Picasa
The software we have decided to focus on for most of our discussion of image modification is Picasa. This software is a free resource provided by Google (download here) and is cross platform making it a reasonable suggestion fitting our general assumption that we can introduce you to some resources and show you some techniques, but beyond that it is best that you invest some time and explore on your own. So, do take the time to try techniques we describe and explore beyond the basics that we cover.
Picasa (the software on your computer) was designed to integrate closely with Picasa Web Albums; an online social site similar to Flickr (). You do not have to you use these resources together. For example, you could use Picasa to store images in Flickr and you can use Picasa Web Albums without Picasa. However, the combination of Picasa on the desktop and Picasa Web Albums would allow a teacher or student to accomplish nearly all of the tasks associated with images that we have outlined. We focus here only on modification tasks because we also understand that users have differences preferences and needs and hence we make the effort to expose you to a variety of tools.
Modifying images - So, simply put, we explore image modification tasks assuming that images as collected are not always optimized for a desired purpose. In the Primer, we identified the core set of tasks we recommend educators be able to accomplish themselves and also guide their students in implementing. These are basic skills suited to working with images as part of learning activities. Here we demonstrate many of these recommended skills as they might be implemented in Picasa.
We should add one comment for those of you who might try Picasa and already have an active iPhoto system on your computer. Picasa will recognize images stored by iPhoto, but will not allow you to modify these images as stored within iPhoto. This reluctance is purposeful and the two systems actually “play well together”. Rather than modify an image stored within iPhoto, Picasa will give you the opportunity to create a second copy of an image you want to modify. Actually, it creates a copy of all images within the set. If you do not want to create copies of so many images, you might first export the image or images you want to modify. Picasa will locate these images and then allow modifications.
Resizing - Captured images are often too large for many applications. The resizing feature of an image editing program or service allows the image to be converted to a different image and file size while maintaining the same relative dimensions. A common application would be reducing the size of an image to insert in a web page. The following video explains how this would be done using Picasa.
Tutorial - resizing images in Picasa [video]