Using Picasa for your Webpage

This site will work best when it contains many webpages from our members, and those web pages are kept up to date.  If the webmaster has to routinely make image changes, then overload will quickly occur.  There’s a good answer to this problem – you can help by managing your own images using Picasa, the free photo application from Google.  If you install Picasa, and upload an album to your Picasa web albums, then we can ask our website to auto-magically check that album for new images.  In the future, when you rearrange your photos, delete items, add new stuff, or change captions, your web space on our site will instantly reflect your changes (without human intervention).  Here’s how:

Install the Picasa application on your computer; it’s available free for both PC and Mac, all recent operating systems.  Go here: http://picasa.google.com/ and download the latest version, and watch the “video introduction” linked on that page.

Make sure you have watched the “video introduction” BEFORE you continue!

Note that the Picasa application on your computer is really just an image file viewer, with some simple editing capabilities.  You don’t “place images in Picasa”, it just looks at your image files the way you organized them on your computer.  Its edits are nondestructive; you won’t mess up your original files.  Also, it allows you to view many file formats at the same time, including jpeg, unconverted RAW files, TIFFs, png, psd, and gif.  It’s no replacement for PhotoShop, but it can do some batch jobs (change a whole folder of images to a default size and format with one click) that are difficult or very time consuming in PhotoShop.  I use them both.

Helpful hint: Picasa is a bit over-eager.  It will want to scan your entire computer for all images you ever downloaded.  Instead, tell it just to look at the folders containing your photos.  Do this by going to Tools/folder manager:

Make sure that “scan always” only shows on the folders you want Picasa to regularly view.  You can change this later, if you change your mind.

Next, select some images and then press “upload” to place them in your web album. Do this by clicking the “upload” link at the bottom of the page, after selecting photos:

If you haven’t done this before, you’ll be prompted to set up your web album account.  Don’t worry, it’s free.   Follow the on-screen directions to set up your web album.

From this point on, when you upload to your web albums, you’ll see a screen similar to this:

First, carefully check the “upload to this album” dialog.  Make sure you’re uploading to the album you’ll use for your web presence on our site.

Second, check a recommended size; use 1600 for visual arts stuff, 1600 or 1024 for camera club stuff.  If your images are smaller, it will upload at their full size.  It will NOT upsize your images (this is good).

Third, check “visibility”, and make sure it’s “public on the web”.

Fourth, make sure you have room on the web.  It will take you a very long time to reach the 1.0GB free web limit.  If you do (not probable), an additional 20GB is only $5 a year.

Then, click “upload”, and Picasa will do the rest.

Once things are uploaded, you can look on the web to see your images, using the dialog box that automatically appears.  Do that, making sure you’re looking at the album you wish to share with our web site.  Then check the URL for your on-the-web page:

Your data will, of course, look different.  Copy this URL and place it in an e mail to your webmaster.  Don’t send it yet!

Then, go back to the Picasa application.  Look in the upper right hand corner, and see information that looks like this:

Copy the sign in data; in this case, it’s: picasa@sequimarts.org

Place this information in the open e mail you are sending to the webmaster.

Send the e mail.  You’re almost done.

Next, buy your webmaster a beer or pizza for all this hard work.

Finally, await fame and fortune when others see your web, and admire your work.