Customer Reviews

Organizing and Editing Your Photos with Picasa: Visual QuickProject Guide

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am new to digicams and got hooked on the freebie Picasa program from Google almost right from the start. Picasa handled and organized all of my pictures quite well--until I had 1000 pictures from a vacation to print out.

I didn't want to use Picasa's on line printing services cuz I have a local Costco that will give me my picture, inexpensively, in one hour. But I could not figure out how to get my corrected computer pixes to Costco. The book did answer my question of how to make a CD--with the desired corrected images--and I took the CD to Costco.

That explanation alone did the trick and made the book purchase easily worthwhile. There are lots of other things that the program will do and I learned them on my own, but for others, the book would really help to get your pictures up and running.

I am still low on the digicam learning curve and decided to test PhotoShop Elements(PSE). I have taken local Adult Ed classes to learn that program. Thus, I have integrated the two programs by using PSE to correct using the clone tool and then organizing and making quickie corrections in Picasa and then making a CD to take to Costco. That's the way I do it.

Organizing and Editing Your Photos with Picasa: Visual QuickProject Guide
I had downloaded Picasa a few years ago, right after Google bought it. I used it a little, but took a course in a more sophisticated program which I later started teaching to seniors. Picasa took a back burner on my computer. I was recently asked to teach Picasa to seniors, and figured I'd better refresh my limited knowledge of it. WOW, was I impressed with Steve Schwartz's book and the Picasa program as it now stands! The book is just what it promises: a VISUAL guide. Screen shots are well done, as is the text, and the program is really quite powerful, especially for a free download. Leave it to Google, which does things right, and Mr. Schwartz's know-how to present this freebie in a clear, concise way. For the casual photographer, Picasa's editing capabilities are more than sufficient, easy to use and to understand. Likewise with the organizer. One of these days, I may just say the heck with the more sophisticated (and FAR FROM FREE) program I have been teaching--it is far too complicated and time-consuming for most people. Picasa, now promoted to an icon in my Quick Launch Bar, will be the only photo/editor/organizer I will use.

This book is about Picasa Version 2 when Version 3 is now available. There are changes between the versions. It is very difficult for a new user when what the book says is different than what is on the computer. Until the book is updated, it is not as helpful as it could be.

I am presently sorting out and editing a large lifetimes collection of family photos and decided to use Picasa to do this. It worked well but there were a number of questions and the Picasa Help was not particularly helpful, including not allowing me to be quite sure I had the right approach to the all-important issues of back-up.

I found the book to be very helpful and it has enabled me to resolve all of my queries. It is well produced and fairly simple - this is good as one can ignore the obvious pafrts and get good help where it is needed. It's now a bit out of date but not too much. All in all a very uaeful and strategic buy for anyone who is using Picasa for a managing a major collection of photos.

Book is dated; New version is Picasa 3, but most of the information is relevant. Some of the procedures lack detail and are difficult to follow.

"Organizing and Editing Your Photos with Picasa" by Steve Schwartz was a blessing to find. Picasa2 came with the new workstation I purchased. I had no idea how Picasa functioned and kept seeing new folders and duplicate pictures. Some photos were among my written files, most not. I knew it had to be me doing something I didn't yet understand. Thanks to "Organizing and Editing Your Photos with Picasa" my digital albums are now orderly and manageable. Great book! Fast shipping too.

River Bones: A Mystery Novel

This guide is good for someone new to Picasa. I was a little disappointed that more in depth subjects were not included. I was more like the For Dummies series but with even less content. Good quick reference but will have to search further for a more advanced reference.

In just the opening topics, this book lost me several times: on the page describing the Initial Picture Scan, the book provides no further advice about the choices ("Completely scan my computer for pictures" and "Only scan My Documents, My Pictures, and the Desktop"). I suspect that the first option will find system images that most users don't want to include in the Picasa library. Can these be excluded later? If I choose the second option, can I scan other folders later? How do I scan images from external media such as CDs, DVDs, external hard drives, and flash drives? Yes, this involves some words to explain, but without those words the conceptual background behind this initial choice is lost.

A second place where this book lost me: The initial description of the search tool says you can "search for matching image files and folders." Does this mean their names? Can I search for keywords (or tags) or other metadata? This is an explanation that adds nothing.

As I read the opening topics, I've collecting more questions that need answering, than answers. I don't feel that I'm building, piece by piece, an understanding of Picasa.

I'm also sorry to see that the book refers to topics by chapter number ("see Chapter 3"), but the pages have no indication of which chapter I'm in. I'd have to page through, page at a time, so as not to miss the one page that announces the beginning of the chapter. Or go back to the Contents and look up the page number of the chapter.

Dad has a large number of scanned photos he wants to manage. This resulted in lots of questions, and the purchase of some How-To books. This was one of them. It didn't answer all of his questions, but it did provide some of the information he needed. It isn't a perfect How-To, but it did help.

I found the book quite helpful- unfortunately the program keeps changing and one never has the up to date book. actually there is a new book coming out in april for "seniors" but that would make one think it is large print and words of only one syllable- unfortunate title i think.