Picasa Help

Looking for a simple way to get photos from your camera and computer on the web? Picasa Web Albums provides 1 GB of free storage that makes sharing your photos quick and easy.

Table of content

• Getting your photos (and videos) online
• Sharing your photos
• Managing your photos
• Discovering new photographs
• Doing more with your photos

Getting your photos (and videos) online

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Picasa Web Albums offers several options for uploading your photos and videos to the web from a PC, Mac, or even your mobile phone.

Uploading from Picasa

The free Picasa software is designed to make uploading easy. You control the upload size and album privacy. Click the Upload button (displayed below) to upload your selected photos and videos to Picasa Web Albums. Use the Share button located in the folder or album header to upload and send email invitations to your friends and family, all in one click.

Uploading from your browser

Using Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, you can upload photos directly from your hard drive to Picasa Web Albums. Follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Picasa Web Albums
2. Click the Upload button.
3. Choose between the Basic Uploader (all browsers) and the Upload Control (Just Internet Explorer).

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Sharing your photos

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Picasa Web Albums makes it easy to share your photos with anyone and everyone -- or you can also choose to keep them to yourself. Sharing is as simple as sending an email invitation or the unique URL for your gallery. If you'd rather keep your photos private, it's as simple as clicking a button.

Sharing with friends and family

Use the Share buttons in Picasa and Picsa Web Albums to send custom email invitations to view your online albums. The Share buttons make managing access to your online albums much easier:

• Keep track of who you've shared with: Everyone you invite using the Share buttons will be added to the album-specific 'Shared With' list.
• Use one web address to share all your photos: When friends visit your gallery (http://picasaweb.google.com/username), they'll be able to see your public albums and also every album you've shared with them -- regardless of album privacy setting.

Keeping photos personal

If you'd prefer to limit access to your photos, you have a few options:

Unlisted albums have a combination of letters and numbers in the web address which make it very difficult to guess. Only those with the exact web address will be able to view the album.

'Sign-in required to view' is the most private option. This allows you to specify by name who can view the album. You can change these settings at any time. Learn more.

Sharing with the world

If you have some great shots you'd like others to see, you can make your public albums searchable. This lets people find your public photos when searching on Picasa Web Albums and also on other Google services, including Image Search.

Controlling use of your photos

With the new Creative Commons licensing feature on Picasa Web Albums, you can choose a CC license for your images that enables you to share your work while retaining control over its use.

For example, say you've got a great shot of Yosemite National Park. Picasa Web Albums allows you to choose a Creative Commons license feature for your image. This gives you total control over how other users can use your image. You can adjust the creative commons setting at the account level or for an individual picture.

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Managing your photos

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Focus on people

Naming people in your photos is easy. Our new technology lets you quickly and easily add name tags to your photos so you can organize your photo collection according to the people present in your pictures. The more name tags you add, the better we get at making name tag suggestions for new photos. You'll be amazed at how quickly you can name everyone in your albums. Then you can do things like "show all pictures of Mom and Dad together" or create a slideshow featuring a select group of friends. Name tags also makes sharing these customized creations a breeze. Learn more.

Put your photos on the map

Using integration with Google Maps and Google Earth, you can add location information to your photos and see them on the map. Learn more.

Sync your edits to Picasa Web Albums

Picasa and Picasa Web Albums can work together to make sure your most recent changes are reflected in your online albums. By enabling Sync to Web for a folder or album in Picasa, changes made in Picasa will be copied immediately to your online Picasa Web Album. In addition to photo edits, you can sync the changes for captions, tags, and geotags. Learn more.

You can also control many of your online album settings directly from Picasa. Use the down-arrow menu to the right of the Share button in Picasa to control online album privacy, online image size, and much more. Select Refresh Online Status to copy captions, tags, and geotags you've added in Picasa Web Albums to corresponding photos in Picasa. Learn more.

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Discovering new photographs

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The new Picasa Web Albums Explore Page can help you discover interesting public content from millions of users across the globe.

• You can browse the 'Featured Photos' and 'Popular Tags' sections to see the most popular images and keywords.
• Check out 'Recent Photos' to see pictures as they're being uploaded by other users.
• Last but not least, take a break and play 'Where In The World?' by guessing where photos were taken.

When you see a photo you like, leave a comment or add the gallery owner as a favorite. Whenever your favorites add new photos to their gallery, you can choose to be notified via email digests; alternatively, you can see a list of recent activity by your favorites right on your own gallery.

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Doing more with your photos

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As you get to know Picasa Web Albums, you'll find many more features that allow you to take your photos further. Create and embed a portable Flash slideshow (in English only) on your blog or any other web page. You can use your mobile phone (in English only) to see any picture you've posted to Picasa Web Albums. And now all photos uploaded through Blogger appear in Picasa Web Albums, so that photos you use in both services can be managed from one place.

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