Picasa Slider Centering

Picasa Edit Controls after modification

showing centered slider controls

This fix allows the user to modify Picasa so all of these controls are centered, and thus you can adjust for either more, or less of each parameter.

This Technique was found in a UnPhotographed.Com Post: http://unphotographed.com/Blog/Making-Picasa-Sliders-Reduce-Values

A Thank you goes out to them for the Idea and the code changes! Go to the blog to get more history and suggestions.

Description

NOTE: The version of the filterdesc.xml available below is for Picasa Version 3.9 (Build 136.04.0) for Windows. Using it in earlier versions will work, but may re-label the Picnik button. For other versions of Picasa and more suggestions for modifying Picasa, go to the UnPhotographed.com site mentioned above.

The file that is modified in Picasa is the file filterdesc.xml in the \Google\Picasa3\runtime folder in the Program files directory.

For 32 bit Windows installations the full directory path is: C:\Program Files\Google\Picasa3\runtime\

For 64 bit Windows installations the full directory path is: C:\Program Files (X86)\Google\Picasa3\runtime\

There are two versions of the modified configuration file, filterdesc.xml and filterdesc-fine.xml:

filterdesc.xml modifies the slider control range to twice the original range centered on 0. This effectively results in the control having the same range in the positive direction, and an equal range in the negative direction.

-And-

filterdesc-fine.xml modifies the slider control range to slightly less than the original range centered on 0. This effectively results in the control having less range, allowing for fine adjustments in the settings. It will be renamed to filterdesc.xml if used.

See How is it Done? below if you wish to make your own changes

Installation

NOTE: Administrator Privleges are required to access files in the Program files directories.

• 1. Download either the filterdesc.xml file or the filterdesc-fine.xml and save it for later.

  2. If you want to have fine adjustments, rename the filterdesc-fine.xml file to filterdesc.xml and use that file in the following steps.

  3. go to the Picasa3 program directory runtime folder:

     1. C:\Program Files\Google\Picasa3\runtime if using a 32 bit version of windows, or

     2. C:\Program Files (X86)\Google\Picasa3\runtime if using a 64 bit version of windows

  4. In the runtime folder, rename the filterdesc.xml file to filterdesc-old.xml. This allows you to restore the original if there is a problem.

  5. Copy the filterdesc.xml file downloaded above into the runtime folder.

  6. Exit and restart Picasa if it was running, and try the modified editing controls.

If you don't like the results or something doesn't work right, erase the filterdesc.xml file you just added, and rename the filterdesc-old.xml to filterdesc.xml. Restart Picasa and it should be back to normal.

Downloads

Here are the two files described above. Click on the file name to download.

filterdesc.xml - Filter description file with the slider controls centered and the range remaining the same in each direction.

filterdesc-fine.xml - Filter description file with the slider controls centered and the range cut in half for finer control.

After downloading, rename to filterdesc.xml before copying to the runtime folder.

How Is It Done?

There is a section in the Picasa filterdesc.xml file that defines the operation of the slider controls for Fill Light, Highlight, and Shadows.

These controls are presently defined so the default position for no effect is to the left end of the control. This means the control can only increase whatever effect it is controlling.

The files provided here are modified so the default position for no effect is in the center of the range. This means each slider can either increase or decrease the effect. For fill Light for instance the slider can now lighten or darken the photo.

To find the specific changes done to the Filterdesc.xml file compare the section of the stock file that is labeled:

<!-- TUNING2 new version with Kelvin color temp --> with the code snippet below.

The changes involve adding an Offset parameter to the definition of each control,

and increasing the range parameter to compensate for the slider going either + or -

The offset should be one half of the range to center the control or it can be customized, for instance to have no change be at one fourth of the range, set the offset to one forth of the range value.

To allow finer adjustment of the control, the range and offset could be made less so the same change would require a larger slider movement.

Modified FilterDesc.xml Code snippet

<!-- TUNING2 new version with Kelvin color temp -->

<filter id="finetune2" mode="soft" zerostate="zero">

<label>Tuning</label>

<cursor type="dropper" persist="0"/>

<colorcircle id="0"/>

<sliders>

<slider id="0">

<label>Fill Light</label>

<range>2.0</range>

<offset>1.0</offset>

</slider>

<slider id="1">

<label>Highlights</label>

<range>0.96</range>

<offset>0.48</offset>

</slider>

<slider id="2">

<label>Shadows</label>

<range>0.96</range>

<offset>0.48</offset>

</slider>

<slider id="3">

<label>Color Temperature</label>

<range>2.0</range>

<offset>1.0</offset>

</slider>

</sliders>

</filter>