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CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

Using Picasa As A Photoeditor - For Faa Images

Does anyone know if Picasa can be used to edit photos, then convert the photos to jpg format? I just downloaded Picasa, and it says it saves photos in various formats that it looks like FAA doesn't accept. I hope this isn't a stupid question -- as you may have guessed, I'm hopelessly ignorant about digital photography (no unhelpful comments about what basics I ought to already know, please.). Gotta start learning somewhere, using a freeware photoeditor seemed like a good place to start, some other artists I know use Picasa and seem to like it for basic stuff, which is all I need. The images I already posted were taken by a friend. I need to start photographing my art myself. Which means I have to learn enough about digital photography to get post-able images. Any beginner level help would be appreciated.

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Heather Applegate

9 Years Ago

If you have it downloaded, upload an image to it, hit save as, and see if it has jpg or png as an option...
If it edits photos any program will have jpg as an option.

 

Bill Swartwout

9 Years Ago

Picasa will save as JPEG and that is accepted by FAA. Picasa is a capable editing program it just doesn't have all the "bells and whistles" of some others. I use it for some images but I usually fire up PSE when I'm sitting down for an editing session.

Personally I use PhotoShop Elements and have been using it for many years. It is relatively inexpensive and the CD comes with both PC and Mac installations. I have always used both types of computers. To give you an idea of how long I've been using PSE...last summer I upgraded to Version 12 - FROM Version 2.


~ Bill
~ US Pictures .com

 

Jani Freimann

9 Years Ago

As far as free photo editors go I like Gimp better.

 

CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

Jani, Why do you like Gimp better? (I have a PC with Windows).
Bill, Thank you, that's great news!
--Cheryl

 

Cricket Hackmann

9 Years Ago

Picasa works fine for basic editing: straightening, cropping, highlight adjustments, etc. And it's super simple to learn, and will save as JPEG which can be uploaded to FAA. While Gimp is definitely much more robust, it also has a much steeper learning curve.

I also like that my photos are organized and searchable within Picasa...making it much easier for me to find one from a while ago...without having to search manually through folders.

 

Colin Utz

9 Years Ago

I would go for a more complex software like Gimp. Even if you donīt need most of the functions now, you never know if you need it sometimes. And than, you donīt have to switch.

 

Janine Riley

9 Years Ago

I use Picasa & I love it. I know that my images are saved as jpg's . Try the Help section in Picasa's header, I think they also have a forum too.

Google : converting images to jpg's. I don't know what yours originated as.


I am sure someone much more knowledgeable than I will be in the thread to help you shortly.

Welcome aboard, & best wishes.

EDIT: Lol. See, that's how long it takes me to type. they already did.

 

Jessica Jenney

9 Years Ago

I also use Picasa for editing photos. It's very user friendly for beginners and yes it saves as JPG

 

CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

Bill:
What is PSE? Is that a format, or a different editing program? What do you use it for that JPG (or Picasa) won't do, or wont' do as easily?
-Cheryl

 

Jessica Jenney

9 Years Ago

PSE is Photoshop Elements.Do you shoot in JPG?

 

Fraida Gutovich

9 Years Ago

Hi Cheryl! Another editing program, which I use frequently and is free, is called iPiccy.com Check it out...it is similar to Picassa but has a few more options to be creative with!

 

Marlene Burns

9 Years Ago

I've always used Picasa...I do most of my editing before I take the pic < wink wink >

 

CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

Jessica, Thanks for filling me in on PSE. I'm pretty sure my camera does JPG, we've been storing JPG images from it on our computer, without using a photoeditor. It's a Panasonic DMZS8, nothing fancy. I'm doing this kind of backwards, first I'm finding a photoeditor that is likely to work for me - lets me adjust the colors or crop bits of wall off if I need to, Then I'll try photographing a couple of paintings. --Cheryl

 

Richard Reeve

9 Years Ago

Picasa is a fine piece of image editing software that has improved over the years but from what I recall it tends to compress to JPGs, which is why I stopped using it several years back. I think it even handles RAW files, if we want to open up that old argument again ;-)

If you can cope with the steep learning curve then I would go to GIMP once you've mastered the more-then-capable basics in Picasa.

- Richard Reeve
ReevePhotos.com

 

CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

This is bizarre. I have some photos of my art, on a disk, that a friend took. She did the electronic finishing work in Photoshop. I post them on FAA, in November and the color looks fine.... later it's pointed out to me that some of them need cropping. I decide to crop & post some images from another source, and they seem to come out fine. Then I download some of the photoshopped images from the disk into Picasa. Some of the color is now lost, the images on the disk, when uploaded to Picasa, are all slightly brownish - makes the peaches look like they're going rotten -- not appealing. Did I mess something up, or is there something about moving pictures from one photo editor (Photoshop) to another (Picasa) that can screw up the colors? It's every image on the disk... I don't have Photoshop (no plans to get it, I wouldn't use it enough), so I can't just deal with the problem by using Photoshop.

 

Jessica Jenney

9 Years Ago

You don't upload to Picasa. When you open up Picasa it loads the photos that are already on your computer. It doesn't change the photos unless you edit them

 

CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

So I must have edited them by mistake...
Any ideas what I might have done to make the reds look brown? I'd really like to un-do this, or at least not do this again.

I pulled the photos directly from the disk. If I edited them by accident, does that mean I destroyed the pictures on the disk?

 

VIVA Anderson

9 Years Ago

one little thing.........Picasa now is so tied up with G+, there is a little tiny yes/no in it that allows it to upload everything you upload to G+ ALSO !!!!!
Very hard to get off Google,G+,etc..........you have to change the permissions that come baked in with Picasa. I found every single image I ever took, good,bad,otherwise,in G+ due to that sharing via Picasa.......be careful.
Lots of forums on google about it........

I just found a way to change sizes of just one ratio..........but not in picasa.........it's in Microsoft Office Picture Manager, not in picasa, just fyi.

 

CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

Right now I'm just wondering what made my pictures brown, and whether I probably ruined a whole disk full of pictures, all at the same time. I didn't edit them individually.

To clarify: I didn't edit them *all* individually, I only worked on one.

 

Richard Reeve

9 Years Ago

I haven't used Picasa fror quite a while but if I remember correctly it creates a copy of your edited image so it shouldn't overwrite the original unless you told it to. There should be a folder called PicasaOriginals or some such name I think.

 

Richard Reeve

9 Years Ago

Also Picasa doesn't (or didn't) have batch editing capabilities so you couldn't have edited them "all at the same time." as far as I recall.

 

Marlene Burns

9 Years Ago

Cheryl, go back into Picasa and hit the undo button.
easy peasy

 

CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

Hi Marlene,
I tried that. Maybe I should re-phrase: I did what I thought was trying that. Sorry I'm such an ignoramus.
What I can't understand is, if I was only working on one photo... how could I have possibly messed up a whole CD full of images? Are there global settings, which if applied to one photo will then modify every photo on the CD?

Richard says Picasa doesn't have that. So... now what? Could it be something to do with the fact that the images I have were once Photoshopped?

--Cheryl

 

Mary Dukes

9 Years Ago

Picasa is very easy to use. It will work for FAA. Play with it for a while until you become familiar. Assuming you use Windows, send all digital files there, not into Picasa when first downloaded from your camera. Have specific folders i.e. people, flowers, places, etc. so you know where to find what you want. Make a folder just for FAA where you can COPY the photos you are going to work on or submit, leaving your 'originals' in their separate Windows folders. Then Picasa will replicate all your folders and you can edit them without compromising your 'original' files. Once you are satisfied with your Picasa edits then you export them and Windows automatically makes a folder for Picasa exports. Let the 'auto' export do it's thing and quality remains high. There's an option to 'resize' or watermark which you don't want to use for FAA.

 

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