Printing and Sharing Your Photos

There are many ways to share your digital photo. You can make photo prints (either on your own printer or using a photo printing service), email the photos, or burn them onto a picture CD. Picasa lets you do all these tasks, quite easily.

Printing Photos on Your Personal Printer

To print one or more photos on your own photo printer, follow these steps:

1.	From the photo library, select the photo(s) you want to print.
2.	Click the Print button.
3.	When the Print dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 34.15, select the print size or layout you want. You can select from twelve wallet-sized prints, four 3.5 x 5 prints, two 4 x 6 prints, two 5 x 7 prints, one 8 x10 print, or a full-page print. Figure 34.15. Printing a photo.
4.	Select whether you want the photo resized to fit the print area, or cropped to fit the print area.
5.	Select how many copies you want to print.
6.	Click the Print button.

Printing Photos via an Online Print Service

If you don't have a photo printer, or would rather have more professional prints, Picasa lets you send your photos to an online photo printing service. Your photos are sent over the Internet to the print service; your prints are then mailed to you when completed.

To send one or more photos to a print service, select the photo(s) in the photo library and then click the Order Prints button. When the Picasa Prints and Products dialog box appears (as shown in Figure 34.16), click the button for the service you want to use, and then follow the specific onscreen instructions from there.

Figure 34.16. Choosing an online photo print service.

Sharing Your Photos with Picasa Web Albums

If you want to share your photos with all your family and friends, what better way to do it than via the Web? That's where Picasa Web Albums comes in. This is a new Google service that lets you upload your pictures to a special photo-sharing website; you then send invitations to whomever you want to view your photos. And, like all things Google, it's all free.

You upload your photos from within the latest version of Picasa. Select the pictures you want to share, then click the Web Album button. Once uploaded, go to the Picasa Web Albums site (picasaweb.google.com) and click the Share button; follow the onscreen instructions to send email invitations to whomever you want. The email contains a link back to your Picasa photo album.

Viewing photos on the Picasa Web Albums site is a piece of cake. Visitors can view one picture at a time, or sit back and enjoy a web-based slideshow.

Signing up for Picasa Web Albums is totally free, for both you and your visitors. You get 250MB of free storage space, which can hold at least 1,000 normal-sized digital photos. If you need more storage space, you can pay $25 per year and get an additional 6GB of storage. Check it out!

Sharing Your Photos with Hello

Picasa isn't Google's only photo-related application. Hello is a kind of photo-oriented instant messaging program that lets you send photos to your friends in real-time. When you and a friend are connected at the same time, it's a matter of a few mouse clicks to send a photo.

You can learn more about Hello at www.hello.com, or by clicking the Hello button in Picasa. The first time you use Hello, you'll be prompted to create a username and process; signing up is free. You'll also have to download and install the Hello application, which is relatively quick and easy.

Once online, you add users to your friends list the same way you do with any instant messaging program. When a friend is online, he shows up in his own tab in the Hello window. You can then use the Send Pictures button to share photos with your friend; he can do the same on his end. The result, as shown in Figure 34.17, is an online chat composed primarily of pictures.

Figure 34.17. Viewing a photo sent via Hello.

I'll be honest; I really don't see the purpose of Hello. It's a big hassle, since both you and your friends have to be online at the same time to share photos. And if you're already using an instant messaging program that lets you send files to other users, such as AIM or MSN Messenger, why bother with yet another program to do the same thing? You may disagree and really like Hello, but I find it a superfluous application. Still, it's well integrated with Picasa, if you want to use it.

Emailing Photos

Even simpler than doing the whole instant messaging thing, Picasa lets you quickly and easily email photos to your friends and family. Just follow these steps:

1.	In Picasa's photo library, select the photo(s) you want to send.
2.	Click the Email button.
3.	When the Select Email dialog box appears, select which email service you want to use to send your photo(s).
4.	If you selected Gmail, you'll see the Gmail dialog box shown in Figure 34.18. (If you selected another option, you'll see that application's send email screen.) Enter the name of the recipient into the To: box, and then click the Send button. Figure 34.18. Sending a photo via Email.

If you like, you can have Picasa automatically resize photos you send via email to make for faster uploading/downloading. All you have to do is Select Tools, Options to display the Options dialog box, and then select the E-Mail tab, shown in Figure 34.19. In the Output Options section, use the slider to select an output size (anything less than 800 pixels wide is safe), and then check the xx Pixels, As Above option for the When Sending Single Pictures selection.

Figure 34.19. Configuring Picasa to automatically resize photos sent via email.

Burning Photos to a Picture CD or DVD

Another way to share your photos with others is to burn and distribute a CD or DVD containing those photos. Picasa makes this a relatively painless process, all things considered. Just follow these steps:

1.	In Picasa's photo library, select the photos you want to burn to CD or DVD.
2.	Click the Gift CD button (above the library window). The bottom of the window now changes as shown in Figure 34.20. Figure 34.20. Getting ready to burn a picture CD.
3.	If you want to include an automatic slideshow for your photos, check the Include Slideshow option.
4.	To include the pictures at less than their original size, pull down the Picture Size list and select a new size.
5.	Enter a name for the disc into the CD Name box.
6.	If you want to include a copy of the Picasa program on the disc, check the Include Picasa option.
7.	Insert a blank CD or DVD into your PC's CD/DVD drive, and then click the Burn Disc button.

Commentary: Other Photo-Editing Programs

Picasa isn't the only photo-editing program out there, of course. It is, however, one of the few free applications; most photo-editing software costs at least $100, in some cases much, much more. And, from my experience, Picasa does at least as good a job as most of the lower-end photo-editing programs; only Adobe Photoshop offers superior photo-editing features.

That said, let's take a quick look at some of the competing photo-editing programs:

• IrfanView(www.irfanview.com). Like Picasa, a free applicationalthough it isn't quite as full featured as Picasa, in my opinion.

• Adobe Photoshop Elements (www.adobe.com). A lower-priced, less fully featured subset of the venerable Photoshop CS program, designed with the amateur photographer in mind. Elements has always been one of my favorite programs, but it doesn't really offer much more than what you get with Picasaand it costs $90.

• Corel Paint Shop Pro (www.corel.com). This program is a little more fully featured than Photoshop Elements, but not quite as advanced as Photoshop CS. It's priced in the same range as Elements ($99).

• Microsoft Digital Image Suite (www.microsoft.com). Microsoft's somewhat undistinguished entry into the photo-editing market, similar to Paint Shop Pro in functionality and price ($99).

• Adobe Photoshop CS (www.adobe.com). Photoshop is the standard for professional photographers and image editors. It does just about anything you can dream ofbut it has a very steep learning curve, as well as a very steep price ($649).

Bottom line, if you're a casual or amateur photographer who wants something inexpensive and easy to use, I'd recommend Picasa over any of the competing products (Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, et al). If, on the other hand, you're a professional photographer or designer, you probably need everything Photoshop CS offersand can afford the price.