How do I get an image like the map below for my travel blog? I use Picasa’s Screen Capture feature.
It’s just SO easy! As long as you have Picasa open, when you press the PrtSc (PrintScreen) key on your keyboard, a copy of the current screen becomes a picture in your [Screen Captures] folder. See past article on Screen Captures for more detail. On a Macintosh the Print Screen key is Command/Shift/3 – but it’s a little different, and last I knew Picasa didn’t work with it like it does on the PC. (according to comments below – this works just fine on Mac)
So, I start with Google Maps and get directions for the line I want drawn. I press the PrtSc key and now I have the following image that I can work with in Picasa.
I crop it to just what I want, then I use the Vignette feature to put a blue shadow frame on it, and I export it to a folder just for my blog pictures.
Voila!
I think maps are a great addition to travel blogs. Whether you use Google Maps, or Mapquest, or Streets and Trips. If you can see the map you want on the screen, then just use the screen capture feature to turn it into an image you can use like any other picture.
p.s. I just posted a member tutorial video showing this process of screen capture, editing the map, exporting and uploading to Blogger:
Making a Map with Screen Capture
This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour
Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.
13 Responses to “Using Picasa for Maps”
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[…] post. And, if you keep your map in something other than Google Maps, you can still use the Picasa Screen Capture technique to grab it and share it. If you do this, we’d love to see it! You can upload the picture of […]
[…] post. And, if you keep your map in something other than Google Maps, you can still use the Picasa Screen Capture technique to grab it and share […]
Another way to capture a map in an area you want to show in your blog is to use the new version 2.0 of Skitch (free on Google Play store) from Evernote on your Android phone or tablet and choose Draw on Map.
This allows you place a pin anywhere on the map in any location and resize the map (zoom in/out), add text, arrows, highlite in different colors, and add other shapes before saving the map for use in a Blogger blog or save it to Picasa for further editiing. The map is saved automatically in your Evernote notebook in your Evernote account accessible from a browser on your desktop, laptop or an iPhone or Android phone/tablets using Evernote apps or PC software.
Liked the tip ‘extremely’. Would have liked to print it . How do I do it?
Thank you,
DB
DB control-p on windows or Command-p on the mac. Have it print in gray scale to save colored ink.
There’s also a Print button right at the bottom of each and every post. The line starts with ‘Share This’ Then there’s a button to share with Facebook … Please Do! or by Email, Google+ etc. One of those buttons is Print.
Thank you!!! What a cool tool. I’ve never before figured out how to work with images from the Prnt Scrn.
Chris, great tip. I use the “snipping tool” all the time, works good for my genealogy work. This might work better when I want to save it as a photo. Using the snipping tool, I copy it and past it into a document.
Alicia, I use snipping tool also but, so often I find I want to add text to the result so I want to bring it into Picasa anyway. Or I need the picture on the web, and using picasa for that is the easiest. Sometimes it’s a tossup – I still use Snipping tool a lot.
This is exactly what I have been wanting to do on my Mac.
Now Picasa has released software t4hat should have bee in iPhoto11 years ago. Picasa lets you reorganize, in Picaso, IPhoto by old fashion Folders and and not events. There is a Santa!
Dick and Wendy
Great article! I have a Mac and the command-shift-3 works fine. It gives you a png image. I am not used to working with them. Gives me something new to learn. Thanks for the heads up.
If the png image from your Mac does not load into Picasa, take the image and open it in Preview. There you can choose export from the file menu and export the picture as a jpeg…We know Picasa can deal with that….
Thanks for the heads up. Picasa does load png.