In the past few years, we witnessed the dawning of a new era in digital photography. With a computer and a digital camera, many were able to create spectacular pictures that until recently would have been very difficult to do. This digital revolution in imagery had a profound impact on computer users. In recent years, both computer hard drive and digital memory card capacities have increased exponentially. At the same time, prices for these critical storage devices have dramatically decreased. As a result, digital camera buffs have been snapping up a tonne of pictures and filling their computers with an enormous amount of pictures which often makes it very difficult to find the pictures you want when you want them.
Most of high end digital cameras sold in the past couple of years come with some sort of software for organizing your digital photos and collections such as:
ACD Systems’ acdsee 7.0 or
Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0. Unfortunately, a lot of consumer digital cameras do not come with photo organizing software. So, if you recently purchased a camera that did not come with any bonus software or you are just not satisfied with the built-in photo organizer in Windows XP, you will, definitely, need to buy or download something better.Recently,
Google (yes, the search engine guys) released a very easy to use and intuitive program that attempts to help organize all our digital memories called Picasa. While Picasa, is not as sophisticated as the aforementioned software packages in terms of their built-in photo editing tools, Picasa is quite adequate for your average digital photographer. You can download Picasa 2.0, free of charge, by clicking
here.
After you have successfully downloaded and installed the program, Picasa will automatically go through and locate all the pictures on your computer. Picasa will sort and arrange all your photos into folders or albums according to date.
Professional Editing For Dummies
We all remember those photos that did not turn out so good. You know the ones with red eyes or the ones that came out a little on the dark side. The photo editing tools in Picasa are not going to blow any professional away, but will really make life simpler for your average digital photographers. Most of the photo editing tools found in Picasa can be accessed by the user through buttons or slider controls. Cropping photos, removing red eyes, fixing contrast and color can be done by clicking a single button. Straightening out a crooked picture or removing red eyes in a picture is as simple as clicking on a button. Users can also jazz up their photos with up to 12 different visual effects such as: sepia, b & w, tints, and sharpen.
Hassle Free Printing
Anyone who has tried printing pictures can attest to the fact that it is a pain in the rear end. You try to print a 4” x 6” photo and the printer prints the picture right in the middle of the sheet of photographic paper – wasting 50% of the sheet. Picasa optimizes and automatically prints to one sheet of photographic paper on your home printer. You simply choose the picture(s) you want to print, specify the size and Picasa will auto fit it to print on one sheet of paper. If printing on your home printer is not your thing, the software also allows you to order photo quality prints directly from a number of online providers that have partnered up with Picasa.
Photo Sharing
The sharing of your digital memories cannot be any easier. Users of Picasa can:
- Create and burn slideshows of their digital photos to DVDs, CDs or USB thumb drives to share with family and friends.
- Send their photos via e-mail directly from within Picasa. Picasa will even optimize the size of each photo to ensure that your photos are sent efficiently as file attachments and viewable by your intended recipients.
- Publish their photos directly to Blogger – Google’s web logging service.
- Send photos instantaneously, and securely to family and friends via a free Instant Messaging service for sharing photos called Hello.
Arts & Crafts
If editing and sharing your photos is not enough for you and you wish to get in touch with your Martha Stewart inner child. You can, also, create from within Picasa:
- Picture collages
- Desktop wallpapers
- Gift CDs
- Posters
- Screensavers
- Movies
- Mugs, T-Shirts, Mouse pads, calendars, etc. through many of the online providers that have partnered up with Picasa
So, if you are a little peeved about using Windows XP to manage your photos or you find that the software you are currently using to manage your digital memories a little daunting, go ahead and give this freebie a try. Picasa 2.0 is, currently, available for Windows users only. Guys and gals who own a MacIntosh computer are already running the best photo organizing program in the world – iPhoto 5.0. If you do not have this version of iPhoto, you can get it by purchasing a new MacIntosh PC or by ponying up $99 for iLife ’05.
Got any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to contact me via e-mail at: gb.technobytes@gmail.com.
See you soon,
~Geekboy.
Posted by Geekboy 
TECHNOBYTES 