Get a Google account. 

•  Maybe you already have one -- if you have a gmail account, for instance, you have a Google account.  If not, just go to Google Accounts and create one; it's quick and easy. 
  Top

Install Picasa and download some photos.

• Go to the Picasa site and click "Download Picasa 3".  Save the file to the desktop, then close all windows and double-click the setup file icon to install the program.   

• You'll need to upload some photos.  I've provided a few photos for you to use in a set in a  Picasa Web Album. Go to the link, and above the photo thumbnails, you'll see a link that says "Download".  Click on it, choose "Download to Picasa," and click "OK".   This should give you a window in Picasa asking if you want to download the album: click "download". 

• The album should now appear in Picasa.
  Top 

Edit photos

• Double-click on the thumbnail of any photo in your new Picasa album.  Let's start with the very crooked one of cyclists:   

• This will open the photo in the photo editor. 

• This photo has a number of problems.  Let's see what we can do to improve it.
  Top

Rotate a picture 

• You have the picture open in the edit window (you got it there by double-clicking on it in your photo library).  Now, under the "basic fixes" tab, click "Straighten". 

• A grid has appeared covering the photo.  This gives you something to line things up against. 

• Now click and drag the slider under the photo to straighten. 

• This one is so crooked, you won't get it all the way there in one try.  Get it as far as possible, then click "Apply".

• Now repeat the process by clicking "straighten" again and dragging the slider until it seems right.  Then click "apply". 
  Top

Change exposure

• The exposure on this photo isn't very good either -- the photo is a bit dark. 

• Click on the "fill light" slider in the "basic fixes" tab and drag it until the exposure looks better. 

• Click "Apply" to save the changes.  

• If you're through with fixing the photo, click "File > Save" in the top menu (or just ctrl-S). 
  Top

Undo or redo changes 

• By the way, the original photo is backed up on your computer in an undisclosed location -- you can always reopen any pic and undo the changes, even if you've saved the modified file.

• Take a look at the basic fixes box again -- see where it says "undo fill light"?  Click there, and it undoes the exposure change.  From there you could click "Undo straighten," or next to it, "redo fill light" to get back to where you were. 
  Top 

Crop a photo

• Go back to the library by clicking "Back to Library" in the upper left.

• Now choose another photo for cropping.  Let's take the group shot:

• Double-click on it to edit.

• In the "Basic Fixes" tab, click "crop". 

• Now you have some options.  Click the arrow to get the drop-down menu in the "Crop Photo" box.  You can choose "manual", and have any proportions you want, or "current ratio" to preserve the same width/height ratio, or various others.  Pick one. 

• You'll see a box appear on the photo.  Click and drag any corner or side to change the size; click and drag in the middle to move the box.  When you've got it composed as you like it, click "apply".  If you're done, click "File>Save" at the top to save the picture to disk.  
  Top

Adjust color

• Here's a challenge for lighting and color: open this picture in the editor:   

• There are some quick fixes to try first.  Try clicking the "I'm feeling lucky" button in "basic fixes" -- not so lucky this time.  Click "Undo I'm Feeling Lucky".   

• Instead, try dragging the "fill light" slider to brighten the picture.  That's better, but a little washed out.  Undo that one too.

• Now click on the "Tuning" tab.  This gives you more control over light and contrast.  Try playing with the different sliders here and see if you can get a better effect.  When you're satisfied, click "File > Save".   
  Top

Add text to a photo

• Open any photo for editing by double-clicking on it in the library.

• In "Basic fixes", click "Text".  

• You'll see a message that says "type anywhere to add text" displayed across the photo. 

• Click on the photo and type.

• Choose a color for the text by clicking on the dot near a "T" in the Basic Fixes window.  There's a slider to choose the boldness of the text. There's also a transparency slider. And you can also choose fonts and sizes from the menu.   

• Click on some text you've made and drag to move it around.

• Click on some text and click the little red dot to rotate the text.
  Top

Retouching 

• Sometimes you want to remove "blemishes" or unwanted material from a picture -- the garden hose in the picture of the turtles, or the funny dark vertical smear in the sky in the pic of the three cyclists nearing the top of a hill.  Open one of those pictures to edit

• In "Basic fixes", click "retouch".

• You'll see a little circle on the screen. You can change the size of the retouch field with the slider that says "brush size".

• Click the place you want to fix, then move to an area you want to replace it with and click there.  This should replace the area from the first click with a copy of the area from the second.  With a little experimentation, this works pretty well for removing spots and distracting items.   
  Top

Effects 

• Click on the "effects" tab. 

• Try the black and white, sepia, and saturation buttons.

• Play around.
  Top

Captions 

• You can give a picture a caption by clicking below it in the edit window where it says "make a caption!"
  Top 

Uploading photos

• Highlight all (or some of your photos) in the library.  Click on the first one, hold shift, and click on the last.  Or click and hold down the control key while clicking to select individual photos as a group.   

• Click "upload" at the bottom of the screen.

• It will prompt you for an album name -- give it one. 

• There's a menu that says "size to upload".  It gives suggestions.  The pictures you downloaded were original size from my camera -- they're mostly big.   If people are only going to view them on screen, anything over 1024 pixels is probably a waste of storage space and download time.  If you're going to share these with students, do any of them have dial-up? 

• Choose visibility.  Will these be available to anyone to see?  Choose "public".  If you want them private, you can do that too.   

• Then click "upload". 

• You get 1 GB of free storage from Google.  If you want more, you can pay for it -- click "upgrade" to see their terms.
  Top

Saving photos to disk

• Highlight all (or some of your photos) in the library.  Click on the first one, hold shift, and click on the last.  Or click and hold down the control key while clicking to select individual photos as a group.   

• Click "File > Export to folder" in the menu at the top of the page.

• It will prompt you for an folder name and location -- give it one. 

• Next choose "Image size options". Remember, you still have your originals, so if you're exporting these, you probably are intending to use them for something else -- like importing them to your CSTL web site for use on course pages.  Don't overdo the size.  Click on "Resize to" and use the slider to choose a resolution.  If you plan to have the picture cover the whole screen in the browser, 1024 pixels would be appropriate.  More likely, it's going to be an illustration on a web page, and you may only want 640 or 320 pixels.  Remember that size will affect storage space and download time.

• Another way to control file size is in image quality.  These will be saved as .jpg files, and you can choose the degree of quality.  "Normal" is probably good for most applications.     

• Then click "ok". 
  Top