Chapter 9. saving and backing up photos

If you modify an image in Picasa (changing the contrast, effects, and so on), your edits are only visible when the image is viewed in Picasa. The program never alters your original pictures; it merely makes note of the changes you've made. While this ensures that you don't inadvertently alter your original photos, it can make things difficult if you want to share the pictures with others (who may use a different program for editing and viewing images) or if you want to do additional editing in another program.

To simplify the process of sharing your pictures, opening them in other programs or on other platforms, and backing them up for safekeeping, Picasa provides four procedures. See the table below for a quick summary of the purposes and differences between them. We'll discuss each of these procedures in depth.

Procedure	Description
Save a Copy	Save a Picasa-edited image as a new file that can be viewed, edited, or printed with any program. All files (regardless of their original format) are saved as JPEGs.
Export Picture to Folder	Save any pictures (edited or not) to a folder as new JPEGs. You can optionally change the size and amount of compression.
Create a Gift CD	Copy selected folders to CD or DVD as JPEGs for display on another computer; can optionally include a copy of Picasa and a Windows program to display the images as a slideshow.
Backup Pictures	Back up photo folders to CD, DVD, or another hard disk. Images are backed up without modification, although Picasa edits are separately noted and retained.