Digital Camera Master

The folders you see in Picasa’s Folder List are simply a mirror image of the photo folders on your PC. But you may find that Picasa’s window makes it easier to see more information at a glance. When you click a folder in the list, the Lightbox displays thumbnails of its contents, topped by a banner showing the folder’s name, and the month and year of its creation.

On the right side of the banner bar is a button labeled Actions. As the name implies, it leads to a menu of actions that you can apply to folders and the thumbnails inside your folders. You’ll learn about these different actions in the following sections.

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Note: You see exactly the same menu when you click Picasa’s Actions button or when you right-click anywhere in a folder that’s not a photo thumbnail.
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1. Creating a new folder by selecting photos
Say you decide your Westminster Kennel Club folder is too crowded with dog pictures. Locating shots of your Basset Hound takes way too much scrolling. You can use Picasa to divide your photos into smaller groups and place them in new folders. (When you do, you create new, smaller folders in Windows, which makes it easier to manage them there, too.) Follow these steps to make a new folder for your Hound photos:

1. In the Lightbox, select the thumbnails of the photos that you wish to move to a new folder. Picasa highlights the selected photos.
2. Right click one of the selected photos, and choose Move to New Folder from the shortcut menu. A blank Folder Properties box appears, letting you enter information about the folder you’re creating. For example, a well-chosen folder name, a caption and information about when and where the photos were taken will make browsing and searching your photos much easier three years from now.
3. Type a name and other details in the Folder Properties box. At the very least, you should enter a name for the folder; otherwise, you’ll end up with a lot of folders named Untitled.
4. Click OK to create the New Folder. Your new folder appears in the Folder List. Behind the scenes, Picasa creates a folder with a matching name on your computer and moves the selected photos to it.

2. Editing folder names and descriptions
How many times have you stared at an old snapshot and wondered: When did I take this shot and who in the world are these people? To jog your memory later, you can change the names and descriptions of folders by choosing Folder –> Edit Description. You see the same Folder Properties dialog box as when you create a new folder. In the Properties box, you can change the folder’s name, date, place, and caption. Just remember, if you change the folder name, you’re changing the name of the matching folder on your computer, too.

Entering descriptive details about your photos and folders in the Folder Properties box makes it easier to identify them months or years later. Picasa displays this information in the folder banner in the Lightbox. You can write captions as lengthy as you want, but they do cut down on space for thumbnails.

3. Sorting your folders and photos
When you have dozens upon dozens of folders and thousands of photos, Picasa’s powerful sorting tools make it easier to find what you need. Picasa gives you two ways to sort: You can sort the folders in your folder list or sort individual photos within a folder. For example, say you cropped and retouched a photo just a day or two ago. You can sort your folders by Recent Changes, and the folder with that photo jumps to the top of the list. Once you know what folder to look in, you can sort the photos within it to narrow down your search.

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Tip: If Picasa isn’t behaving the way you expect it to, you may be sorting folders when you think you’re sorting photo files, or vice versa.
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The two procedures are as follows:

• Sort by folder. Choose View –> Sort Folder List, and then choose one of three options. Choosing “by Creation Date” moves the most recent folders to the top of the list. Sort “by Recent Changes”, and the folders with recently changed photos rise to the top. Sorting “by Name” orders the folders alphabetically, with punctuation preceding letters and numbers following.

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Note: Sorting folders doesn’t change the order of your Picasa collections, and it doesn’t move folders from one collection to another. Your folders are still grouped within their respective collections. You need to look inside of your collections to see the sorted folders.
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• Sort photos within a folder. Select a folder, and then choose Folder –> Sort By. Beginners beware: Because the command is on the Folder menu, you may think you’re sorting folders when actually you’re sorting the photos within the folder. You have three ways to sort your photos: by Name, by Date, and by File Size.