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Google's Picture Perfect Picasa, Part 1 - The Basic Features of Google Picasa

© Karin Rex

Google is my favorite search engine. So it was only natural that I downloaded Google's brand spankin' new Picasa 2 program the very day it was released (end of January, 2005). I am happy to say it hasn't disappointed me.

Picasa 2, available for free at http://google.picasa.com proposes to help you quickly locate, organize, edit, and share every single picture on your Windows PC. (Sorry Mac users, it's not for you yet.) When you open the Picasa program it automatically searches your hard drive for pictures and sorts them by date into collections and folders. You can, of course, rearrange and rename these collections and folders to make your own logical groupings if desired.

Picasa also gives you some nice digital editing tools that are easy to use (and considering the price, these are an amazing alternative to some of the digital photo editing programs on the market). Granted, the tools won't be enough for those who need to go beyond basic editing and quick fixes, but for the average digital shutterbug, they are more then adequate.

Picasa also gives you tools for sharing your pictures: via e-mail, posting them on a blog, making CDs, and sharing instantly via Hello.com.

This article will cover the basics of importing and organizing pictures in Picasa. My next two columns will cover editing (including making easy collages!) and sharing.

Importing Pictures into Picasa

The first time you start the program, Picasa will offer to scan your entire hard drive for pictures or to scan just your My Computer, My Pictures, and My Documents folders. Once you tell Picasa which option you prefer, it immediately goes to work finding and organizing pictures.

As pictures are found they are arranged into collections and folders. Folders are displayed in the Folders on Disk and Other Stuff collections on the left side of the screen. The Folders on Disk category will contain photographs found in the folders you directed Picasa to scan when you started the program for the first time. The Other Stuff collection will contain files that are small or have non-standard aspect ratios (such as banner ads). Click the triangle next to a Collection heading to show or hide its contents.

Under each of the Collection headings, folders are organized within folder under year headings. You will recognize the folder names as those you created.

Using Picasa, you can import pictures from a variety of media including a camera, media card, CD, or scanner. After you connect a device or a drive, click on the Import button at the top of the screen and then select the appropriate device from the Select Device dropdown menu at the top of the Import window.

The copyright of the article Google's Picture Perfect Picasa, Part 1 - The Basic Features of Google Picasa in Digital Photography is owned by Karin Rex. Permission to republish Google's Picture Perfect Picasa, Part 1 - The Basic Features of Google Picasa in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.