Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Organizing Photos with Picasa

Picasa provides more powerful photo search tools than EasyShare, making it better suited for larger photo libraries. The program’s features and learning curve put it somewhere between Kodak EasyShare and Photoshop Elements. In other words, if EasyShare makes you itch for more, but Photoshop Elements (or its price) scares you off, Picasa may be just right.

Like EasyShare, described in the previous section, Picasa draws upon your Windows folder and file system, creating thumbnails of your photos that appear in its window. Unlike EasyShare, though, Picasa lets you act directly upon your Windows folders. When you move a photo from one Picasa folder to another, you’re actually moving the file in Windows. Picasa also gives you features like Collections, Labels, and Keywords that give you more photo-handling options than you get in Windows XP.

Note

Google lets you download Picasa at no charge. To download the installer program, visit http://picasa.google.com, and then click the “Free Download” link. (For much more detail on installing software on your PC, consult a book like Windows XP, Home Edition: The Missing Manual.)

Getting Your Photos into Picasa

When you download and run Picasa’s installer, the final setup screen presents you with a handful of options. Before launching Picasa for the first time, the installer offers to place the program’s icon on your desktop, in the taskbar at the bottom of your screen, and so on. Turn off the checkboxes if you don’t ...