ORGANIZING AND PRESENTING YOUR PHOTOS
WITH PICASA AND PHOTO FILMSTRIP
©2016 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
- Welcome and Introduction
- Photos From Your Digital Camera
- Picasa
- Slideshows of Your Photos
- Photo FilmStrip
- Conclusions
This page was last updated 2016-02-13.
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WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
- Instructor is Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
) of Provo and St. George, Utah.
- These notes with the Internet links active
are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
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- This class will discuss ways to organize and
present your digital photos using the free
programs Picasa and Photo FilmStrip.
PHOTOS FROM YOUR DIGITAL CAMERA
- Preliminaries
- Be sure to set the date, time, and GPS
setting, if it has one, on your digital
camera.
- Be sure your digital photos are backed up
somewhere other than just in your own home,
so in a disaster you don't lose them all.
- My procedure for downloading
photos from my
camera
- Remove the card from the camera and
put it in a USB card reader connected
to my computer
- Go through the photos on the card
and delete the ones not to keep
- Copy the photos from the card to a
subfolder labeled by the year YYYY in
a folder called "Photos by Date"
- Move
the photos from the card to
a subfolder labeled by the
year YYYY in a folder called
"Graphics Originals"-- these
I keep so I can always go
back to an original no
matter what I have done to
the copy in "Photos by Date"
- Use a freeware program to rename the
copies in "Photos by Date" by
extracting the date and time of the
photo from the metadata and putting
that in front of photo name; I use the
International Date Format YYYY-MM-DD
so they sort chronologically;
NAMEXIF is a free program that
will do this --
http://www.digicamsoft.com/softnamexif.html
- Add PHT- at the front of the names,
so all photos can be selected (or
unselected)
- Later add additional descriptive
terms to file names, e.g. people and
location, and put those after the date
and time, but before the camera photo
numbering which is something like
IMG-####; I keep the camera photo
numbering so I can find that photo in
the originals, if I ever need another
copy of the original
- This procedure makes it easy to find
photos by date, person, location,
etc., by using freeware program EVERYTHING -- http://www.voidtools.com/
PICASA
- Free from Google -- http://picasa.google.com
-- very helpful to organize your digital
photos; also does some image editing
- Tutorials and helps
- http://sites.google.com/site/picasaresources/faq#TOC
-- Much information starting with
installation -- good place to start
learning about Picasa
- https://support.google.com/picasa/?hl=en
-- Google helps for PICASA
- http://www.top-windows-tutorials.com/picasa.html
-- Free tutorials
- http://www.learningelectric.com/picasa2/
-- many free tutorials about PICASA,
but looks like some may be for earlier
versions of PICASA
- http://picasatutorials.com/2009/02/picasa-tip-picasa-web-albums/
-- Tutorials by Geeks on Tour -- some
are free, but most are $
- PICASA does NOT copy or change your
photos, only puts links to them
- Albums are PICASA storage
places for information and links to
your photos -- So deleting an album in
PICASA only deletes the links and
information and not the photos from
your computer
- People albums are PICASA
storage places for links to that person
in all the photos
- Folders are your hard drive
storage places for photos, so DON'T
DELETE A FOLDER in PICASA, unless you
want to delete all its photos from
your computer
- Repeast: ONLY DELETE ALBUMS,
not folders in PICASA, unless you want to get
rid of the pictures
- Before you run PICASA set the preference
to tell it which folder or folders to work
on or else it does your entire hard drive
- Duplicate photos get indexed more than
once in PICASA, so move duplicates out
of the folder you set it to work
on
- AWESOME DUPLICATE PHOTO FINDER -- http://www.duplicate-finder.com
-- is a helpful freeware program to help
you find and delete duplicate photos
- Tagging faces in your photos --
http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156272
- When first run, PICASA looks at all
photos in the prescribed folders, puts
small boxes around faces and forms
thumbnail views of all faces
- PICASA uses facial recognition to
sort the thumbnails into groups that
it thinks are the same person in all
the photos
- You name the thumbnail group to form
a "People Album" for that person
- Single clicking a thumbnail shows a
list on right side of screen of
other people in that photo
- Double clicking a thumbnail shows
the full photo so you can see the
context and other people in it; double
clicking again takes you back to the
thumbnails
- For people that don't need to be
identified, e.g. strangers on the
street, click the Ignore button
- PICASA gives you options to confirm
or deny thumbnails it thinks belong in
the group
- As you confirm additional thumbnails
in a group PICASA now has more
information, so it suggests more
thumbnails it thinks might be that
person and asks you to confirm or deny
them; to see just the new suggestions
click on the box near the top right of
the group; the facial recognition
algorithm isn't perfect, but is very
helpful
- If a person wasn't "thumbnailed"
automatically in a new photo, you can
manually thumbnail them with "Add a
Person Manually" (lower right hand
side) -- PICASA seems to have a bug
and this button doesn't always show up
when it should; try going out and back
into the photo from a different screen
to get the "Add a Person Manually"
button to show up
- Slider arrow on lower right expands
or contracts the thumbnails and photos
- To have the name tags saved in the
EXIF data of the photo go to PICASA
> Tools > Options > Name Tags
> Store Name Tags in Photo -- Then
by clicking on a person album and
selecting thumbnails it will store
that name tag in the EXIF data of each
of those photos and will do this as
you go to the person album for each
person in the photo
- When viewing the full photo you can show
the EXIF data, including name tags, by
clicking the "i" button (lower right)
- PICASA has some photo editing
capabilities when viewing full photo --
editing tools are on upper left, e.g.
cropping, red eye, color correction, and
straighten
- Easy to do a slide show of an album --
highlight the album and click View >
Slideshow -- shows successive large views
of the thumbnails or photos for that
person or album
- If your PICASA database gets corrupted,
you can rebuild it, but first read the
directions on the Help menu, so you don't
lose all your previous work
- PICASA does much more than discussed
here, e.g. there is a way to backup your
photos with the PICASA database to
transfer to another computer
SLIDESHOWS OF YOUR PHOTOS
- PICASA will do some slideshows
- FASTSTONE IMAGE VIEWER -- http://www.faststone.org/
-- Freeware image viewer and editor, many
features, easy to learn, does slideshows
of images in any folder -- see Overview
of FastStone Image Viewer
- IRFANVIEW -- http://www.irfanview.com/
-- Freeware, popular photo editor and
viewer, many features, easy to use, be
sure to download the plug-ins too -- see Irfanview
Tutorials
PHOTO FILMSTRIP
- Freeware program that makes "Ken
Burns-type" slideshows of selected photos
easily-- see YouTube Video
About Photo FilmStrip
- Download from http://www.photofilmstrip.org/
-- click on "en" (upper right corner) for
English
- Step 1 - Select photos and music
- Go through photos and put what to
include in a folder -- Which photos
will tell the story best
- Sort the photos the way you will
want them in the video, e.g.
chronological or by subject or in any
other order; easy to sort them by
putting numbers in front of names,
e.g. 010-PHT-SnowFamilyVacationTripToYellowstone-1995...jpg
-- I use numbers spaced apart, e.g.
10, 20, 30, etc., so I can rearrange
them by changing the number to one in
between where I want it
- Select music, if desired, and edit
for length -- must be in wav or mp3
format for PHOTO FILMSTRIP
- Can make a title slide by an image
program, text editor, screenshot, or
PowerPoint template
- Step 2 - Start a new project and
customize the motion paths
- Set parameters -- aspect ratio, length of time or
include audio
file and that sets the length of time
- Drag and drop photos from folder
into the film strip
- Can apply several picture effects -
black and white and sepia
- Some transition effects - roll, fade
- Set starting and ending rectangle
motion and time to get “Ken
Burns” effect
- Can add subtitles (captions) to
identify people, dates, places, and
events
- Step 3 - Render the video (render =
make)
- Render a draft copy of the filmstrip
at medium resolution so you can make
changes before doing final rendering
which make take several minutes
- For viewing in North America set the
type to NTSC -- default is PAL, which
is for Europe since the program was
written in Europe
- Final formats can be VCD, SVCD, DVD,
or Full-HD (1920x1080) resolution
- After rendering the video, save the
project in PHOTO FILMSTRIP before you
exit so you can re-edit it later -- If
you don't save the project, you have
to start over to modify it, even
though you have the finished rendered
video.
CONCLUSIONS
- Photos are a major part of family
history and organizing, labeling, and
finding ways to present them, is an
important part of doing family history.
- FamilySearch Family Tree now has a good
way to upload, store, and show photos with
individuals and we are encouraged to do so.
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Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home
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Class Listings Page .