this option you must upload your photos to Lulu. For the purposes of this comparison, we will look at the options for creating your Lulu book on your computer. I.E. NOT using the Lulu photobook option.

Cover:
Both services offer both hardcover and softcover versions.
Blurb offers a glossy print softcover, or a cloth covered hardcover with a full-color, full-bleed dust jacket.
Lulu offers a a glossy print softcover, and two types of hardcover:

• Dust Jacket Hardcover: A book bound in navy blue linen with a full-color dust jacket (6×9 book only).
• Casewrap Hardcover: Full-color or Black and white, glossy cover. Does not come with a dust jacket.

Sizes:
Blurb Hardcovers and softcovers can be in 4 possible sizes: (height x width) 8″ x 10″ , 10″ x 8″, 13″ X 11″ and 7″ x 7″
Lulu Hardcovers can be in 2 possible sizes (height x width): 6″ x 9″ and 8.25″ x 10.75″
Lulu softcovers are also available 6″ x 9″, 8.5″ x 11″, 9″ x 7″, 7.5″ x 7.5″ — What size you can choose depends on the type of softcover binding option you select. More Info

Paper:
Blurb uses a glossy, heavy paper.
Lulu uses a matte, heavy paper.

Templates:
Blurb books can be made ONLY using the premade page templates that come with the blurb booksmart software. This limits layout choices, but increases the chances that the book will come out properly formatted and the way you expect it the first time.

Lulu hardcovers do not come with any template, you create every book from scratch. You can create the document in word, or another application like OpenOffice.org and convert the document to PDF (I used Impress from openoffice.org to create my lulu book). This offers a greater level of flexibility, but requires a greater level of expertise, and increases the likelihood that your book could be incorrectly formatted the first time you print.

Pricing:
Blurb books are priced as follows:

Lulu offers a pricing calculator to determine price based on a variety of factors: Type of binding, type of cover, color cover or black and white, number of pages, number of copies etc… These prices are based on results for the calculator:

As you can see the pricing for the two services are very similar.

Quality

Previously, I have given reviews as the quality of books from both Blurb and Lulu.

• Review of a Blurb Book
• Review of a Lulu Book

Important to note is that Lulu and Blurb use different printing techniques. Both are very high quality, with Lulu having an edge on pure resolution. Read the linked reviews above for more.

Summary
In summary, both Blurb and Lulu offer high quality, print on demand services. Which you choose will depend on what you need / want.

Do you want a Dustjacket (Blurb) or Glossy hardcover (Lulu)?
Do you want glossy paper (Blurb) or matte (Lulu)?
Do you want to use a template (Blurb) or have fine control over every detail (Lulu)?

Which is important to you? Do you have a preferred provider? Let me know in the comments!

[tags]Blurb, lulu, photobooks, photo books[/tags]

We’ve noted before that the space bar will star a photo in the detail view. The space bar has a different function in the Picture library.

Pressing the space bar scrolls the picture library down roughly one screen.

Give it a try!

Below is a post from the Picasa Newsgroups. Onion is a really wonderful, knowledgeable contributor to the Picasa Group.

I think it is a common misconception that picasa actually makes copies of images, or somehow is one level away from the actual folders on your disk. Not true, as Onion notes below in this message thread.

From: JohnAlex
Subject: Remove from Picasa Index
How do I remove items from the Picasa index without affecting their
storage on my disks? Thanks for the help

From: Onion
Subject: Re: Remove from Picasa Index
Picasa is a photo organizational tool, with basic editing features.
Picasa does not physically store your images. They are all located on
your hard drive. Picasa just scans your hard drive, looking for any
images, and then creates a thumbnail reference to them. This means
that if you delete a photo in Picasa, you are deleting it from your
hard drive.

Go into the Folder Manager under Tools and change your settings for
what Picasa watches.

Original Post here