User Guide

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Editing pictures with Picasa

With Picasa's advanced picture editing, you can use basic one-click fixes to improve almost any picture, adjust colour and lighting, and add any of twelve effects.

A few general editing tips:

Double-click on a thumbnail in the lightbox to open the “Edit Picture” screen. This will show you the picture you are currently editing. To the right of the picture are three tabs – “Basic Fixes,” “Tuning,” and “Effects.”
While on the “Edit Picture” screen, use the thumbnail arrows on either side of the filmstrip at the top of the picture to navigate through the rest of the pictures in that album.
To reverse any edits you made, click the “Undo” button at any step along the way.
Any edits you make to a picture are only inside Picasa; edits do NOT affect the original file on your computer's hard drive. To see edited pictures in other programs outside Picasa, you will need to export the picture using the “Picture Tray” and its controls.
For more information about the edit screens, refer to the Picasa Help menu in the software.

Basic Fixes Tab:

Crop
Use the “Crop” button to cut out parts of a picture that you do not want to see. In the “Crop Picture” view, you can select a pre-determined picture size (for instance, 4x6) or manually select the part of the picture you would like to keep. To crop a picture, dragand drop the bounding box directly over the picture. Click on and drag the corners of the box to change the cropped selection while maintaining the same proportions. Click “Apply” to save your changes in Picasa or “Cancel” to return to the “Basic Fixes” tab.

Straighten
Use this feature to fix pictures taken with an off-kilter camera. Select a picture and click the “Straighten” button. In the “Straighten Picture” view, use the slider at the bottom of the screen to align the picture against the boxed grid. Click “Apply” to save your changes in Picasa or “Cancel” to return to the “Basic Fixes” tab.

Red eye
Use this feature to remove red eye from any picture. First, click the “Red Eye” button. In the “Red Eye” view, click and drag the mouse around each eye separately to select it. As you do this, a selection box will appear over the area. Release the mouse to complete your selection. The picture will automatically be displayed with the red eye removed. Click “Apply” to save your changes in Picasa or “Cancel” to return to the “Basic Fixes” tab.

I'm Feeling Lucky
Click the “I'm Feeling Lucky” button and Picasa will change your picture's colour and contrast to produce what it thinks is the ideal image. You will see a change only if your picture is not already colour balanced. Click the “Undo Enhance” button below to remove the change.

Auto Contrast
Click the “Auto Contrast” to adjust the contrast in your picture in Picasa. Click the “Undo Auto Contrast” button below to remove the change.

Auto Colour
Click the “Auto Colour” button to adjust the colour in your picture automatically in Picasa. Click “Undo Auto Colour” button below to remove the change.

Fill Light
Use the fill light slider to add light to the foreground of pictures with too-bright backgrounds, making them more balanced. Click the “Undo Fill Light” button to remove the change.

Tuning Tab:

Fill Light slider
Use the “Fill Light” slider to add light to the foreground of pictures with too-bright backgrounds, making them more balanced. Click the “Undo Fill Light” button to remove the change.

Highlights slider
Use the “Highlights” slider to add to or reduce the brightness spots, or highlights, in your picture. Click the “Undo Highlights” button to remove the change.

Shadows slider
Use the “Shadows” slider to add more shadows to your photo. Click the “Undo Shadows” button to remove the change. Hint: you can use the one-click button to the right of the “Fill Light,” “Highlights,” and “Shadows' sliders to make fixes to your picture's lighting without using the sliders.

Colour Temperature
Use the “Colour Temperature” slider to make your picture warmer (to the right) or cooler (to the left).

Neutral Colour Picker
Use the “Pick Color” dropper to tell Picasa which part of your picture it should consider as grey or white. Picasa will colour balance the colours surrounding that selection according to the selected colour.

Effects tab:

The “Effects” tab contains twelve effects that you can apply to any still image. Effects are added in progressive layers, and you can always undo or redo the last effect you made at any time. Here are the effects you can use to improve your pictures in Picasa:

Sharpen – Make the edges of objects in your pictures crisper and less fuzzy.

Sepia – Create an “old-fashioned” effect by changing the picture to a reddish brown tone.

B&W – Turn any color photo into a black and white picture.

Warmify – Warm up a cool photo, improving skin tones.

Film Grain – Add a “grainy” film look to any picture – looks great when you print.

Tint – Use the dropper to pick a colour and apply that duotone or tint to the entire picture.

Saturation – Increases colour saturation.

Soft Focus – Soften the focus around a centre point that you select.

Glow – Give pictures a gauzy glow.

Filtered B&W – Make a picture that looks like it was taken with black and white film and a colour filter.

Focal B&W – De-saturate colour around a centre point with adjustable size and sharpness sliders.

Graduated Tint – Add a graduated filter from a colour you select. Useful for making grey skies blue.

Captions

You can add a caption to any photo while you are in the “Edit Picture” screen. Underneath the individual picture, click on the text that says “Make a caption!” Type in your caption. You can show or hide the caption from the photo using the button on the left. You can delete the caption simply by clicking the wastebasket icon on the right.

Captions in Picasa are stored in each image's EXIF data, so they stay with your pictures. If you share a picture with a friend who has Picasa, your captions will appear in your friend's Picasa view, and vice versa.

Captions are also searchable inside Picasa.