07 Organize the Scans

1. Terminology:

File: the actual picture or scan

Folder: an actual folder on your computer containing your pictures, or subfolders with your pictures

Album: In Picasa this is a “virtual” group of pictures only viewable as a group in Picasa; the album does not exist on the computer. I use this feature frequently as a stepping stone to a final folder containing the best edited pictures for the story I want to tell.

Collection: Another “virtual” grouping of pictures Picasa uses in the flat file structure (see #2) for organizational purposes. Again it does not exist on the computer. I do not use this as it is very confusing.

My Pictures: The master folder for your pictures and scans in Windows.

2. When you first load Picasa on the computer choose to have it scan only “my pictures” not the entire computer. In tools/folder manager choose "scan always" to keep the photo library up to date. The library of all your existing folders will be displayed on the left side of the screen. You can choose between the tree structure which mimics that on your computer or the flat file structure which lists ALL folders that hold pictures in whatever order you want to sort for. I highly recommend using the tree structure.

3. When you use the tree structure whatever folders and subfolders you create will always be on your hard drive and also viewable in “my pictures”. The organization is not dependent on viewing only in Picasa. When you sort by name, folder names starting with a year will show first (oldest to recent) followed by folders whose names start with letters (in ascending order).

4. The organization you set up in the tree structure is personal. Two general approaches:

Organize chronologically with subject matter as subfolders. For example a folder might be titled with the year and subfolders titled family history, holidays, grandkids, etc.

Organize by subject matter with the chronology as subfolders. A folder might be titled Travel with subfolders titled 2004 Paris, 2015 New Mexico, etc. This latter is by far my preference. For scanning family history I can't imagine having it scattered throughout a chronological organization. And for many scans you may not even know the year. Think about the naming of your folders. By beginning the name with year and month, e.g. 2004-05 Paris, all subfolders will be sorted for easy reference.

5. Where are my pictures?

Scans should end up in “my scans” under “my pictures”. You can change this in the scan settings to have them go wherever you want.

Camera photos: plug cord into computer, use Picasa’s import function, and decide whether to delete ones on camera. If you don’t delete them after importing to computer you will have trouble knowing what’s new the next time. But you can also tell it to skip duplicates. The imported pictures should end up in a new folder titled “today’s date”.

Phone pictures: plug in cord and turn on phone. On your computer open 2 windows, one for my pictures with the receiving folder open, and the second window to view files on your phone. Shrink both for viewing on one screen. Find the DCIM folder in phone, find and select your pictures. Drag and drop photos into the open folder in “my pictures”. I create a temporary holding folder for them in my pictures complete with a “place holder” picture so it will always be viewable in Picasa. Photos will not be deleted on phone with drag and drop. Move phone pictures into folders or delete, so next time you will know what ones are new.

6. Now’s the time to go through and cull out the duplicate and bad photos. Deletions in Picasa will be permanent on your hard drive. Move all of them to a new or existing folder within the organization you have setup. You can select and drag a picture to an existing folder. It’s important to note that Picasa will not display empty folders (even though they may exist on your computer). To move to a new (empty) folder, right click on the picture, select “move to new folder” and give folder a name. You then may want to move the folder to fit your organizaton; right click on the new folder, select “move folder”, then in popup box highlight the location you want to move it to. It will become a subfolder of whatever folder you select. When you move pictures and folders in Picasa they also are moved on your hard drive.