Web album

Picasa

Web Album

The Picasa Web Album allows you to upload photo files to the Internet so that others can see them. There are two galleries: public, which is open to anyone who visits your Picasa home page; and private, which can only be viewed by someone who has the complete URL for the private page sent to them by you using Picasa email.

To use Picasa Web Album you will have to create a Picasa account. The account is free. After you create the account you can log in by clicking the Sign In link in the top right corner of the Picasa window or the Web Album button at the bottom of the window. The first time you click either link you will be prompted to create your account.

Select the photos in the Picasa Library you want to upload for the album.

To select all photos in the folder right-click the folder name and choose Select All.
To select only some of the photos ctrl-click on the thumbnails you want.

In the Send photos dialog box you can name the album and specify the size of the uploaded photos. Smaller size files upload faster and allow more files in the 250 Mb storage capacity. The photos will be resized again automatically by the Picasa Web Album. Thumbnails will be about 5-6 Kb, and the slide show photos will be about 90 Kb. The smaller file sizes allow the slide show photos to download on a 56K dialup modem in about 15 seconds.

As the images are uploading, the Upload Manager shows a progress bar. When the upload is completed, the View Online button appears. Click it to go to the online editor.

Online editor

The folder summary on the left side lists the folder name, the number of photos and the total file size of the photos in the folder. Visitors to your web album will see a very similar window without the edit tools in the bar above the thumbnails or the links on the left side.

You can preview the slideshow, rearrange the photos, add captions (the photo file name is the default caption), order prints, and share the album using the buttons shown below.

Scroll down for more about sharing.
Click the Order prints link at the top of this page for information about ordering prints.

The Picasa Web Album slideshow displays controls at the bottom of the window. The controls hide while the slide show is in progress. Move the mouse to show the controls. To exit the slide show press the X on the controls. Each image in the slide show is about 720 x 540 pixels with a file size of about 90 Kb.

See the album online.

To share a slideshow click the Share Album button. Picasa does not have an address book, so you will have to enter the email address manually, one address per message. (Picasa has an option for using G-mail -- that might be more user friendly. I haven't tested it yet.)

Send yourself a copy of the email by putting a check in the Send me a copy checkbox.

You can also email photos from your computer (instead of using the Web Album). You have a choice of Outlook Express, G-mail, and Picasa Mail. To make your choice go to the Picasa menubar and choose Tools, Options..., Email. Set the size to 480 pixels. To send photos ctrl-click them in the Library view, then click the Email button at the bottom of the window.

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