Describing New Photos

What We'll Learn

1. How to document your photos so you can easily find them later
2. Start working with folders in Picasa

The Last Review Step

Even though you could individually name each photograph, the most efficient way to document your photos is to simply give each folder a careful description. In this way, you can easily find the pictures in that folder based on any of the information you added. Once your folder has been documented, your ready to move it to your library.

Folder Naming Conventions

Exercise 2 - Combining Folders

Often you may have taken pictures over several days for a single event. In this case you want to only have one folder with all these photos. Here is how to move your photos into a single folder:

1. Change the description on one of the dates to describe your event as in the exercise above.
2. Select the second folder with the remaining photos
3. Press <Ctrl-A> to select all the pictures
4. Drag the photos on to the folder you wish to move them to

We'll learn more about working with Picasa Folders in the next section - Organizing Your Photos

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Exercise 1 - Describe Your Folder

Use the following steps to describe your folder of new pictures:

When naming your folders, it's important to think about how it will appear in your Library.

Most of your photos will be related to Events. The best way to organize event folders is:

1. Group all photos for an event into a single folder.
2. Name the folder as follows: YYYY-MM Description of the Event Significant Names
  - e.g. 2012-10 Wedding Jennifer & John
3. Add description details that might also be helpful when searching for these photos in the future

You might also take photos that are not event specific. In most cases, these fall into two categories:

- General Time Related pictures - You may take general pictures of your family, pets or home from time to time. Although not directly related to an event, it is still important to put them into some time context. Create a time based folder in your library such as: YYYY-MM General Family Pictures. Depending on how many you take, you can make a folder for each half year or quarter year.
- Topical pictures - You may want to build a collection of non-time related photos of flowers, architecture, collections etc. In this case they are not really time related at all. These are best stored in a Topical section of your Photo Library. You can then organize topic folders under this section.
  - e.g. Flowers, Exotic Birds, Antiques

1. Select the folder by clicking on it.
2. Click the Folder menu in Picasa.
3. Select Edit Description.
4. Make your edits. Any information you enter will be available for the Picasa Search feature to help you find your photos:
  1. - Name: Give the folder a meaningful name depending on whether it is an Event, General Time Related, or Topical folder.
    - Date: You can manually choose a date that should be associated with the folder. Alternatively, Picasa can analyze the timestamp of your photos in the folder or album and determine a date for you if you select the 'Automatic Date' checkbox.
    - Location: Enter the city, province or country if you wish to use Picasa's location and mapping features.
    - Description: Enter a description that contains helpful information for context or future searches.
5. Click the OK button.

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Describing New Photos