note 9/15/2013: Creative Kit has been discontinued.

I was recently telling someone how much I liked the text feature in Picasa and they asked, “Can it put text in a speech bubble?”  I instantly answered, “No,” since the text tool in PIcasa only places text on your picture.  But then I gave it some thought and said, “Well, you could use the Creative Kit button.”

The reason I forget about the “Edit in Creative Kit” button is that it is different from every other button in Picasa.  It takes you to the web and uses tools there.  If you have a really fast Internet connection – it works great.  If not, be patient, it takes some time.

Once you’re there, you’ll find the speech bubbles on the Decorate tab.  Pick the look you want, and it is instantly placed on your picture.  You can move it, size it, and rotate it.  Speech bubbles and other decorations you can place on your picture are called ‘Stickers.’  You will see a dialog box called ‘Sticker Properties’ where you can pick a color.  Next you want to add text.  Although you can do this back in PIcasa, it’s advisable to use the Creative Kit Text tools so you can adjust the baloon and the text to fit properly.

Once it looks how you want, you click the ‘Save to Picasa’ command in the upper right corner.  You will be given an option to save a copy or replace the original.  This is also different from the native Picasa tools.  I recommend you save a copy because Undo will not be an option.