Stay in sync

Monday, September 29, 2008 1:49 PM

Posted by Ella To, Test Engineer

One downside to revisiting old photos on your PC and editing them is that you have to remember to re-upload those photos to the web in order for your changes to be reflected online. Well... that used to be the case. With the new Sync functionality in Picasa 3 (beta), you can now sidestep that chore completely.

Picasa 3 allows you to effortlessly keep photos and videos you've uploaded up-to-date. With a click of a button, you can enable syncing of any album. This means that whenever you make a change to a photo or video in Picasa (that includes edits, captions, tags and geotags) your online copy of the album will be seamlessly updated as soon as you log in. If there are some photos that you'd rather not share, you can always suppress those photos from appearing in your album.

And here's a power tip that can really speed things up: the sync feature also allows you to sync starred photos only -- so if you use stars to single out the "cream of the crop" in your photo collection, this can make sharing your very best shots easy. Use the drop-down menu next to the 'Sync to Web' and 'Share' buttons to enable starred-photos-only syncing, or specify other sync preferences, such as upload resolution, etc.

Tagging Improvements

Thursday, September 25, 2008 11:52 AM

Posted by Tara Morrison, Software QA engineer

With the release of Picasa 3, we made many updates; improvements to keywording and tagging are no exception. You probably knew about Tag button next to the Search field, but did you also know that CTRL - K, and CTRL - T bring up the tagging dialog? While editing photos, this keyboard shortcut is very convenient to help you add tags on the fly. 

The blue status bar at the bottom of the screen now shows any tags applied to your pictures --  this works on the single image, and the album level. 

Tags are also a thumbnail caption option now! You can try it out in
View > Thumbnail Caption > Tags. 

Multi-word tags are now supported. In Picasa 2, "happy birthday" would become "happy" and "birthday". Now it works like you want it to :) 

Last, but certainly not least, bulk tagging is faster. Oh and, by the way, we also have auto-complete in the tags dialog, and in the Search bar.

The Text Tool: enabling your photos to speak for themselves

Monday, September 22, 2008 3:28 PM

Posted by Tara Morrison, Software QA Engineer

In addition to some of the other cool new features in Picasa 3, we're excited to announce that you can now add text to your photos. You may have already spent time captioning your photo collection, but now, with the Text Tool, your words can appear directly on the photos themselves.


The Text Tool allows you to create multiple areas of text, while easily customizing how your text looks. You can adjust the font or layout, re-size, adjust the angle, and drag it anywhere. You can also edit your text anytime, so have fun experimenting.



To get started with the Text Tool, check out these examples and read some of our tips:

• Using a color that already appears in the photo can be a nice complement for your text.
• Add the same text to multiple photos (a watermark, for example), using the Copy Text and Paste Text options under the Edit menu
• Create a more subtle looking caption using the Transparency slider
• Create interesting effects by layering text, especially using different transparency settings

Picasa's brand-new Photo Viewer

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 7:00 AM

Posted by Clay Wood, Software Engineer


The new Photo Viewer that ships with Picasa 3 is quick and straightforward, so I'll try to keep this blog post equally focused.

We designed Photo Viewer to be a better, faster image viewer. A quick double-click on any photo will give you a beautiful full-screen view (with Picasa edits applied) and puts a select few options at your fingertips: you can quickly rotate an image, star it, upload it to your Picasa Web Albums drop box, or play a slideshow with other photos from the same folder.

What else can it do? Tap the scroll wheel on your mouse to discover how nice it is to have a fast, smooth zoom at hand when reviewing your photos, or try the 'More Options' button to bounce an image to your printer, blog, or favorite photo editor.

Obviously, Picasa 3 (beta) can also do all these things, and more, but we know users don't necessarily want to launch a photo manager or image editor every time they double-click a JPG. Most of the time, a lightweight viewer is all you need -- we hope you'll agree that our new Photo Viewer fills that need nicely.

A note on installation: You can add the photo viewer during the Picasa 3 install -- it's easy to revert to your previous image viewer later, if you'd like. If you've already installed Picasa 3, and originally chose not to use the viewer, but now want to give it a try, just go to "Tools / Configure Photo Viewer" in Picasa.

Sharing photos with Creative Commons licensing

Sunday, September 14, 2008 12:02 PM

Posted by Mark Geller, Business Product Manager

We know that many photographers on Picasa Web Albums are interested in having their photos be seen by as large an audience as possible. We also know that some users--but by no means all--are happy allowing their photos to be re-used elsewhere, as long as proper credit is given.

Fortunately, there's an organization called Creative Commons (a separate non-profit group not affiliated with Google), which has created a set of usage rights known as Creative Commons licenses for just this purpose. CC licenses enable you, as a content owner, to allow for certain uses of your images by other people or companies, while still retaining ownership and control.

Now, with the new Creative Commons licensing option on Picasa Web Albums, you can change the usage terms on some or all of your images from "all rights reserved" to "some rights reserved" and apply one of six CC licenses. For example, you might choose to allow others to use your images as long as they give you attribution, or you can enable use of your images as long as they're not re-mixed into derivative works or used for commercial purposes.

Of course, you still retain complete ownership and control over your own images--and if you do not want to allow any kind of re-use, you don't have to. By default, we assume that photos you upload to Picasa Web Albums are "all rights reserved" by you (i.e., standard copyright). But if the idea of opting in to Creative Commons licensing sounds interesting, click here to learn more about all the licensing options available.

New email upload in Picasa Web Albums

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 11:49 AM

Posted by Justin Zaren, Software Engineer

Photos don't belong cooped up in your email's inbox, they belong on the web where you can share them with family, friends, or the world. As part of last week's major update, Picasa Web Albums now supports the ability to upload photos to your web albums using email.

Here's how it works: If you'd like to enable email uploads, you're asked to personalize your '@picasaweb.com' email address by providing a secret word that is private to you. Once you save your settings, you will be able to upload images directly to Picasa Web Albums by attaching them to an email and sending the email to your picasaweb email address.




So what's this good for? Lots! For starters, if you have a cameraphone that lets you mail pictures directly from your phone (like an iPhone), you can now shoot and post pictures in real-time. It's kind of like sending instant postcards from wherever you visit – no computer needed. And how about all those pictures of you that are sitting in your email Inbox, sent by family and friends? Simply forward those emails to your Picasa Web Albums email address and start organizing and sharing them.

Speaking of friends and family, while we give you a private, customizable email address to use for your email uploads, you may well find that sharing your email upload address with a few trusted contacts allows for interesting collaborations. For example, email can be a painless way to get your extended family to upload snapshots to a central group album – whether or not they have their own Picasa Web Albums accounts.

To get started, visit the Settings page in Picasa Web Albums and look for the new 'Upload Photos by Email' section. Then, set up your personal '@picasaweb.com' email address for image uploads, which will be a combination of your username and a secret word that you can change at any time. After that, when you email pictures to that address, the image attachments will automatically be placed in your drop box, or whatever album you specify in the subject line. All other email content sent to this address is ignored and discarded. We also won't resize or downscale any pictures you send, although there's a limit of 20 megabytes per email.

We hope you'll have fun and get creative with the way you upload photos.

Photo Collages!

Monday, September 8, 2008 1:46 PM

Posted by Mike Clement, Software Engineer

Picasa 3 (beta) features an entirely new and expanded collage maker that you can use to create pixel-perfect masterpieces suitable for printing or just sharing online. There are six different collage "themes" to play with, ranging from a simple contact sheet to a "Picture Pile" theme that gives you complete freedom to arrange, resize and rotate pictures on a background of your choice. It's kind of like a virtual scrapbook.

If you're feeling like your composition skills aren't quite up to the task (or if you're just feeling lazy), press the "Scamble Collage" button and Picasa will even rearrange the collage for you automatically. There a lots of document sizes to choose from, including the most common photo, paper, and desktop screen sizes. This makes it easy to create postcards, CD covers, or even posters with just a few clicks. Try this:

• Select a folder of pictures and press the Collage button
• Choose "Mosaic" in the collage theme drop list
• Choose "8.5 x 11: letter paper" in the Page Format drop list (or whatever size you want)
• Press "Shuffle Pictures" a few times
• To really add interest, explore the Grid Spacing slider and the Background Options
• Press "Create Collage"

That's all it takes to create a collage image like this:

Best of all, collages are saved like documents -- so you can always go back to make changes or add new pictures to an existing collage. To do this, click the Edit Collage button at the top of the screen that appears when viewing a previously created collage. (Note: all your collages are placed in a special Collages project album so that it's easy to find and edit all of your collages).

The real fun happens after the collage is finished rendering -- now you can treat the collage like any other picture and apply fun effects like Soft Focus or Sepia, or maybe add a title using the new Text feature. Once you've created your masterpiece, don't forget to show it off! Share it with your friends and family in a web album, or maybe use it as the title slide in a new Movie project.

The possibilities are pretty endless...so get creative and make some collages!