Mike DelGaudio

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

There is only one way I can think of to fake a vignette in Picasa. A vignette is a darkening of the edges or corners of am image. This is typically not desirable, as it indicates that the lens let less light through to the edges than the center. However, It is usually used for artistic effect or to add a nostalgic feel to an image.

Let’s take this image for example.

We’ll create the vignette in by the graduated tint effect, saving a copy, and rotating the image image. Here’s how:

Use the Graduated Tint filter on the top edge of the image, crank the shade way up, so the edge is as dark as you want.

Apply the effect, save a copy.

Go to the new copy, rotate it 90 degrees and add the graduated tint feature to the new top edge of the picture.

Repeat this procedure until you have all four edges tinted.

Fake vignette with Picasa

If you were working with a color image and want it black and white, after the last edge is darkened, use the Tint effect, and tint with white and no color preservation.

Go back an delete all the intermediate files you created along the way.

To be frank this is a lame way to do this effect, but it can be done. I did it here more as a personal challenge than a workable solution. You wuold probably be better off creating the effect in Photoshop, or the free GIMP software.

[tags]picasa, vignette, gimp[/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 *

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]

Part of an ongoing series on web pages extensions in Picasa.

One of the really nice features in Picasa is the ability to add new Web Page Export formats. This gives you the ability to create really beautiful web galleries for your photos just by following a simple wizard.

Here is a template created by Scott Evans calle applejuice. Visit the applejuice site and download the template.

applejuice:

We have previously written up instructions for installing Picasa web Page Extensions. Use those instructions for getting the extension installed.

Also, previously we have seen how to publish your new Webpage using Picasa. Use those instructions to get Picasa all set to publish your new web page via FTP.

See it in action:

applejuice

Hat tip to ZenMojo.com for directing us to this great extension.

[tags]picasa, applejuice, scottevans, antisleep, zenmojo [/tags]