Editing STJ photos with Picasa?

Teresa_Rae · Post by **Teresa_Rae** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:38 pm

For those of you who use Picasa to edit STJ photos, do you use the "I'm feeling lucky" option or something else?

I've been playing with different options in Picasa but haven't decided what is best yet...I don't know whether to decide on an individual basis or just do "I'm feeling lucky" on all pictures and be done with it.

Thanks

mbw1024 · Post by **mbw1024** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:58 pm

some times that helps my photos some times not. if not I just undo it.

Tracy in WI · Post by **Tracy in WI** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 1:27 pm

Teresa -

I usually edit my pictures with the software that came with my camera and thenupload them fully edited onto Picasa. I do like the storage and online photo albums on Picasa though. That didn't really answer your question, did it?

linne · Post by **linne** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 3:54 pm

I'm very glad that I was told in this forum about Picasa. It's so easy to use, and I nearly always use "the feeling lucky" option. Most of the times it improves the pictures better than other options (you can still make the pic lighter, if you want). But I'm not satisfied with our underwater pics. The pics I see in other topics are much better. I don't know if they are edited in a program which is better than Picassa, or if our camera Olympus 770SW isn't good enough for underwater pics, or if we perhaps aren't the best photographers.

By the way: Don't you think that's it's a funny expression" I'm feeling lucky"? Sometimes if hubby and I really enjoy life we have started to use the same expression

.

Linne

soxfan22 · Post by **soxfan22** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 4:27 pm

Hey Teresa - funny...just got back from St. John and have started editing my pics for the first time (had never edited before). I'm using Picasa as well. Toyed around with buying Elements, but actually Picasa has worked pretty well. For me, I haven't found the "I'm Feeling Lucky" option to be all that helpful. I've been doing things manually. One adjustment I do like is the one called "sharpen" under the effects tab.

Not too bad for free, though.

cptnkirk · Post by **cptnkirk** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:52 pm

Haven't really used I feel lucky on above water much but it does wonders for the underwater pics givem some auto color too seems to do the trick.

California Girl · Post by **California Girl** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:51 pm

I use Photoshop and the Auto Levels adjustment is about the same as "I'm feeling lucky" on Picasa. Like CptnKirk says, I find that when I use Auto Levels it does wonders for underwater shots. But here's my point: If I set my camera to the "underwater" setting, the original pictures look the same as when I forget and leave my camera set on "auto". But when I go to correct the pictures in Photoshop, I cannot "fix" the ones taken with the underwater setting on my camera. However, when I leave the camera on "auto" and use the Auto Levels in PS, I get amazing underwater pictures! Go figure. Needless to say, I never use the underwater setting on my camera and I just fix them after the fact.

Hey Linne - Have you ever seen the Clint Eastwood movie "Dirty Harry"? There's a line about "feeling lucky" in that movie.

Teresa_Rae · Post by **Teresa_Rae** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:26 am

Linne, I am guessing you are thinking of “feeling lucky” when “feeling” means:

1. the function or the power of perceiving by touch.

That is one definition, in this case when someone says he or she is “feeling lucky,” it is another definition for “feeling” such as one of the definitions below:

5. a consciousness or vague awareness: a feeling of inferiority.
6. an emotion or emotional perception or attitude: a feeling of joy; a feeling of sorrow.
7. capacity for emotion, esp. compassion: to have great feeling for the sufferings of others.
8. a sentiment; attitude; opinion: The general feeling was in favor of the proposal.
9. feelings, sensibilities; susceptibilities: to hurt one's feelings.

Does that make sense?

I know English can be confusing, especially when one word can have more than one meaning

Thanks everybody for the info on Picasa. CG, that is interesting about the auto feature vs. underwater mode…this was the first time I used an underwater camera and I took all of my underwater pictures using the underwater mode, so it sounds like maybe I shouldn’t have.

linne · Post by **linne** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:00 pm

CA girl. I think I have seen Dirty Harry, but I’m not sure. I cannot always separate one Clint Eastwood movie from another. By the way- we have seen the place in Spain, where many of the spaghetti western were taken and last night we saw and old film with C. E., where we were sure that we could recognise the surroundings.

Teresa, thank you for the explanation about “feeling” .We also have different meanings of “feeling” in Danish. But you are right, it’s so difficult when a word means different things in another language. Why I found the impression funny is that I would say “I’m feeling lucky”, if I won in the lottery, or if I have good cards playing poker (I don’t play poker), but I would not say it because I have edited a picture!

Google have an option, when you search. If I should try to translate it to English it would be
something like “ I will try my luck”. Is that the same in USA?

Linne

Teresa_Rae · Post by **Teresa_Rae** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:18 pm

linne wrote: Google have an option, when you search. If I should try to translate it to English it would be
something like “ I will try my luck”. Is that the same in USA?

Linne

Yep, pretty close

Or perhaps "I am thinking I will have good luck" or "I am thinking I will be lucky."

Now to "get lucky" means something different

linne · Post by **linne** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:11 am

Hi again Teresa!

I just want to tell you that I just have uploaded a lot of pictures to Picasa Web. And nearly all were improved more or less by using "the lucky" option.
But what has impressed me most, is the opportunity to make a dark pic ligther, and suddenly you can see much more details

That's really a step forward!

Another thing. I'm not quite sure, I understand what
"get lucky" means?? Does it mean that you will have luck, or something else?

Linne

Teresa_Rae · Post by **Teresa_Rae** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 10:52 am

Hi Linne-

A man might say that he's hoping to "get lucky" with his wife, meaning he's hoping to, well you know, do what married people do in the privacy of their bedrooms

pjayer · Post by **pjayer** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:00 am

Teresa_Rae wrote:Hi Linne-

A man might say that he's hoping to "get lucky" with his wife, meaning he's hoping to, well you know, do what married people do in the privacy of their bedrooms

Read, snore, and sleep??

RickG · Post by **RickG** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:10 pm

California Girl wrote:I use Photoshop and the Auto Levels adjustment is about the same as "I'm feeling lucky" on Picasa. Like CptnKirk says, I find that when I use Auto Levels it does wonders for underwater shots. But here's my point: If I set my camera to the "underwater" setting, the original pictures look the same as when I forget and leave my camera set on "auto". But when I go to correct the pictures in Photoshop, I cannot "fix" the ones taken with the underwater setting on my camera. However, when I leave the camera on "auto" and use the Auto Levels in PS, I get amazing underwater pictures! Go figure. Needless to say, I never use the underwater setting on my camera and I just fix them after the fact.

Hey Linne - Have you ever seen the Clint Eastwood movie "Dirty Harry"? There's a line about "feeling lucky" in that movie.

As much as I deeply wanted to participate in the feeling lucky conversation (there, I just did, ha!), I'll go geeky and talk about the software.

I *think* that the underwater setting on most cameras changes the white balance setting to one that better matches the color "white" under water. That is, shifts the spectrum so that the colors appear properly. My business partner can go on about this for hours, but the article below addresses how digital cameras implement this using terms like "green-magenta shift." You can do this after the fact in Photoshop using the ADJUSTMENTS->COLOR BALANCE control.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutori ... alance.htm

Auto Levels in Photoshop Elements works great for my older underwater camera. This works differently, it essentially takes the lightest color in an image and calls that white, the darkest color becomes black and the color histogram is then normalized between those two colors. As in, makes your whites whiter and your colors brighter by stretching all the colors out.

Another approach, for the hardcore photog (real photographers help me!) is to set the white balance manually using a white balance card.

Setting the white balance seems to make a huge difference on video cameras. It takes a lot more work to fix videos after the fact.

Cheers, RickG

linne · Post by **linne** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:01 pm

Hi again!

Thank you, Teresa. I could see from your reply that there probably was another explanation to "get lucky" than the one I suggested. Now I know

.

About editing:

Sometimes when I see some of the fantastic underwater pics, too example a turtle pic, I'm so surprised, thinking that I never have seen a turtle with such colours.

Is that the editing or have any of you seen a vividly coloured turtle?

Linne

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Editing STJ photos with Picasa?

Editing STJ photos with Picasa?