How to use Picasa? What is this program

To date, there are many graphic editors and programs for viewing images and photos. One of the most popular is Picasa. What kind of program is it and what are its main features - this is the topic of our article.

Picasa image editor

Picasa - a popular graphics editor and organizer, image viewer. Developed by Lifescape and bought by Google in 2004. The operating systems on which Picasa works are Windows, MAC OS X and Linux. It is distributed free of charge and supports not only English, but also Russian.

The program has a built-in, so-called easter egg. If you press the keys Ctrl + Shift + Y, Teddy bears Teddy will appear on the screen.

Main Features

The main features of the program, which should pay attention to those who want to learn how to use Picasa:

• Photo editing;
• Auto-view images in both normal and full-screen mode;
• The ability to download images to a computer using a scanner or camera;
• Indexing of photos on the hard disk in automatic mode;
• Creation of collages;
• Create a slideshow of photos;
• Sending photos via email or automatically publishing them on blogs;
• Assigning images to keywords and shortcuts.

Disadvantages of the program

Picasa 3 has some drawbacks. Among them it is important to distinguish the following:

• Files with the .gif extension do not display the animation;
• In some cases, there may be problems with displaying alpha channels in png;
• There is no possibility to create nested albums;
• Image dimensions can be changed only by exporting it to another folder;
• The program does not work with multipage files in TIFF format.

Working with images

We reviewed the main features and limitations of Picasa. What kind of program is it, we also found out. It's time to talk about how to work with her.

To work with the image and then edit it, you need to find it in the gallery using the explorer and open it. You can process photos using the "Image correction toolbar" editor.

Using the buttons on the menu bar, you can do the following:

1. Remove the red-eye effect. To do this, just select the photo you need and click on the button "Red Eyes".
2. The cropping function will help to cut off unnecessary elements. Select the desired area in the photo and click on the "Apply" button. The program will delete everything that was beyond the boundaries of the selected area.
3. Alignment relative to the grid. Applicable in the event that the photo was made by a poorly tuned camera.
4. Autocorrect contrast. Using the function, you can set the most optimal level of contrast and brightness, without spoiling the saturation of colors.
5. Auto color correction - helps to eliminate color deviations, aligns the color balance. In this case, the contrast settings are preserved.
6. Retouching. Allows you to remove from photos various stains, stains and other defects.
7. Button "Text" - allows you to put text over the image.
8. Leveling lightening - using the button you can add light to the front or background, to balance the color.

Effects for photo processing

Do you know how to use Picasa to process photos and add various effects? It's pretty simple.

The program supports 12 main effects that you can apply, just by opening the "Image processing tools" tab. These include:

1. The "Increase the clarity" effect will help to make the contours of objects less vague, increase the sharpness of the photo.
2. "Sepia" will add reddish-brown shades.
3. Using the function "Black and White", you can convert any color image to black and white.
4. "Tone warmer" - using this function helps to improve the display of various shades of the skin.
5. "Grain" helps to improve the look of the photo when printing.
6. "Another shade" is used if you want to change the color of the image. In this case, you choose the shade you want, which will be superimposed on the original. This function works not only in Picasa 3, but also in earlier versions.
7. The "Saturation" button is used to adjust the color saturation. Adjustable with the slider.
8. "Soft focus" helps create a blur effect around the selected point.
9. The "Shine" effect allows you to increase the brightness of the light areas of the photo.
10. "Black and white filter" creates the effect of shooting a black and white photograph, but using a color filter.
11. The "black and white focus" also turns the image into black and white, but leaves the circular area you specified in the color field.
12. The "Tone Selection" function includes a filter with a gradation based on the color you select.

Artistic filters and effects

Also the program contains the "Other Filters and Effects" tab, where there are 24 different artistic effects that can be superimposed on the finished image.

We will not consider in detail how to use Picasa when using these functions, but only list them. So, here are:

1. Infrared film.
2. Lomography.
3. In the style of Holga.
4. HDR effect.
5. Cinemascope.
6. The Orton effect.
7. 1960s.
8. Invert.
9. Thermal imager.
10. Cross-processing.
11. Posterization.
12. Duplex.
13. Gain.
14. To soften.
15. Vignetting.
16. Pixelization.
17. Sports focus.
18. Pencil.
19. Neon.
20. Comics.
21. Circuit.
22. Shadow.
23. Passepartout.
24. Polaroid.

Creating Collages

The last thing we'll look at is how to use Picasa to create collages. You can start the function using the button "Create a collage", previously selecting the photos and images you need.

The main modes in which you can create collages:

• Randomly scattered photos (with frames and without);
• Mosaic (two kinds);
• grid;
• Index-print;
• Multi-exposure (overlay images on each other).

During the creation of a collage, you can change the size of photos and their position in space relative to the selected angle.

Conclusion

One of the most popular programs for creating and viewing images is Picasa. The Russian version has very wide functionality, allows you to quickly process images, removing extra objects, adjust brightness and contrast, apply various artistic effects, as well as create collages and presentations. A simple and intuitive interface makes it very attractive, and even a novice PC user can work with it.