Teaching Picasa to your Computer Club or Photo Group

 Google+, Organizing, Picasa  2 Responses »
Aug 082014
 

Computer Clubs are great ways to learn! We wanted to share with you how Google+ Hangouts on Air allows us to present a seminar remotely and then automatically have it recorded as a Youtube video.

As we travel the country in our RV, we often pass thru the corner of Iowa/Illinois referred to as the Quad Cities and we’ll give a live presentation to the Quad Cities Computer Society. We were there in June and presented a seminar we call “What is Cloud Computing” to the general meeting of the whole club. The people involved in the digital photography  SIG (special interest group) then wanted to know – “How do we use the Cloud for our photos with Picasa?” So we agreed to give a follow up seminar to their next monthly meeting where we would answer questions. The problem is that we would be a couple thousand miles away by then! So, we used Google+ Hangouts on Air to do the presentation. Since it is recorded, we can also share it with you! If you are interested in a Geeks on Tour presentation to your club, use the Contact Us form.

To watch the entire presentation will take you about an hour. I have gone thru it and marked the places where certain topics start so you can click on those links and get straight to the point.

  1. Watch the seminar starting at the beginning (well, actually, this starts after the few minutes of technical difficulties with sound.)
    image
  2. Start at 7m22s:  Using Dropbox Camera Uploads
  3. Start at 15m37s: Autobackup Discussion
  4. Start at 29m38s: Question about Ordering Prints
  5. Start at 38m29s: Question about Making Movies with PIctures and Music
  6. Start at 43m16s: Question about Resizing Pictures
  7. Start at 56m23s: Demo of Picasa Web Albums vs. Google+ Photos

 

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.

Picasa Tip: Resizing a Picture’s Height and Width

 Edit/Improve Photos  24 Responses »
Feb 222012
 

I needed a picture to be sized to specific dimensions for use in website’s header. The website instructions were clear, the image needed to be 960 pixels wide and 280 pixels high.  How can that be accomplished with Picasa?  The same process applies to printed dimensions, you just need to divide the pixels by the printed dots per inch.  So a 1200 pixel picture, printed at 300/inch is 4 inches.

There are 2 steps required.  First I cropped the picture to the appropriate ratio, then export the picture and resize the export to 960 pixels.

The Export Size

As I’ve discussed in previous articles, the option that allows you to resize a picture is found on Export command.  Select a picture, click the Export button, and one of the settings available is Export Size.

resize

But, you’ll notice that you can only specify one dimension.  If I type 960 into the image size setting, I know the longest side of the picture will be 960 pixels, but what about the other side?  Picasa will not distort your picture, so it can only allow you to specify one edge to resize, then it calculates the other edge based on the aspect ratio of your picture.

Cropping and Aspect Ratio

The other side of the picture will be sized according to it’s ratio to the longest side.  For example, if your picture is a perfect square, the two sides are equal, so your picture will be 960X960.  How do you get a perfect square?  By cropping.

Note that it doesn’t matter if you’ve cropped a small square or a big square because it’s in the second step when you specify the final size.  When you specify 960 for the longest side, you will automatically get a picture that is 960X960 if it’s ‘aspect ratio’ is a square.

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If your picture is sized appropriately for an 8X10 print, then the second side will equal 8/10ths of the longest side, or 960*.8=768.  Don’t worry if the math escapes you, Picasa makes it easy by allowing you to add a ‘Custom Aspect Ratio.’

Fullscreen capture 2222012 32215 PM Fullscreen capture 2222012 32436 PM

So now, with my Custom Aspect Ratio of 960X280 I can crop my picture, then export it to a size of 960 and be assured that the second side will be 280 – just like the website ordered!

Geeks on Tour Members can watch a video: Resizing Pictures to Width and Height, that goes thru all of the steps and shows the end result.  The video also shows how to delete the custom aspect ratio.

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.