Google Power Tools Bible

Most pictures need some degree of touch-up, whether you are capturing images of your son’s soccer game or the cover of a glamour magazine. Picasa2 offers the Edit Picture screen to work with the appearance of your photos.

Follow these steps to begin editing an image:

1. Double-click an image for editing in the Lightbox to open the Edit Picture screen. You can also choose View Edit View, or press Ctrl+5.

2. A full-size image appears in the Edit Picture screen and is highlighted in the thumbnail strip at the upper right of the Edit Picture screen.

   To view a different image from the active folder or album, click the left or right arrows at the ends of the thumbnail strip, as shown in Figure 21.28.

   Figure 21.28: Select an image from a thumbnail strip at the top of the screen.

   Note

   The Basic Fixes tab appears by default at the left of the Edit Picture screen, offering correction tasks that are applied automatically. For controlling the light in an image, click the Tuning tab and work with the sliders. Add special effects such as color tints and glows using choices on the Effects tab. Read about using each of the different sets of edit tools in the next section.

3. Click Make a caption! below the image to activate an I-beam cursor and type a caption for the image, as shown in Figure 21.29. Click the Caption icon at the left of the preview area to toggle the caption visible and hidden; click the Trashcan at the right of the preview area to delete the caption.

   Figure 21.29: Add a caption to an image in the Edit Picture screen.

4. Click Back To Library at the upper left to close the Edit Picture screen and return to the program interface. You can also click Slideshow at the upper left of the Edit Picture screen to view the sequence of images in a Slideshow view.

The simplest types of edits are also the ones you use the most-isn’t that convenient? It’s simple for the lighting in your photos to be incorrect, the image may be crooked, or the background may be too dark.

Correcting basic image problems

In the Picture Edit screen, use one of seven tools included on the Basic Fixes tab to correct common image flaws.

Modifying the preview

Picasa2 displays your images at a size that fits on the Edit Picture screen. You can make changes to the magnification and view using the tools displayed below the preview area, as shown in Figure 21.30.

Figure 21.30: Use the view tools to zoom in and out of the preview for up-close repairs.

The tools include the following

• Zoom slider: Drag the slider to the right to increase the magnification of the image. As you drag the slider, an overlay shows you the portion of the image that is showing in the preview area.

  • Fit photo to viewing area: Click the button to show the image at a size that fits within the Edit Picture screen’s preview area.

  • Display photo at actual size: Zooms in or out to show the image at its actual size. The entire image is shown in an overlay view with the viewed area highlighted.

  • Show/Hide Histogram and Camera Information: Click to show a graph of the color distribution in the image. Read more about the histogram in the section “Viewing color information in a histogram.” Depending on the source of the image, you also see camera data such as the focal length and ISO setting.

Applying one-click corrections

Three of the Basic Fixes tools are applied with a single mouse click. To return to the original image state, click Undo I’m Feeling Lucky. You can apply, reverse, and redo several fixes in sequence.

The one-click corrections you can perform include:

• I’m Feeling Lucky: Click I’m Feeling Lucky to adjust the image’s color and contrast to the ideal balance based on the image’s color information.

• Auto Contrast: Click Auto Contrast to adjust the contrast in your picture in Picasa. Click Undo Auto Contrast to reverse the contrast change.

• Auto Color: Click Auto Color to adjust the color levels in your picture automatically. Click Undo Auto Color to reverse the color adjustments.

Cropping an image

The Crop tool lets you remove a section of the picture that you don’t want to keep. Follow these steps to crop an image:

1. Click Crop in the Basic Fixes tab to display the Crop Photo screen, as shown in Figure 21.31.

   Figure 21.31: Choose the crop dimensions in the Crop Photo screen.

2. Click one of the choices in the Crop Photo screen to use a preconfigured image size for the crop dimensions. If you don’t make a selection, the Manual option is selected by default.

3. Drag the mouse over the image to draw a crop box, as seen in Figure 21.32. Release the mouse and make adjustments as required.

   Figure 21.32: Adjust the crop box over the image until it is sized and placed correctly.

   You can click and drag a corner of the box to proportionally resize it, drag a side of the box to resize it dimensionally, or drag the entire box to reposition it over the image.

4. Click Preview to see how the crop appears after it is applied.

   The image is shown cropped in the preview area, and then returns to the full-sized image again automatically.

5. Click Apply to crop the image and return to the Basic Fixes tab.

Straightening an image

It’s simple to have your camera angled slightly when taking a picture. When you don’t want to keep the tilted angle for effect, follow these steps to straighten your image:

1. Click Straighten on the Basic Fixes tab to display the Straighten Picture view.

2. Drag the slider to align the picture (Figure 21.33). Watch the image rotate as you move the slider; your goal is to have the content in the image align with the grid.

   Figure 21.33: Use the grid overlay to help straighten a tilted image.

3. Click Apply to make the correction and return to the Basic Fixes tab.

Removing red eye

A common image flaw is a red eye appearance, resulting from the reflection of the camera’s flash on the eye’s retina. Click the Red Eye button on the Basic Fixes; then drag a rectangle around the red areas in the subject’s eye. You can repeat the process for as many red eyes as you need to repair in your image. When you are finished, click Apply to modify the color and return to the Basic Fixes tab.

Balancing the light in an image

Drag the Fill Light slider to balance the light in an image’s foreground and background. In Figure 21.34, for example, the image on the left before applying the Fill Light feature; the one on the right shows the results of dragging the slider to its halfway point.

Figure 21.34: Use the Fill Light slider to add light to an image to balance the foreground and background. The image before using the slider is on the left; the results of using the slider appear in the image on the right.

Adjusting light and color using Tuning tools

The Tuning tab contains a number of sliders, including another Fill Light slider similar to the one just described. Use the sliders on the tab to adjust different aspects of the image’s lighting and color. In addition to adjusting values using a slider, you can also use automatic light and color correction options using the buttons shown on the tab in Figure 21.35.

Figure 21.35: Use the sliders in the Tuning tab to make adjustments in an image’s color and amount of light.

Applying the changes

To demonstrate how different options produce their effects, the tools are applied to the same image, shown in its original state in Figure 21.36. Labels on the figure identify the impact of using the sliders at a defined setting. In some effects, such as adjusting shadows, it’s easy to see the difference between the before and after images. Tuning tools that didn’t produce any change in the image are not shown in Figure 21.36.

Figure 21.36: The before image shows a plant urn in strong light and shadow with a definite red cast.

The Tuning tools include:

• Fill Light: Use the Fill Light slider to balance the light in the foreground and background of a picture. The example shows the effect of using 90 percent fill light.

• Highlights: Drag the slider to the right to add areas of brightness in the image. The example shown in Figure 21.36 uses Highlights applied at 100 percent.

• Shadows: Drag the slider to darken and expand dark areas of the image. The example shows Shadows applied at 100 percent.

• Lighting auto fix: Click the Lighting auto fix button to the right of the Highlights slider to automatically adjust and balance areas of light and dark in the image. Applying the tool to the example image had no effect as it is already balanced.

• Color Temperature: Drag the slider to the left to make the image cooler or bluer; drag the slider to the right to make the image warmer or redder. In the example, dragging the Color Temperature slider to the far left produces a strong blue tint to the image. Dragging the slider to the extreme right has very little effect as the original image uses a strong red cast in its color.

• Neutral Color Picker: Click the Neutral Color Picker and click to sample a pixel on the image that identifies an area that is considered neutral. Picasa2 balances the colors in the image against the color chosen. Instead of using a manual choice, click the Color auto fix button to the right of the Neutral Color Picker to balance the color automatically. In the example, using the Color auto fix produces a strong shift toward the blue tones, cooling the image and giving it a blue-green cast.

Viewing color information in a histogram

Camera data and color information called the RGB (Red/Green/Blue) histogram are derived from the image’s data. The RGB histogram is a real-time graph that shows the intensity of colors in your picture and how they change when you make edits in Picasa2.

With an image displayed in the Edit Picture screen, click Show/Hide Histogram & Camera Information on the Photo Tray to display the histogram in an overlay window, such as the one shown in Figure 21.37. The histogram shows the color and light distributions for the image used in Figure 21.36. Although you can’t identify different color bands in a grayscale image, you can see that the concentration of information is at both the lower (left) end of the color and brightness spectrum and at the upper (right) end of the color and brightness spectrum. The histogram’s display identifies the high contrast settings used in the image.

Figure 21.37: The RGB histogram shows the distribution of color and light in an image.

Making adjustments to the color and amounts of light in the image produce visible changes in the histogram’s distribution. For example, Figure 21.38 shows the same histogram as that in Figure 21.37 as it appears when the Fill Light slider is set at 90 percent in the Tuning tab (you can see the image with the Fill Light setting in Figure 21.37). Now you see that the color bands have shifted to the right, as have the brightness bands. In fact, there is no color or light pixel information in the lower range of the graph at all.

Figure 21.38: The histogram shows the color and light shift to the right of the graph as the amount of Fill Light is increased.

Adding interest with effects

Click the Effects tab to display a set of 12 effects that can be applied alone or in combination with other effects. Thumbnails of the image displayed in the Picture Edit screen show samples of the different effects, as seen in Figure 21.39.

Figure 21.39: See how an effect will appear in the thumbnails listed on the Effects tab.

Select the effect on the Effects tab to apply it to the image shown in the preview area. For some simple effects, such as B&W, an image is either black and white or it isn’t-there aren’t any adjustments to make. The top five effects in the Effects tab are simple effects, indicated by the 1 shown in the bottom right of the effect button’s thumbnail. The other effects open a settings tab with one or more sliders or tools to make adjustments. Effects are added in progressive layers, and you can always undo or redo the effects you make at any time.

After you choose and configure an effect, if you try to return to the Library or click another tab on the Edit Picture screen, the screen blurs and a Confirm Edit message asks if you want to apply the filter-in itself an interesting effect! Click Yes or No.

Here are the effects you can use to improve your pictures in Picasa2:

• Sharpen: Makes the edges of objects in your pictures crisper.

• Sepia: Strips the color from the image and applies a brownish red tone.

• B&W: Desaturates the image by removing all the color, leaving only the grayscale image.

• Warmify: Warms the color in an image, adding more red tones to replace blue tones; the effect is often used to improve skin tones.

• Film Grain: Applies a grainy film look to an image.

• Tint: Removes the color from the image. On the Tint tab, drag the Color Preservation slider to define how much of the original image color should remain, from 0 to 100 percent. Click the eye-dropper to show a Tint tab, and use the dropper to sample a color from the swatches or the color display to apply to the picture. In the image shown in Figure 21.40, the coral and the crab are lovely shades of magenta.

  Figure 21.40: Select a color to use for replacing the original color in an image.

• Saturation: Drag the Saturation Amount slider left to remove color from the image, or right to increase the depth of color in the image.

• Soft Focus: The Soft Focus effect uses two sliders. Drag the Size slider to increase or decrease the size of the focus area in the image; drag the Amount slider to increase or decrease the amount of blur in the image. In Figure 21.41, you see crosshairs over the image. Drag the crosshairs to set the center point of the effect.

  Figure 21.41: The Soft Focus effect highlights an object in the image, like the crab’s spines.

• Glow: Add a soft glow to your image by adjusting the Intensity slider to define the glow’s brightness and the Radius slider to define the size of the brightened area on the image.

• Filtered B&W: The color is removed when the effect is applied. In the Filtered B&W tab, choose a color from the color picker that is applied like a color filter to the image. Depending on the color in the original image and the color of the filter chosen, areas of the image appear to darken or lighten.

• Focal B&W. The Focal B&W effect first desaturates the image. Define the size of the colored area by dragging the Size slider; define the sharpness of the boundary of the focus area by dragging the Sharpness slider. Move the crosshairs to identify the center of the image, like the example shown in Figure 21.42.

  Figure 21.42: Highlight one area of an image in color using the Focal B&W effect.

• Graduated Tint: Add a gradient using a color you select from a color picker. Drag the Feather slider to adjust the sharpness or softness of the color changes; drag the Shade slider to define how much of the color is used in the gradient.

Saving and exporting edited images

Picasa2 doesn’t save images in the same way as other common photo processing software. When an image is saved, the original version of the image is copied into a subfolder named Originals. The saved image in the folder is actually the edited copy.

Tips to keep in mind when using edited Picasa2 images:

• Edited files are saved only as JPG files at 85 percent quality, regardless of their original format.

• The original and saved copies of the image use the same size.

• Any time a change is made to an image, the Save Changes button is active on the Lightbox, as shown in Figure 21.43. the images in the folder.

  Figure 21.43: The Save Changes button is shown under a folder’s name when edits have been made to

• To save your edits to a specific location other than the default subfolder, choose File Save As and specify the storage location.

• The edited versions of your images are used for e-mailing, slide shows, and Web Albums.

• Once your images have been edited, it’s time to share them.