#googlephotos – Page 2 – Learn Picasa and Google Photos!

If you have a Smartphone, you should use Google Photos

Aug 312015

Google Photos is an app for both iPhone/iPad and Android phones/tablets. The way it works is that you use Google Photos instead of the native Gallery or Photos app that came with your device. You can set it up to backup all your photos to your Google account online, then, when using the App, you will see ALL your photos, not just the ones taken by that device.

Once you start using Google Photos, you will discover more fun with your photos than you ever imagined possible. We like Google Photos so much – no, we Love Google Photos – that we’ve devoted 3 of our smartphone learning webcasts to it. What Does This Button Do? is what we call our weekly YouTube show about learning smartphones and tablets. Here are the episodes that deal primarily with Google Photos.

In case you haven’t watched our weekly show before, they are broadcast LIVE on Sunday afternoons, then recorded to YouTube. Each show is about 45 minutes long and covers lots of learning for smartphone users. We cover a tip of the week, a beginners lesson, and an App of the week. The videos below are the 3 shows we’ve done so far that talk about Google Photos. We think you’ll learn a lot if you watch!

Aug 30 Show where we have fun with Google Photos

July 12 Show on What is Google Photos all About?

We discuss Google Photos with our good friend, Phil, in England.

June 14 Show about Getting Started with Google Photos Autobackup

Photo Management: Online or On Computer?

#googlephotos, Google Photos 29 Responses »

Jul 022015

Photos on your computer, or photos on your Cloud account? In my world, those two concepts are swapping places. I am transitioning from being computer-centric to being cloud-centric. There are 2 reasons for this transition. First, the sheer volume of pictures we take with our smartphones is overwhelming – we need an automatic way of dealing with them or they will simply get lost. There are not enough hours in the day to get those photos to the computer and organize them! Secondly, Google is redesigning their photo tools. They’re giving us free online storage for an unlimited number of pictures so let’s take advantage of it. Google sees the future more clearly than most of us, and the future of photo storage is all online.

Old Procedure – Computer is Most Important

I used to keep all my photos on my computer – I call that my Master Library. I captioned, edited and organized them, using Picasa, all on my computer. Then I uploaded only those best photos that I wanted to share with friends and family.

My computer (and external hard drive) held thousands of photos – all my originals.
My online (cloud) account held hundreds – just the best ones.

New Procedure – Computer is not necessary at all

Now I take most of my pictures with my phone and those pictures can automatically be uploaded (aka backed up) to my online account in the cloud. Using Google Photos, I can edit and organize them all in the cloud – no computer necessary at all! I can pick my best pictures and make online albums with just those pictures that I want to share. My private, cloud-based (online), account now holds the thousands of pictures I take and separate shared albums hold my best. If I want pictures on my computer, I can download just those best ones in the shared albums.

My online (cloud) account holds thousands of photos – all my originals
My computer holds hundreds – just the best ones

Pros and Cons of New Procedure

Change is hard. I’ve had a workflow procedure for the last 5 years that works great, I collected all pictures on my computer where I used Picasa to pick and edit the best ones and then upload. The only difficult part was getting the pictures from my phone to the computer and that was handled pretty nicely with Dropbox. The new procedure is easy. Photos automatically go to your account in the cloud, using Google’s high resolution setting you have unlimited storage space for free. All your photos – I call it my Master Library – are available for viewing from any device and Google gives you many wonderful ways to just see what you want. The problem is that there a few pieces missing. And, some of those pieces are very important to me.

Pros:

It’s automatic – no work involved to collect pictures from multiple mobile devices. They all go to your Google account, a private photo-warehouse in the cloud.
Google tools for viewing your photos are amazing. Search for anything you want to see and Google instantly finds them from your thousands of pictures.
Your pictures are instantly shareable because they’re already online.
Basic editing tools actually do a better job than Picasa, and there are even better tools in the companion Snapseed app.

Cons

Picasa capabilities missing in Google Photos: captions, watermark, visual indicator for best pictures, text on picture. Captions is the most critical to me.
Offline backup is still manual
Pictures from digital cameras (not phones) are not included in process
Snapseed not available from computer/web interface, when used on phones it creates a separate copy of the edited photo – not included in the process

Changing my workflow is a work in process while I get used to Google Photos. The new features of Google Photos are just SO good, I must use it, so I need to find work-arounds for the things I am missing. Please use the comments below to let me know what you think.

Google Photos Does Not Replace Picasa

#googlephotos, Google Photos, Google+, Picasa, Sharing Photos 23 Responses »

Jun 082015

Picasa isn’t going anywhere. Picasa is software on your computer for working with the photos on your computer. It’s freely available at picasa.google.com and, once you have it, it is yours to keep. Millions of people praise Picasa for being easy to use and allowing them to do things with their pictures that they never thought possible all with a click of a button or a drag of a slider. What makes us Picasa users nervous is the fact that Picasa has not changed in several years. Google owns Picasa and Google changes stuff constantly! So what’s the deal? They are clearly neglecting Picasa. Google is living in a world devoted to mobile devices and the Internet. Computer software like Picasa just isn’t sexy any more. Google Photos is sexy.

Google Photos is big news.

Google Photos gives smartphone and tablet users a way to store all their pictures, in almost full-resolution 16 Megapixels, in their Google account online. Simply download the Android or Apple iOS Google Photos App and turn on the setting for Backup and Sync. From now on, every picture you take with that device will be uploaded to your Google Account. Then, you can view them online with any device or computer browser. You can edit them and share them also. So, Google Photos is online photo management for your mobile devices.

What about the pictures that are stored on your computer? Ones that were not taken with your smartphone or tablet? You can install the Auto Backup app for your Mac or Windows computer as well. Then, all the photos on your computer are uploaded to your Google Account as well. Now you have one place for all your photos, whether they were taken with a mobile device or a regular camera and stored on your computer, they are now ALL in the cloud – in your Google Account.

A while back Google bought a photo editing product called Snapseed (by Nik software) and it became a Google product. Snapseed technology is used to edit your picture online when you click the pencil icon. In the Android Google Photos App, you can tap the menu and “Edit in Snapseed.” They are using the Snapseed tools for online editing rather than Picasa because Picasa’s technology does not translate well to web-based tools.

Picasa is Still the Best Software for Working with Pictures on your Computer

Picasa still does just exactly what it has always done. It is software on your computer (Windows or Mac) that works with the pictures that are on your computer. You can improve the pictures on your computer with various Picasa editing tools. No Internet needed. You can crop, color correct, add frames and add text. You can make collages. You can print. You can add captions and then use search to find pictures on your computer based on those captions. Picasa can help you organize your pictures into named folders, or dated folders. Picasa has tools to add tags to pictures and to view groups of pictures together in Albums.

Picasa works together with Google Photos – sort of

Picasa has always had a button to Upload pictures to online albums. It was first called simply, “Upload” and pictures were sent to Picasa Web Albums. Then Google upgraded Picasa to work with Google+ and the button changed to “Share on Google+.” That upgrade also gave us the option to upload at a size called “Best for Sharing” and get unlimited free online storage at that size. The “Best for Sharing” size was defined as 2048 pixels on the longest side. If you had a picture 2048X2048, that would be 4.2 Megapixels. Today, if you use the “Share on Google+” button, the pictures will be sent to your online Google account – the same place used by Google Photos! But, until Picasa is updated, the pictures will be limited to 4.2 Megapixels instead of the new 16 Megapixel size.

So far, Google has neglected to update Picasa to the new 16Megapixel size for uploads. They are allowing Picasa to become an orphan. I still expect the update to happen, but I don’t know when. Meanwhile, I’ll use Picasa to upload my pictures to my Google account in the 2048 pixel size. That’s plenty big enough for online viewing.

For the time being, I am perfectly happy with this photo workflow:

Use the Google Photos App on my Android and Apple iOS mobile devices. I can edit right on my phone or tablet if needed. I can view my entire online library of photos as well as the photos on my device from the Google Photos App.
I use Dropbox to transfer the full size picture from my phones and tablets to my computer. There, they are added to the original photos taken with my “good” DSLR camera as well. A complete library of my original-size photos on my computer.
Google Photos Auto-Backup is installed on my computer and it automatically uploads ALL my pictures to my Google Account in 16 Megapixel “High Quality” size. A complete library of all my photos online, including all photos that were uploaded during 2006-2012 in the Picasa Web Album days, AND 2012 – 2015 in the Google+ Photos days. They are all available to me at photos.google.com
I use Picasa to view, edit, caption, and tag photos on my computer, then I use the Picasa button called “Share on Google+” to upload my best photos to named albums in my Google Account. I can see these albums at photos.google.com –> Collections –>Albums. I can also see them using my Android or Apple devices and the Google Photos App.

I am still expecting the update to Picasa that adds “Upload to Google Photos at 16 Megapixels.” But, if it never comes, I’m still good with using Picasa as is.

Google Photos Announcement–This is BIG

#googlephotos, Google Photos, Google+, Photo, picasa web albums, Sharing Photos 18 Responses »

May 312015

A few days ago, Google announced the latest incarnation of their online photo storage and sharing service, now called simply, Google Photos.

Before I tell you the good and the bad of this announcement, let me give you a little bit of history. In 2006, Google offered an online photo storage and sharing service called Picasa Web Albums (PWA.) It worked in tandem with the Picasa software on computers and it was quite popular. In 2012 Google started the Google+ (Plus) social network and they totally reprogrammed the photo storage and sharing service to integrate it with the social network. They called it Google+ Photos. Picasa Web Albums continued to exist. If you used either of these services, your uploaded photos were stored in the same place, as part of your Google account. You could work with your photos using either Picasa Web Albums or Google+ Photos. These were simply 2 interfaces to the same set of online photos, but since Google+ photos was newer, it was the default. Unless you used a very specific address to get to PWA (https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1) you would be taken to Google+ Photos every time.

The Good

Now, in 2015, we have a third interface. The Google Photos that was announced this week. Why? Because Google is trying to get it right … and, of course, to hold on to that huge market segment of people who care about their photos! Google learns and evolves. They learned that people didn’t like to be forced into the Google+ social network in order to use the photo storage and sharing service. They learned that we all have way too many photos to manage them ourselves. In response, Google Photos is uncoupled from Google+ and it offers free UNlimited storage for photos in original resolution up to 16 megapixels.

This was posted by the folks at Google about Google+ and Google Photos:

…it’s become clear that while social networks are great for sharing images and video clips, they’re not where most people want to store all their private, personal photos and videos.
That’s one reason why Google has been hard at work building an entirely new photos experience from the ground up. One that works for the photos you want to share, as well as the ones you don’t.

Google Photos is a standalone app for Android and for Apple iOS, as well as a website – photos.google.com. These are all available now, for free. Probably the coolest new feature is found by using the Search feature. Tap the search icon (magnifying glass) in the mobile Apps, or click in the search field on the web. Instantly, you will see your photos categorized by People, Places, Things, and Types. I was amazed to see my pictures grouped under Things: Sky, Mountains, Flowers, Cars, Sunset, Boats, Kayaks, Caves, Camping, Lighthouses, and on and on. If I click (this view is private) on the picture labeled “Boats” I see lots of boat pictures that have collected in my photo library over many years.

I click on boats, and I see … boats, from luxury yachts, to

personal kayaks, to boat docks and more.

If you want to see your photos using Google Photos, there is no transfer necessary. It’s the same set of photos that you’ve been uploading all along. The ones uploaded to your Google account. Knowing your Google account is key. If you have more than one Google account, you need to pay attention to how you are logged in. If you want a master library of photos, you need to accumulate them under one account. Then you can see them using Google Photos, Google+ Photos, or even Picasa Web Albums. All three interfaces still exist so far.

The Bad

Lots of features are missing. Although it is easy to share pictures via email, facebook, and many other avenues, I see no way to simply make an album public. I am accustomed to giving a link to my photo library and anyone with that link can see all my albums that I have made public. So far, I have not found any command to do that in the new Google Photos. I also see no way, in the iPad app, or the website, to play a slide show of my pictures. The Android App plays a slideshow slick as can be, but you can’t see captions. The editing features that are built-in to Google Photos are very basic. For example, there is no way to add text to a picture, or to retouch a blemish. Picasa Web Albums is still the only interface of the three which offers to make an embeddable slideshow, it is also the only one that offers a way to get prints from your online photos, or view album photos on a map.

The Assistant is new and makes it drop-dead simple to create collages, animations, and stories – but if you don’t like what it creates you’re out of luck, no modifications allowed. And, it crashed on me a couple times trying to create Stories and Movies. I expect this will improve over time.

If you install either the Android or the Apple iOS App, pay close attention to the default setting to turn on “Backup and Sync.” This is ON by default. If you leave it that way, you will be transferring ALL photos from that device to the cloud. If those pictures are already there, you may end up with a lot of duplicates. If you pay for your Internet connection, it may get pricey! Although the Apps give you an automatic way to upload every picture taken with your mobile devices to the online photo library, if you’re like me, you still want your master library on your computer and I see no way to do that easily. So I’m still going to use Dropbox to get the pictures from my mobile devices to my computer, then I’ll let Google’s AutoBackup take them from the computer to the online library.

The Unknown

What is going to happen to Picasa? They don’t say. I still think that Picasa is the best way to interface between your photo library on your computer, and the one online, so why would Google drop it? But, Google is living in the future, a future where there are no more computers, just mobile devices and online libraries. Even if they did discontinue it, the Picasa that you have on your computer will still keep working, but it will upload pictures at the old, lower resolution rather than the new higher resolution. I expect that they will keep Picasa around for a while to come. They do need to update it just to change that one button that now reads “Share on Google+.” It needs to read, “Upload to Google Photos” and it needs to upload at the higher resolution. When I see that update, I will be confident that Picasa will be around for quite a while.

Google Drive can also see the photos in your library. It is showing all recent pictures in folders by month. I like that, but I don’t understand why it is only showing recent photos and an occasional older photo. I had understood that Google Drive would be another interface to the complete library, but it is unknown how this is being implemented.

For lots more reading on the new Google Photos, try a Google search for #googlephotos. The video of the actual Google announcement is on this blog post by The Verge.

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