Picasa Collages–Learning with Geeks on Tour

 Sharing Photos  1 Response »
Dec 172013
 

We’re really excited about using Google Hangouts On Air to deliver live webinars thru Youtube.  Our next webinar is:

  • Topic: Making Photo Collages with Picasa
  • When: Thursday, December 19, 2pm EST (Miami time)
  • How Long: 30 – 45 minutes
  • How to Register: Enter your name and email on this registration page.
  • How to View: After you register you will receive reminders with a link to go to when it’s time to view the live webinar.  You will be directed to a simple web page, nothing to download, no special equipment or software needed.  If you can watch and hear Youtube videos, you can watch and hear this webinar.
  • What if you miss it?  The live hangout is free to the public.  It will be recorded and the recording will be available below.

We use Picasa Collages nearly every day.  It’s so easy, yet so powerful!  Whenever you have more than one picture you’d like to print or share, you could consider putting them together into one collage.  The basics are quite simple, just select all the pictures you want to use, then click the Create menu and Picture Collage… command.  If you have the Collage button at the bottom of your screen, that is the same thing.  Now you have lots of options.  Most people don’t experiment beyond the “Picture Pile” default, but Mosaic, Frame Mosaic, and even Multiple Exposure give you many interesting styles to explore.  Add to that the ability to use borders, colors, backgrounds, page formats, captions, and you start to see the power available.  You can see more examples of collages we’ve made.

Collages13

 

In fact, the informational image above was created using the Collage feature.  It’s a collage of collages if you will!  We’ve already made several videos on how to use the Collage feature. You need to be a Geeks on Tour member to view the Shortcourse on Collages and Banners.  If you are a member but don’t know your username, please contact us.  If you’re not a member, you can join now!

We also have several free articles on collages on our PicasaGeeks.com website.

We hope you can join us for our free, live webinar on Thursday, but in any case … Make Some Collages!

Picasa Tip: Make a Collage for your Facebook Cover Photo

 Special Features  3 Responses »
Jun 082012
 

Making a Facebook Cover photo with Picasa's Collage featureIf you have a Facebook page, you may want to custom design the Cover photo.  Picasa’s Collage tool is a great way to do this.  If you are a Geeks on Tour member, we recently made a complete ‘Short Course’ on using the Collage tool.  This tip is taking just one piece of that course and making it freely available for all.

Facebook Cover Photo’s Size

The key to making a Facebook Timeline cover photo is the dimensions.  Or, more specifically the ratio of the length to width, known as the Aspect Ratio.  A little bit of research turns up the fact that Facebook’s ideal ratio is 851X315. Not quite sure why it’s 851 – that sounds a bit odd to me.  850X315 works fine.

To accomplish this with Picasa, you need to set a custom aspect ratio.  On either the Crop dimensions drop-down box, or the Page Format drop-down box, you’ll see the ability to ‘Add Custom Aspect Ratio’ at the bottom of the list.  Choose that and just enter 850X315.  See a previous tip: Resizing a Picture’s Height and Width.

Steps for a Collage to be a Facebook cover photo

  1. The proper aspect ratio for a Facebook cover photo is 850X315 (see tutorial video: Resizing Pictures to width and height)  Use the page format setting to change to that ratio.
  2. Re-crop the background photo to the 850/315 ratio as well.
  3. Shrink and move 3 little photos to bottom right in order to make room for your profile picture (avatar) in Facebook
  4. Create collage, then Export results.  Select 850 as the export size (this is not required, Facebook will resize as long as the proportions are right.)
  5. Log into facebook and hover over your cover photo,click where it says ‘Change Cover’ and Upload the exported collage.
  6. Save Changes

Here’s a tutorial video to show you exactly how it’s done.

Many more tutorial videos are available for members at GeeksonTour.tv/Learning-Library  Join Today – it’s only $58/yearly.