The other day, I cropped a picture to just a person’s face and then I exported it to a folder called avatars. As I exported, I resized it to 200 pixels because that was the requirement of the website where I planned to upload it. (Tutorial Video: Resizing Pictures with Export) The export worked just fine. It displayed the resulting image in the Avatars folder using Windows Explorer, just like Export always does. But, when I searched for Avatars from within Picasa I came up empty handed. (Tutorial Video: Search) I even re-located the picture in Windows and got the exact name to search for – still no luck in Picasa.
What The?!?!
What a mystery! I can see the picture outside of Picasa, but not inside. It’s definitely there, but Picasa can’t find it. This may happen to you sometime when you receive an image attached to an email. (Tutorial Video: Receiving a Picture Attached to an Email)You save the image in your My Pictures folder, then try to view it using Picasa, and it’s nowhere to be found!
The Secret is Small Pictures
There’s an option on Picasa’s View menu called Small Pictures. If you check that … voila! Your pictures appear. So, what’s the purpose of the Small Pictures setting? This is the way Picasa avoids showing you all the icons and other images used by various software on your computer. Picasa figures, if a picture is 200 pixels or less, it probably isn’t a photograph, so it doesn’t show it. If you want it to show, just click the option.
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5 Responses to “Small Pictures Disappear”
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Thank you thank you thank you, thought I was going MAD, been looking for my “small photographs” for weeks, thanks again
Thanks so much for these tutorials. They are sooo helpful. However, I have one question about this one. Where do the small pictures appear in the library? I followed the steps you suggested (VIEW, then click SMALL PICTURES), but I could never find them. Do they show up in a large folder (like albums, people, etc.) or are they in the folder from which they were exported or imported?
Picasa does not move or copy or store these small pictures. They are wherever they are on your computer. Whatever folder they were exported or imported to. The small pictures checkbox just unhides (or hides) them from view.
Why does Picasa save those pics from websites I’ ve visited?I didn’t ask it to save them.. What a frustration to have to delete all of them.
Thanks for your wisdom.
This also happens when someone sends photos from some cell phones. They will not display unless you use small pictures.