Picasa for Artists

The images of Picasa screens on this page will show, step-by-step, how an artist can easily use Picasa to prepare digital images of his/her artwork for presentation.

Here's the Picasa download link if you don't already have the latest version (3.6) of Picasa installed. Once installed and activated it should find all the images on your computer. The images of Picasa screens below are from version 3.6. Later versions may result in some changes to the user interface.

Below is Picasa's Library view. Make a copy of the image that you wish to edit and always work on the copy. (To do this right click on the image-->click "Copy" then Right Click where the copy is desired--->click "Paste".) If your image needs to be rotated 90 degrees single click on it to highlight it and then use one of the rotate buttons toward the bottom the screen. Then double click on the image to select it for further editing.

Picasa has three editing tabs, and this tutorial will use some of the functions on each tab. The first step is to straighten the image. Select the "Straighten" button on the "Basic Fixes" tab.

This image required only a very small amount of straightening. Click "Apply" when finished.

Next select the "Crop" function on the "Basic Fixes" tab to eliminate all the background material and square the edges.

The view below shows the crop incompletely defined. To adjust each of the edges independently do a preliminary rough crop first, as shown below, then just move the mouse over the image's edge until the double-headed arrow appears. Then left click and drag the edge for a larger or smaller image as desired. Click "Apply" when finished.

Unless a photo is taken under excellent natural light it can probably benefit from Picasa's One-Click Lighting correction. This can really brighten up otherwise dull images. Switch to Picasa's "Tuning" tab to do this. Click the "One-click fix for lighting" button.

Picasa's "One-click fix for color" button generally does a good job. However, images taken under artificial light might be better fixed by use of the "Color Temperature" slider.

Now click on the "Effects" tab. Most digital camera images can benefit from the Picasa's default amount of sharpening. Click on "Sharpen" the first button on the "Effects" tab.

Don't change the slider value. Just click on the "Apply" button to get the default-value sharpening.

That's it - almost done. All that remains is to resize the edited image (if that is desired) and then save it using the "Export" function. Two things to note about saving Picasa edits: (1) Picasa keeps its own internal record of the editing changes -- it does not change the image as stored on the computer. The image must be exported to make the changes permanent.(2) While resizing is easy to do, the resizing window only appears after the "Export" function has been selected.

Just click on the "Export" folder at the bottom of the Picasa screen to start the resizing/saving process.

Make your export parameter settings in the box on the next screen. Then click on the "Export" button and you're done.

Picasa has many additional capabilities including the ability to remove some type of blemishes. Once you get more familiar with the program you may find yourself cleaning up many of your digital photos.

The image used for this demonstration is courtesy of Joyce McKee.

If you didn't get to this page via the FALC Digital Imaging for Artists page you may wish to visit it.