messin' with Picasa's Bag O' Tricks

[jhain]

[alfredo]

1. I like that.

[WePurrsevere]

2. After DH tried it and kept plugging it I finally roke down, DL'd it and

have found it useful for finding some of, my "lost" pictures. If I hadn't seen this I would have gone even longer not knowing that Picasa has some very cool "toys".

Thanks for the heads up but please tell me.. how did you do that effect in there? :)

[jhain]

3. easy to use

Chose a photo- so that you have THAT photo and not the entire 'library' up
Now,the tools are on the left . Go to 'Effects' and use "Focal Black & White". Really is alot of fun to play around with - esp if you have a good photo that lends itself to such.
I just did this one- good choice for this little trick, me thinks:



This one is done by making it Black & white then hitting 'sharpen' a few times. The edges of all the leaves made this effect:




True Confession Time: I won a photo contest last year and part of the prize package was the TOP OF THE LINE Adobe Photo Software. About a $1,000 piece of software. Others here in the house were devastated when I decided to E bay it. But, I knew I would never use it; I simply didn't want to spend time figuring it out! And, honestly, the really wild effects don't so much for me. I find that I (mostly) take photos to record moments and altering the image so drastically ruins the accuracy of the moment. The Picasa program has enough to keep me busy and I have another free download that does even more. This one has the 'clone' tool- great for taking things out of the backgrounds, ( like my daughter's now Ex boyfriend who was in the family photo from a recent wedding;-), etc:


http://www.photofiltre.com/

go to DOWNLOADS.

Remember to post a few of your efforts.

[priller]

5. That's too bad

One of the nice things about Photoshop is it is THE standard, so there are many many articles of tips and how-to's and extensions and plug-in's for it. Yes, it is a bit of a learning curve (although PS Elements isn't so bad), but once you learn the basic layers and selection and masking, it's incredibly powerful.

[jhain]

6. you are right , of course

but, I have earlier/lesser versions so I took the money and ran on the big guy

[WePurrsevere]

14. Thank you! This is very good! I love programs that are worth their weight in gold....

but are FREE. :D

I especially like how the second turned out. It looks so much like line art that an artist spent hours on.

Going to check out the photofiltre now. :)

[Eurobabe]

4. Is that how the guy did that with the leaves on the trail?

Sorry I don't remember his name (CallMeWesley?) He made only the leaves colorized? Very cool. What program is this? I have Photoshop.

[jhain]

9. free download:

http://picasa.google.com/

the photofilte is quite good ( and free) also

[superconnected]

7. I prefer picasa too. I've always hated photoshop.

[xiamiam]

8. picasa has few features which are easy and faster than photoshop...

but if you want to play with an image...photoshop is the next step...but you can contrast, fill light, sharpen,etc and even a few other interesting effects very very quickly..i like it...i used it before the most recent upgrade and it was just fair..but now, its good...

[ConsAreLiars]

10. Irfanview ( a "must have" freebie) also has some EZ editing capabilities,

http://www.irfanview.com/

I haven't used Irfanview much for editing, but it is pretty straightforward, and is a great all-purpose viewer. It has a nice Batch processing mode that lets you resize and otherwise modify a whole slew of pics in the same way, and plug-ins add additional tricks.

My favorite is Picture Windows Pro http://www.dl-c.com/ which costs $90 (the Standard version is $50, but lacks some features.) What works best for you (or me) is the "best," but I like the fact that the program was designed by a photographer whose goal was simply to make a digital darkroom, rather than being a paint or graphic artist's program that has photo editing as one of many capabilities. The fact that the author was the guy who designed Lotus 1-2-3 in the very early days, and then programmed for Electronic Arts in their early days, says something about his talents, but it basically comes down to the fact that even though there is a lot (a lot!) yet to learn, the way the program works "makes sense" to me.

I'm setting up Picasa now. It looks like it has some useful features as far as organizing stuff -- something I definitely need help with.

[Eurobabe]

11. Thanks jhain!

I downloaded Picasa on my big desktop. I love it so far! It's a nice addition to Photoshop. I like how you can pull up your entire photo inventory. :)

[jhain]

12. most welcome

We must stick together.

[Eurobabe]

13. Here's one from Malta...

Same theme :D

[jhain]

15. Rates HIGH on the AHHHHHHHHHHH meter!!

I remember this one! The way their ears are framed by the roundness of the chair arms- COOL!!