What you should know

When you have edited a photo, you must save this picture.

Unlike other programs, Picasa will NOT ask you whether you want to save it.

Picasa will ask whether you want to change this, but this is not the same.

The altered photo will be changed in the library of Picasa, but this does not change it in the folder on your computer.

So if you have made changes to a picture, save it first by clicking on the button “File” in the menu bar and selecting “Save” in the drop-down menu.

Better yet, choose “Save As” from the drop-down menu, so you always have it available on the original picture, if something does go wrong.

To edit an image, we have a number of ways.

1. you double click the photo.
2. you select the photo and click the Enter key on your keyboard.
3. you right click the photo and choose “View and Edit”.

How you do it does not matter, in all cases it will take you to “Edit View”.

On top of the edit view window, we have a toolbar with the buttons “Back to library”, and it seems clear.

We have the “Play” button. When we click on it, this gives a slideshow of different photos in full screen size.

Click the Esc key on your keyboard or click the “Close” button in the navigation bar at the bottom of the slide to close.

We also have several buttons and thumbnail views to navigate between photos in the folder or album.

This is useful for example if you have some pictures that you want to edit, such as black/white. Place them all in one album first, double click a photo in the album, make this black / white, select the next photo and make it black and white, the next picture, and so on.

In this way, you do not need to return to the library to edit another photo.

And finally we have the button “Upload to Web Albums …”, more on this later.

On the right side of the “Edit View” we find three tabs: “Basic Fixes”, “Settings”, and “Effects.” All relate to editing photos and are explained in the later part of this lesson.

Below the edit view, we have three additional buttons:

The first, gets your picture back into the appropriate window.

The second gives you the photo in its actual size.

And the third shows or hides the histogram and camera data.

Crop

The first button on the first tab is the “Crop” button.

At the top left of the screen “Crop Photo”, we have a downward pointing arrow where we have the choice between more than 13 different ratios.

Whatever choice you make, it should depend on the purpose of the crop, so this I can not teach. If is it for a CD cover you choose one setting, if it’s for a slideshow on your widescreen TV you choose another setting, so you choose the setting based on your purpose.

But whatever ratio you choose, select the cropped portion of the picture by clicking and dragging in the image.

By clicking and dragging the edges, change the size of the cropped area.

If you have chosen a particular setting, both the width and length shall be adjusted in proportion.

If you have selected “Manual”, you can see the width and height changing independently.

Click the “Preview” button to preview.

Click “Delete” button to delete the selection.

Click the “Apply” button to confirm the selection.

Click the “Cancel” button to return to the “edit view”.

Place your mouse pointer in the selected area of the picture, then it changes into a “hand” and you can make the selection to move in the photo by clicking and dragging.

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