Picasa | Ask Ludwig

Ah, the ways “Of Mice and Picasa” [*]. How the computer mouse works, you know pretty well, but Picasa, now that is a different creature altogether.

When you make an edit to an image in Picasa those changes are not incorporated into the image file. Well, some are, but for the most part those changes Picasa just stores away for its own use.

Here is an example. Let’s say you have a precious photo of that fine wheel on your motor carriage. To show really what a hot conveyance your vehicle is you apply the Heat Map effect in Picasa.

You want to touch it up in Photo Gallery. Low and behold, the Heat Map effect is not there. The photo looks exactly as it did before.

Let’s look in File Explorer. The photo there does not show the edits either. Indeed, the edits only show in Picasa and not in any other program or app.

See that “picasa.ini” icon in File Explorer? That’s your hint that Picasa does things differently.

But you want to share your Hot Wheel with your friends. What to do?

The solution is easy, but something you have to remember. In Picasa, after you have made any edits, do a “Save As…” and save a copy of the image. That image will have the edits incorporated and they will show properly everywhere.

[*] With all due apologies to John Steinbeck. No offense was intended.

.:.

Your camera writes GPS geographic coordinates to the metadata of your photos. This location information may be stripped out during upload to the web or might not show due to your privacy settings in your Picasa Web Albums.

First make sure that there is indeed location data in your picture files. Check your camera settings to make sure that the GPS data is recorded. After importing photos to your computer, right-click on a file name, select Properties. On the Details tab scroll down. GPS data is shown below the Advanced Photo section and above the File section. It should look somewhat like the image on the right.

If you are using Windows Live Photo Gallery to upload your files to your Picasa Web Albums, check the Publish settings. Click the blue File tab, select Options, then click the Publish tab.

Make sure that the “Include all file details except…” option is selected.

Note that any boxes checked means that the information is removed from the file before it is uploaded. So make sure that Location information is not checked.

If you use another program to upload your files, check its settings to make sure that the GPS data is not removed. Many programs remove such data by default to protect the users.

Once you have made sure that the information is uploaded, sign in to your Picasa Web Albums. In the upper right click on “Settings” or the little gear symbol (the appearance is different in some browsers), click on Photo settings.

On the Settings page, click the Privacy and Permissions tab.

On this page you can specify a number of options. To display the location data, click on Automatically map photos if they contain location data so the check mark shows. Click Save changes.

Your photo locations should now be displayed for all photos that contain GPS data.

Warning!

Be extremely careful about showing location or other information that can be used by criminals to bring harm to you or others. Clear GPS and other sensitive metadata from pictures that could be misused before uploading them.