PICASA AND OTHER FREEWARE
TO WORK WITH YOUR PHOTOS
©Copyright 2012 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
- Welcome and Introduction
- Irfanview
- GIMP
- Picasa
- Picasa Web Albums
- Photo FilmStrip
This page was last updated 2012-01-18.
Return to the Utah Valley Technology and
Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's
Class Listings Page .
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
- Instructors are Donald R. and Diane M. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
, dmsnow34@gmail.com ) .
- This is the Snows Family History Update Series - 1st and 3rd
Wednesdays 1-2:30 PM, Morningside Stake Center, RS Room - all are
welcome; next class will be on 1 Feb 2012 on DESCENDANCY RESEARCH;
class after that will be on 4th Wed of Feb, NOT 3rd Wed.
- These notes are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
with all the links, so you don't have to type them in yourself.
Hold down the Ctrl key when you click on a link and the link opens in
another tab so you keep these notes open where you were.
- St. George Heritage Days - lots going on -- http://www.dixietoday.com/history.html
- Southern
Utah Family History and Genealogy Group Meeting (SUFHGG), this
Sat 21 Jan 2012 10 am-noon, Robert and Joel Kroff's presentation on
"Uncle Verl" about Southern Utah -- at St. George East Stake Center,
449 South 300 East, St. George, Utah (across the street east of the
St. George Temple)
- RootsTech 2012, 2-4 Feb 2012, Salt Palace, SLC - sponsored by
FamilySearch, BYU, and others -- http://rootstech.org/
- FH Expo, 24-25 Feb 2012, Dixie Center - Reg $59 in advance and $99
at the door -- register at http://www.familyhistoryexpos.com
- Beta test of new Family Tree interface of nFS -- https://familysearch.org/invite/familytree_tab
-- use your LDS Account to log in
- Helpful 9-Generation Pedigree Fan Chart of your nFS data -- http://www.createfan.com/
-- use your LDS Account to log in
- This class will discuss Picasa and other freeware for
photos
IRFANVIEW
- Freeware photo editor
- Download from http://www.irfanview.com
-- download the plug-ins from the same site
- Irfanview tutorials -- Go to the main Irfanview home page http://www.irfanview.com
> FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) > Third link from the
bottom has links to many tutorials, one of which is
http://tutorials.downloadroute.com/IrfanView-Irfan-Skiljan.html
-- good place to start
- Help Manual (79 pages) at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/68478673/IrfanView-4-25-Help-Manual-Lite
-- can read it online; costs to download a pdf copy; can save an
html copy free, but it contains advertising
- Examples of image editing with Irfanview
- Crop
- Red eye
- Resize and sharpen
- Auto color correct
- Negative vs positive
- Correcting bleed-through on scans
- Irfanview will do much more, e.g. rotate, batch processing, borders,
slideshows, set as wallpaper, screenshots -- see the manuals
and/or tutorials
GIMP (= GNU Image Manipulation Program)
- Photo editor like PhotoShop, but free
- Download from http://www.gimp.org/
-- also download the GIMP Users Manual
- Many helpful tutorials at
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ -- beginner, intermediate,
expert, etc.
- Examples of image editing with GIMP
- Clone
- Oval picture with feathered edges
- Select the ellipse select tool
- In the options (underneath the tools) click the feather check
box, and set the radius to something like 30ish pixels.
- Select the area you want to "ovalify"
- Go to the Select > Invert Menu Option and click it
- Press the Delete key
- You now have the oval picture and can copy it wherever you
want it.
- GIMP will do much more, e.g. layers, selection tool to draw shapes,
vignettes of your photos, changing background colors, convert color to
sepia tone, etc. -- see the manuals and/or tutorials
- GIMPShop -- http://gimpshop.com/
-- freeware interface that makes GIMP's commands more like PhotoShop's
commands
PICASA
- Freeware program to organize your photos; also does some image
editing
- Download from http://www.google.com
-- Go to More > Even More > (Scroll down) Picasa
- 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 nor change your photos, only uses links to them
- "Folders" in Picasa are the folders on your computer, so if you
delete a folder or a photo from a folder in Picasa, it's deleted
from your computer
- "Albums" in Picasa are where it stores the links and information
to your pictures and are only in Picasa and deleting one only
deletes that information from Picasa, not the photos
- "People" albums in Picasa are name tags with links to all photos
with that person in them
- When you first run Picasa, set preference to tell it which folders
to work on (or else entire hard drive) -- DRS's procedure so
Picasa can work on a single folder: originals go in a folder called
Graphics Originals; copies go in folders by year and month; NameEXIF
program --
http://www.digicamsoft.com/softnamexif.html -- takes EXIF data
and puts date and time in front of name; I later add further
information to file name so more descriptive and searchable, e.g.
location, people in it, etc. -- Now I can tell Picasa to only work
on "Photos by Date" folder and not entire hard drive
- Tagging faces in your photos --
http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156272
- When first run, Picasa finds all photos and for those with
people it forms thumbnail views of all faces and uses facial
recognition to organize them into groups
- Clicking on any thumbnail shows list on right hand side of
others in same photo, if they are identified
- Double click any thumbnail to see the photo it came -- allows
you to see the context and other people in it; double click
again to go back to the thumbnails
- Give the group the name of the person to form a "People
Album"
- Can set it to ignore extraneous people that don't need to be
identified
- Picasa gives you suggestions it thinks could be the person --
click on the box to the right above the thumbnails to see just the
new suggestions -- confirming one or more or all suggestions
usually leads to more suggestions for that group since Picasa now
has more information about them
- If a person wasn't "thumbnailed" automatically, you can "Add a
Person Manually" (lower right hand side) to put a thumbnail box
around a face and name it (but Picasa has a bug and this button
doesn't always show up when it should; try going out and into the
photo from a different screen gets it there)
- Can expand thumbnails or photos by slider (lower right); for full
photo you can show the EXIF data, including name tags, by clicking on
the "i" button (lower right)
- Picasa also has some photo editing capabilities -- double click on
thumbnail to get full photo -- editing tools are on upper left, e.g.
cropping, red eye, color correction, straighten
- If Picasa database gets corrupted, you can redo it -- see directions
so you don't lose all your organization
- Picasa will also do much more than we have discussed here, e.g. it
will backup all your photos and the Picasa database to transfer to
another computer, will make slideshows, and do other things
- Can upload your photos to Picasa Web Albums and make them private or
allow others to see them -- Picasa Web Albums is independent of Picasa
and you can either one without the other
PICASA WEB ALBUMS
- A website where you can upload your photo albums using Picasa or
other programs --
https://picasaweb.google.com/home -- You need a Google account
(free); 1 gig of space free; can buy more, if you want -- You do
NOT need to use Picasa to use Picasa Web Albums
- General information at
http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=157000&rd=1
- Can upload photos and notify whoever you want via email; can have
albums public, unlisted, private -- uploaded photos are usually at
smaller size to save space, so it's not a good place to store complete
backups -- do that on an external hard drive or CD/DVD
- Others you invite can view, download, print, etc.
- To keep within your 1 gig limit you may have to download and then
delete albums, unless you buy more space
- Good way to share copies of your photos with family and friends
PHOTO FILMSTRIP
- Freeware program that easily makes "Ken Burns-type" slideshows of
selected photos
- Download from http://www.photofilmstrip.org/
-- click on "en" (upper right corner) for English
- Select photos or folder to use and make filmstrip
- Example
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