PICASA AND OTHER FREEWARE
TO WORK WITH YOUR PHOTOS

©Copyright 2012 by Donald R. Snow

Sections of the Class Notes 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

  1. Instructors are Donald R. and Diane M. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu , dmsnow34@gmail.com ) .
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. St. George Heritage Days - lots going on -- http://www.dixietoday.com/history.html
  5. 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)
  6. RootsTech 2012, 2-4 Feb 2012, Salt Palace, SLC - sponsored by FamilySearch, BYU, and others -- http://rootstech.org/ 
  7. FH Expo, 24-25 Feb 2012, Dixie Center - Reg $59 in advance and $99 at the door -- register at http://www.familyhistoryexpos.com
  8. Beta test of new Family Tree interface of nFS -- https://familysearch.org/invite/familytree_tab -- use your LDS Account to log in
  9. Helpful 9-Generation Pedigree Fan Chart of your nFS data -- http://www.createfan.com/ -- use your LDS Account to log in
  10. This class will discuss Picasa and other freeware for photos

  11. IRFANVIEW

  12. Freeware photo editor
  13. Download from http://www.irfanview.com -- download the plug-ins from the same site
  14. 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
  15. 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
  16. Examples of image editing with Irfanview
    1. Crop
    2. Red eye
    3. Resize and sharpen
    4. Auto color correct
    5. Negative vs positive
    6. Correcting bleed-through on scans
  17. Irfanview will do much more, e.g. rotate, batch processing, borders, slideshows, set as wallpaper, screenshots -- see the manuals and/or tutorials

  18. GIMP (= GNU Image Manipulation Program)

  19. Photo editor like PhotoShop, but free
  20. Download from http://www.gimp.org/ -- also download the GIMP Users Manual
  21. Many helpful tutorials at http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ -- beginner, intermediate, expert, etc.
  22. Examples of image editing with GIMP
    1. Clone
    2. Oval picture with feathered edges
      1. Select the ellipse select tool
      2. In the options (underneath the tools) click the feather check box, and set the radius to something like 30ish pixels.
      3. Select the area you want to "ovalify"
      4. Go to the Select > Invert Menu Option and click it
      5. Press the Delete key
      6. You now have the oval picture and can copy it wherever you want it.
  23. 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
  24. GIMPShop -- http://gimpshop.com/ -- freeware interface that makes GIMP's commands more like PhotoShop's commands

  25. PICASA

  26. Freeware program to organize your photos; also does some image editing
  27. Download from http://www.google.com -- Go to More > Even More > (Scroll down) Picasa
  28. Tutorials and helps
    1. http://sites.google.com/site/picasaresources/faq#TOC -- Much information starting with installation -- good place to start learning about Picasa
    2. https://support.google.com/picasa/?hl=en -- Google helps for Picasa
    3. http://www.top-windows-tutorials.com/picasa.html -- Free tutorials
    4. http://www.learningelectric.com/picasa2/ -- many free tutorials about Picasa, but looks like some may be for earlier versions of Picasa
    5. http://picasatutorials.com/2009/02/picasa-tip-picasa-web-albums/ -- Tutorials by Geeks on Tour -- some are free, but most are $ 
  29. Picasa does NOT copy nor change your photos, only uses links to them
    1. "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
    2. "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
    3. "People" albums in Picasa are name tags with links to all photos with that person in them
  30. 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
  31. Tagging faces in your photos -- http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156272
    1. 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
    2. Clicking on any thumbnail shows list on right hand side of others in same photo, if they are identified
    3. 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
    4. Give the group the name of the person to form a "People Album"
    5. Can set it to ignore extraneous people that don't need to be identified 
    6. 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
    7. 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)
  32. 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)
  33. 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
  34. If Picasa database gets corrupted, you can redo it -- see directions so you don't lose all your organization
  35. 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
  36. 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

  37. PICASA WEB ALBUMS

  38. 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
  39. General information at http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=157000&rd=1
  40. 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
  41. Others you invite can view, download, print, etc.
  42. To keep within your 1 gig limit you may have to download and then delete albums, unless you buy more space
  43. Good way to share copies of your photos with family and friends

  44. PHOTO FILMSTRIP

  45. Freeware program that easily makes "Ken Burns-type" slideshows of selected photos
  46. Download from http://www.photofilmstrip.org/ -- click on "en" (upper right corner) for English
  47. Select photos or folder to use and make filmstrip
  48. Example

  49. Return to the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Users Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .