extra bits | Organizing and Editing Your Photos with Picasa: Visual QuickProject Guide

Initial Picture Scan p. 12

The Initial Picture Scan option you pick may depend on whether or not you followed Windows conventions by storing images in the folders that Windows provides for such files.
As a long-time PC user, I already had other folders for image files, organized in a way that made sense to me. Thus, scanning the entire computer was the best choice for me.
Regardless of the scan option you select, you can use the Folder Manager to add or remove folders by following the instructions in Chapter 4.

To change the order of folders in the collections, you can choose a command from the View > Sort Folder List By submenu.
While the program areas in which you'll spend most of your time working are the Picture Library and Edit View, you'll occasionally run slide shows, too. See Chapter 3 for instructions on interacting with and controlling slide shows.

To see a full-screen version of a selected thumbnail, press . When you release the keys, you'll return to the Picture Library. You can also do this in Edit View.
You can open a pop-up menu of relevant commands by right-clicking any blank spot in the Lightbox, a thumbnail, or a folder or collection name in the Folder List. You can also right-click the current image in Edit View.

Other ways to exit from Edit View and return to the Picture Library include double-clicking the current picture or pressing .

When emailing from Picasa, all image attachments are converted to JPEG files. If you want to send an image that's in a different file format (such as TIFF) without losing that format, don't email it from within Picasa. Instead, open your email program and attach the file to a new message.

If you aren't sure if adding GIF and PNG file tracking is worthwhile, try it. If the Picture Library is suddenly littered with unwanted files, return to this Options tab and remove the two check marks.

Unlike most options, you may want to reset Slideshow Options before each new show, depending on the effect you want to achieve.
When playing MP3 music with a slide show, you have no control over which files are played. If Picasa finds multiple MP3s in the specified folder, it plays them in alphabetical order. To force one particular MP3 to play, rename it so it comes first in the folder or move it into a folder in which it is the only MP3 file.

To get a copy of the Picasa 2 User Guide, choose Help > Picasa Support and click the link on the Web page that appears. A PDF (Adobe Acrobat) version of the manual will download.