Picasa Getting Started

Transcription

1 Getting Started Picasa Getting Started

2 Table of Contents Getting Started With Picasa Overview... 1 Understanding the Picasa Main Menu... 2 Home Navigation Bar... 3 Create a New Album... 4

3 GETTING STARTED WITH PICASA Getting Started With Picasa 3 Overview Picasa is a powerful photo management system that is available from Picasa.com and is used to upload photos and videos from a PC, Mac, or mobile phone directly to the web. Once photos are uploaded, Picasa 3 makes it easy to organize, edit, and share your photos and videos. This web-based software package is available free of charge and allows you to: TIP Before using this User Guide please make sure Picasa 3 has been installed on your computer. If you have not installed Picasa 3 or need to upgrade to this version, please refer to Appendix A Installing Picasa at this end of this User Guide before continuing. Retouch photos and improve the quality of your photos by removing any blemishes, marks or scratches. View your images directly through Windows Explorer without having to open Picasa 3. Take your photos, videos and music and turn them into movies that can be viewed online. Use the editing room to shorten your movies or enhance them by adding graphics or music. Take screen and webcam captures and import them directly into Picasa 3. Use watermark and text tools to customize your photos with easy to use editing tools. Add captions and file names to your photos that appear right below your photos so you always know the photo that you are working on. Manage your photo library by creating folders and subfolders and move them around your hard drive directly from Picasa 3. Page 1

4 Understanding the Picasa Main Menu Once Picasa 3 has been installed on your computer you can launch the program by following these steps: 1. CLICK on the Picasa icon from your desktop. The Picasa Main Menu is displayed. Figure 1 - Picasa Main Menu Note: The Picasa Main Menu is comprised of these four components: Home Navigation Bar, File Menu Bar, the Left Navigation Panel, and the Main Work Area. 2

5 Home Navigation Bar The Home Navigation Bar is located on the bottom portion of the Picasa Main Menu. Before using Picasa to manage your photos and videos it is helpful to understand the concept of the navigation bar. Each icon in the navigation bar accesses a separate menu where you can do things with your photos like upload, , print, etc. Figure 2 - Home Navigation Bar The Icon Key Navigation Bar table below provides a brief description of each of the icons. ICON KEY NAVIGATION BAR Upload photos to Web Albums Send photos in the Photo Tray by Print photos in the Photo Tray Copy the photos in the Photo Tray to a folder on your hard disk. *NOTE to Cheryl: I would fill the rest with the remaining icons. Table 1 Icon Key - Navigation Bar Table 3

6 Create a New Album To create a new album, follow the steps below: 1. CLICK on the Picasa 3 icon from your desktop. The Picasa 3 Main Menu is displayed. Figure 3 - Picasa 3 Main Menu 2. PULLOWN the File Menu and SELECT New Album. The Album Properties Dialog Box is displayed. 4

7 Figure 4 - Album Properties Dialog Box Uncompleted 3. ENTER the fields on the dialog box as described below: Field Name Description TIP Required fields in the Field Description tables appear in Red and must be entered before you can continue. Name The name of the new album. This field is from 1 to XX characters, and can include special characters (@#) and numbers. Note: Untitled is automatically populated in this field. When you type a new name, Untitled will be replaced with your new album name. Date The date the new album was created. This field defaults to the current date. To change the date- enter the desired date in a MM/DD/YYYY format or click on the Calendar icon. Place Taken Description A description of where the photos were taken. This field is from 1 to XX characters, and can include special characters (@#) and numbers. A description of the album, such as the name of the event, or when they were taken. This field is from 1 to XX characters, and can include special characters (@#) and numbers. 5

8 4. CHECK the Use Music for Slideshow and Movie presentation checkbox if you want to add music to your slideshow. Otherwise leave this checkbox blank. Note: If this field is left blank, None is automatically populated in the location field (located to the left of the Browse button.) NOTE TO READERS: I WOULD CONTINUE WITH THE STEPS ABOVE AND INCLUDE HOW TO BROWSE FOR YOUR MUSIC FILES, CLICKING THE OK BUTTON TO CONTINUE OR CANCEL IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO CONTINUE. ALSO, IN THE FIELD DEFINITIONS ON THE PREVIOUS PAGE, I JUST INCLUDED SAMPLE TEXT. IN A REAL DOCUMENT I WOULD WANT TO SEE THE FIELD SPECIFICATIONS SO I WOULD KNOW THE LENGTH/CHARACTER FORMATTING, ETC. Figure 5 - Album Properties Dialog Box - Completed Note to Readers: I would include a section in the beginning called How to Use this Manual and include items such as: Include a graphic of the Picasa icon (include the icon next to all occurrences of Picasa icon) 6

9 Describe How the Calendar icon works Directives (things that you will need to do, such as pulldown a menu will appear in all caps, bolded, and italics) Example: PULLDOWN Field description box explanation of how fields are displayed and that required fields appear in RED. 7