Tour guide says…. It is terrible to say but when I am selecting a place to visit, I check out the pictures. A picture gives you a good idea –what kind of beaches? What about the food? Come on, admit it – you do it also…
Have you heard of Picasa? No, not Picasso. Even though you will find Picasso in Picasa you won’t find Picasa in Picasso…confused???
Enough, quit with insanity
Whether they're your grandchildren, favorite pet, Hawaiian vacation, or that embarrassing picture of Uncle Fred, everyone loves to show off their photos. And that's what Picasa is all about! It's a photo sharing website. Picasa is only one of the many photo sharing websites around. Almost everyone has heard of Flickr Flickr is one more example of this ever expanding field.
Photo sharing is the process through which we publish or transfer digital photos online thus enabling us to easily share our photos with friends, family, and anyone else we so choose! By assigning different privileges we can limit our photos to only those we want or we can launch them for all to see. Everyone can see that photo of Uncle Fred – you know the one where he had too much to drink and then Aunty… oh, I ramble….Although people have been scrapbooking and creating slideshows of their memories for years, centralized digital photography only went "online" in the early 2000s. There are many different photo sharing applications that assist with the upload and display of photographs and videos--Google's Picasa is one such tool.
Think of Picasa like one big online photo album. But Picasa goes one set further. You can edit your photos online also. Get rid of those embarrassing lines… photoshop out that bald spot…Then, create your own online album. Picasa has a web version as well as a downloadable version.
You can upload photos to Picasa in as many ways as you can dream of: from the web, your mobile devices (like your cell phone), or from your home computer. You can also share these photos in as many ways as possible: on their website, through email, by posting to outside blogs … the only limit is the technology.
You keep your photos private, or you can share your photos publicly. You can organize your albums, edit individual pictures, crop, zoom, retouch, add tags, browse other public albums and download their pictures... you name it! Simply put, Picasa is like greasing a pan: it's the butter that makes getting photos from one person to another as slick a process as possible.
But I've already got all of my digital pictures of that last party in university where I… oops, forget that….. Why would I go to all the effort of putting them on Picasa? Isn't that just extra work?
Admit it… if you have a digital camera, you end up taking more and more pictures than ever. We all do… It’s all too easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer volume of photos you shoot with that itchy trigger finger. We have all of those photos to share. And if you are like me, you want to write information on the photo – where was it taken? When? Who is in it? Using Picasa, it's possible to give your friends and family permission to view your online albums and to collaborate with you--add comments, notes, and those all important tags to the photos they like. Friends and family can flip through your pictures at their own leisure, making copies of those they like, and skipping over those they don't.
Oh, okay! I get it! So I can give people the ability to 'ooh' and 'ahh' over my photos online, and then they can add their own descriptions and messages?
Yes! And all this information--these tags and comments and notes--turns into data that in turn makes it easier for others to find your pictures and similar pictures later on, since all this info is also searchable.
So let's take a minute to explore Picasa. We are going to use the web version of Picasa. I haven’t won the lotto yet, so I have to see Ireland through pictures….Click on the Explore button on the top of the bar. Now, try out the Search feature using the search term “ireland” and see what you find. You may be surprised...
Whoa! Wait a minute! I just did that search. Most I want to run away to right now…. But what is that picture…a dog… a rally?????
I know! Weird, huh? Actually, not so weird when you think about it. That's because of those all important tags, added to the photo by the person who originally uploaded the image, and those who have commented on it since. It's the user who decides how they want to label (or tag) that photo. And as a picture can mean something different to everyone, you can end up with some pretty interesting tags. A picture of a rally, for example, could produce the tags "ireland" or "ford" or "rally"--none of which are necessarily related to the other!
Does this mean if I upload my pictures to Picasa, anyone can see them and anyone can print them and alter them?
Good question. No, that's not what this means. The photos on Picasa have been uploaded onto the website by people like yourself, meaning the photos on Picasa are owned by the individuals who put them there. You can choose to make your pictures public or private, but only public photos can be printed, saved to someone's computer, or edited by others. It's a matter of copyright. If you copy a picture, copy only those that you are allowed to. Look for clues such as “Copyright free”, “Free to use in education”. And no, putting them into your video or your PowerPoint is no exception. Try Creative Commons. Here is a sharing spot – sharing videos, podcasts, diaries, pictures, and probably a goat or two – where the owner of copyright gives us permission to use the pictures in a variety of ways. Always check to see if there are any restrictions on use (such as only print on blue paper on the third Tuesday of months with ‘J’ in them). Look for this box or one like it and click on it.
This will give you the detailed limits on use.
Enough with the bad news…
Excellent!
Your Task To complete this assignment:
For the adventurous traveller: If you have digital photos of your own, try creating your own online web album. Add tags to the photos you upload. If you're brave, download Picasa 3 to your own computer and edit your prints using the software's various editing tools. It's amazing what you can do! Further Reading: Picasa and Picasa Web Albums Help pages.
Have you heard of Picasa? No, not Picasso. Even though you will find Picasso in Picasa you won’t find Picasa in Picasso…confused???
Enough, quit with insanity
Whether they're your grandchildren, favorite pet, Hawaiian vacation, or that embarrassing picture of Uncle Fred, everyone loves to show off their photos. And that's what Picasa is all about! It's a photo sharing website. Picasa is only one of the many photo sharing websites around. Almost everyone has heard of Flickr Flickr is one more example of this ever expanding field.
Photo sharing is the process through which we publish or transfer digital photos online thus enabling us to easily share our photos with friends, family, and anyone else we so choose! By assigning different privileges we can limit our photos to only those we want or we can launch them for all to see. Everyone can see that photo of Uncle Fred – you know the one where he had too much to drink and then Aunty… oh, I ramble….Although people have been scrapbooking and creating slideshows of their memories for years, centralized digital photography only went "online" in the early 2000s. There are many different photo sharing applications that assist with the upload and display of photographs and videos--Google's Picasa is one such tool.
Think of Picasa like one big online photo album. But Picasa goes one set further. You can edit your photos online also. Get rid of those embarrassing lines… photoshop out that bald spot…Then, create your own online album. Picasa has a web version as well as a downloadable version.
You can upload photos to Picasa in as many ways as you can dream of: from the web, your mobile devices (like your cell phone), or from your home computer. You can also share these photos in as many ways as possible: on their website, through email, by posting to outside blogs … the only limit is the technology.
You keep your photos private, or you can share your photos publicly. You can organize your albums, edit individual pictures, crop, zoom, retouch, add tags, browse other public albums and download their pictures... you name it! Simply put, Picasa is like greasing a pan: it's the butter that makes getting photos from one person to another as slick a process as possible.
But I've already got all of my digital pictures of that last party in university where I… oops, forget that….. Why would I go to all the effort of putting them on Picasa? Isn't that just extra work?
Admit it… if you have a digital camera, you end up taking more and more pictures than ever. We all do… It’s all too easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer volume of photos you shoot with that itchy trigger finger. We have all of those photos to share. And if you are like me, you want to write information on the photo – where was it taken? When? Who is in it? Using Picasa, it's possible to give your friends and family permission to view your online albums and to collaborate with you--add comments, notes, and those all important tags to the photos they like. Friends and family can flip through your pictures at their own leisure, making copies of those they like, and skipping over those they don't.
Oh, okay! I get it! So I can give people the ability to 'ooh' and 'ahh' over my photos online, and then they can add their own descriptions and messages?
Yes! And all this information--these tags and comments and notes--turns into data that in turn makes it easier for others to find your pictures and similar pictures later on, since all this info is also searchable.
So let's take a minute to explore Picasa. We are going to use the web version of Picasa. I haven’t won the lotto yet, so I have to see Ireland through pictures….Click on the Explore button on the top of the bar. Now, try out the Search feature using the search term “ireland” and see what you find. You may be surprised...
Whoa! Wait a minute! I just did that search. Most I want to run away to right now…. But what is that picture…a dog… a rally?????
I know! Weird, huh? Actually, not so weird when you think about it. That's because of those all important tags, added to the photo by the person who originally uploaded the image, and those who have commented on it since. It's the user who decides how they want to label (or tag) that photo. And as a picture can mean something different to everyone, you can end up with some pretty interesting tags. A picture of a rally, for example, could produce the tags "ireland" or "ford" or "rally"--none of which are necessarily related to the other!
Does this mean if I upload my pictures to Picasa, anyone can see them and anyone can print them and alter them?
Good question. No, that's not what this means. The photos on Picasa have been uploaded onto the website by people like yourself, meaning the photos on Picasa are owned by the individuals who put them there. You can choose to make your pictures public or private, but only public photos can be printed, saved to someone's computer, or edited by others. It's a matter of copyright. If you copy a picture, copy only those that you are allowed to. Look for clues such as “Copyright free”, “Free to use in education”. And no, putting them into your video or your PowerPoint is no exception. Try Creative Commons. Here is a sharing spot – sharing videos, podcasts, diaries, pictures, and probably a goat or two – where the owner of copyright gives us permission to use the pictures in a variety of ways. Always check to see if there are any restrictions on use (such as only print on blue paper on the third Tuesday of months with ‘J’ in them). Look for this box or one like it and click on it.
This will give you the detailed limits on use.Enough with the bad news…
Excellent!
Your Task To complete this assignment:
- Go to Picasa Web Albums and sign in with your Google account information (the same email and password you use to log into your blog).
- Take some time to explore the site. When you've finished exploring, go to the Explore tab. Use the search box on the top right to find an image that interests you. Any image, any topic. (Ooo! Anything? Yup! Anything. Within reason of course.)
- Are there tags assigned to your photo? If so, make note of them. They will be listed usually on the right hand side under 'Tags'.
- When you've found a picture you like, click "Share" on the top left of the page. Note that the share tab may not be displayed. It is up to the person who loads the photos to decide if someone can share them or not. Continue through until you find one that you can share. Sharing also really is another way of saying that you are emailing a link to the picture. That is all. Nothing fancy.
- Email the picture to travelsineducation@hcdsb.org . In the message box, please include your full name (first and last).
- Finally, do another search and search for a picture that portrays you as you are or how you would like to be….You can use Flickr or Creative Commons or go wild and use Picasa. Find your picture. Make sure that you have rights to use it… If you do use Creative Commons, you will see that you have several options with which you can limit your search. Look for ones that have the word 'image' associated with them (e.g., Flickr or Google Images).
- Now, copy the picture. Save it to your computer (hint there is a file called My Pictures). Not sure how to save a picture. Click HERE to view a video on how to save a picture to your computer.
- Now go to your blog, log in, and go to Edit Photo. Now in the box Photograph section, look for “From your computer”. Click on Browse. You will browse your pictures on your computer. Identify the picture you want. Click on the picture. Click Open and now the picture will load. Sit back and watch the wonderful swirls as it loads. Depending on your computer, you may have time for a coffee…. Yeah, picture saved.
- Now, and this is crucial, scroll to the bottom of the page and SAVE PROFILE.
- What tags were assigned to the picture you sent me?
- What did you think of Picasa?
- Will you continue to use this application? Now go to someone else’s blog and post a comment on their picture… Be kind, okay? Just remember they can always come back to yours….
For the adventurous traveller: If you have digital photos of your own, try creating your own online web album. Add tags to the photos you upload. If you're brave, download Picasa 3 to your own computer and edit your prints using the software's various editing tools. It's amazing what you can do! Further Reading: Picasa and Picasa Web Albums Help pages.
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