Laura Balsam
Classes Outlines
Introduction to Digital Photography Using Picasa
Basic Fixes
Crop
A drop down list provides a number of cropping modes.
Manual lets you use the mouse to draw a crop outline customized to this photo.
The downside of this is that it will not fit standardized frames, paper or templates.
A custom crop does not have a standard "aspect ratio".
This is only of concern if you want print or use the photo in some way
that requires standard size or aspect ratio.
Standard sizes are available from the drop down menu.
The outline can be rotated horizontal or vertical
and can be made to select a smaller or larger part of the image.
The more of the original photo is retained in the crop
the higher the quality the resulting image will be.
Because Picasa has more of the original pixels to work with.
You must experiment with your camera and different image sizes
to determine what works best for you.
Straighten
The slider tilts the photo clockwise or counter clockwise.
As it does so it crops the image so you don't see the missing areas created by the rotation.
So the more you rotate the image to straighten it the more of the edge of the images get automatically cropped.
Red Eye
The Red Eye tool will show you a window where it has tried to identify all the eyes with red eye.
Most of the time this will work, but sometimes it doesn't.
If there are more red eyes in the photo you can draw a box around them. You will instantly see the effect.
Sometimes the tool will make areas worse. You can click and drag on a box to remove it.
The Preview button shows the effect without the green boxes around the eyes.
You can then Cancel or Apply the changes.
I'm Feeling Lucky
According to Picasa help:
"The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button enhances dark and bright colors in a photo and adjusts both color and contrast to optimal levels in one click."
Try it and see if it works for you.
Automatically adds contrast.
No control and you can't do it twice.
It attempts to correct for the color of the ambient light.
Luckily the effect is subtle since there are no controls
Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't.
For pimples and blemishes only.
You click on the area to be fixed and them move the mouse around areas to copy from. When you find a sport that looks good click to commit.
If you want to take out blemishes, remove lines, change heads, etc. I strongly recommend you check out the more advanced editing programs like, Elements or Photoshop.
Text
Put text over your photo.
You can select the font size and color.
You can put an outline around the letters,
or have only the outline show.
Placing an outline around your text can make it more visible,
especially if it is part of the photo that changes color.
The slider lets you select the thickness of the outline.
You can also make the text partially transparent.
You can use the fill light slider on the main editing screen, but I recommend using all the slider on the Tuning tab instead. Together they give you more control.
The Fill Light Slider will be discussed in the Tuning Section.