Need Photo Software Advice

[NightWing]

I know that many posters here are really into photography, as illustrated by the high quality pictures shared here. Therefore, I seek your input.

First of all, I am not a photo-bug, but I like to exchange email pics and download some from the web.

My new computer came with Corel Photo Album and Paint X. I hate them both. Once the free trial period was over, the software became even more difficult to use. I refuse to buy it.

All I want is something simple with the ability to re-size and maybe crop. I don't need to fool with color levels or retouching.

My old computer only had a folder titled My Pictures. Pics could be downloaded and retrieved with great simplicity and were stored with thumbnail views for easy selection. The only thing I couldn't do was re-size.

I also have HP software installed because it came with my new digital camera.
( I will use it as soon as I can figure out how to put the film in! LOL!!) You get the idea.

I learned of a free photo software named Picasa and I downloaded it. It is much simpler to use and I like it...as much as I have fooled with it. The only problem is every time I open an email photo attachment, the import photo tray still has 6 old pics that I have deleted many times. They were in the Corel software and I have emptied every folder and deleted every picture from Corel, and then I took Corel out of my start menu. Somehow, those 6 pics (of someone's half-starved kid at a birthday party) keep showing up.

OK, any advice would be great and well received.

[Winni]

Originally Posted by NightWing

All I want is something simple with the ability to re-size and maybe crop. I don't need to fool with color levels or retouching.

If that's really all you want, I've found the free Microsoft software "Picture It!" to be extremely easy and user friendly, though I prefer Adobe for the more complicated work. "Picture It!" does really quick and easy red-eye correction as well.

[Sunset Bob]

Nightwing I use HP Image Zone that came on my computer.It works very well.I can re-size crop and adjust color.Maybe your HP software will do the same.I don't know I am very computer dumb.

[Lakegeezer]

I use Picassa, which is free from Google. It crops, adjusts the picture, and can resize. The Microsoft power-tool resizer is another free and quite good resizing tool. You can get a lot more power from the professional tools, but for posting style resolution, the free stuff does a pretty good job. This was covered before and more suggestions can probably be found in the WF archives.

[Mee-n-Mac]

Originally Posted by NightWing

I learned of a free photo software named Picasa and I downloaded it. It is much simpler to use and I like it...as much as I have fooled with it. The only problem is every time I open an email photo attachment, the import photo tray still has 6 old pics that I have deleted many times. They were in the Corel software and I have emptied every folder and deleted every picture from Corel, and then I took Corel out of my start menu. Somehow, those 6 pics (of someone's half-starved kid at a birthday party) keep showing up.

OK, any advice would be great and well received.

Hmmm not too sure if I can help as I don't speak "Picasa" (PSP is my native photo language ) but let me offer a tidbit or 2. First let me see if I understand the problem. You go to open pictures in Picasa and you get these 6 unwanted pictures, ones you think you've previously deleted. According to this, Picasa looks in certain folders for any and all pics stored therein (also see this). So I'm guessing the pics are still on your hard drive some place and Picasa is looking there. First guess is that the unwanted pics are in your Recycle Bin folder and for some odd reason, Picassa is looking there. Click on your Recycle Bin and see if they're there. If so, empty the Recycle Bin. Since that's too easy to be likely, next I'd search the hard drive using Window's search mechanism (assuming you have XP, click on Start, Search, For Files or Folders, ...) for one of the pics. Use only the first part of the name, leave empty the extension. For example search for "stupid_pic" rather than "stupid_pic_1.jpg". You may be seeing some leftover thumbnails rather than the actual pictures. See where it (whatever it is) shows up. Go to that folder and exterminate the pest and his 5 friends ! Then empty the Recyle Bin for good measure. Lastly you could follow these instructions as well.

Alternately I could understand your problem to be that the e-mail program you use is showing these 6 unwanted pictures every time you go to detach/download a new picture from an e-mail. In that case it's almost certain to be thumbnails stored by the e-mail program someplace. Perhaps the above search will find them but they could easily be stored in some temporary cache someplace under nonsensical file names. Not sure how to empty that cache as this will depend on what program you use. Good luck

[NightWing]

Thank you Mee-n-Mac for a very informative post. I will try some of those things. Yes, my trash can is pretty full and contains those pics. However, I actually have more information. Yes, it started with those 6 pics. But I now know that EVERY email attachment pic I open stays in that tray, along with the first 6. I cannot for the life of me empty that tray. Now, the new attachments that are stacking up are/should be nowhere else other than still a copy attached to the email message. Yet, they don't go away.

[Phantom]

Another great viewer/editor that we've used for years is "ACDSee" now in Ver 8.

[Mee-n-Mac]

Originally Posted by NightWing

Thank you Mee-n-Mac for a very informative post. I will try some of those things. Yes, my trash can is pretty full and contains those pics. However, I actually have more information. Yes, it started with those 6 pics. But I now know that EVERY email attachment pic I open stays in that tray, along with the first 6. I cannot for the life of me empty that tray. Now, the new attachments that are stacking up are/should be nowhere else other than still a copy attached to the email message. Yet, they don't go away.

If I understand you correctly then I'm pretty sure it's your e-mail viewer storing a temporary file someplace. From what you say above I understand that whenever you open an e-mail and then view the attached pic, it shows up in the "tray" in Picasa. This happens even when you haven't downloaded, detached or otherwise intentionally stored the attached pic onto your hard drive. Your e-mail program may have a help function where you could look up temporary files or cache. I'm sure there's a way to empty/delete such files from the e-mail program. It sounds just like what Interent Explorer does .... store away things in it's temp folder (which are usually in C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files). Perhaps right clicking on the pic in Picasa as they said on their help page would also locate the location of these temp files. "Mee's" brother's wife also uses Picasa. If you haven't resolved your problem before I next visit* them, I'll see what happens on her PC.

*Likely to be soon, she want's to add another hard drive to her PC.

[NightWing]

Originally Posted by Mee-n-Mac

If I understand you correctly then I'm pretty sure it's your e-mail viewer storing a temporary file someplace. From what you say above I understand that whenever you open an e-mail and then view the attached pic, it shows up in the "tray" in Picasa. This happens even when you haven't downloaded, detached or otherwise intentionally stored the attached pic onto your hard drive. Your e-mail program may have a help function where you could look up temporary files or cache. I'm sure there's a way to empty/delete such files from the e-mail program. It sounds just like what Interent Explorer does .... store away things in it's temp folder (which are usually in C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files). Perhaps right clicking on the pic in Picasa as they said on their help page would also locate the location of these temp files. "Mee's" brother's wife also uses Picasa. If you haven't resolved your problem before I next visit* them, I'll see what happens on her PC.

*Likely to be soon, she want's to add another hard drive to her PC.

Right clicking on the photo does nothing. I have tried that before.

[Mee-n-Mac]

Originally Posted by NightWing

Right clicking on the photo does nothing. I have tried that before.

Now I'm a bit curious. If you right click on the picture in the Picasa tray, it's supposed to show you where it's located. After all Picasa found it somewhere. Are you saying nothing happens or that it doesn't list a location or that you can't delete it ? Or that you try to delete it and it just doesn't delete ?

[NightWing]

Originally Posted by Mee-n-Mac

Now I'm a bit curious. If you right click on the picture in the Picasa tray, it's supposed to show you where it's located. After all Picasa found it somewhere. Are you saying nothing happens or that it doesn't list a location or that you can't delete it ? Or that you try to delete it and it just doesn't delete ?

No, nothing happens at all.

I have since found the solution in the Picasa setup and in Thunderbird mail server. It was a matter of setting some parameters. It took a while and I had to join a Picasa user forum. There, someone had figured it out. I also sent an email to the Google design team and here is their reply:

Thank you for your note.

Picasa was not designed to be a stand alone image viewer. When you
double-click an image, it will open to the Import screen. This will
usually result in large numbers of duplicate files being created in
Picasa.

We would recommend using another program as the default picture viewer,
like Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, MS Paint, or even Internet Explorer.
The following instructions will help you to change the default viewer if
you need to.

1. Click "Start" > "My Computer" > "Tools" > "Folder Options" > "File
Types"
2. Select JPG from the list of file types.
3. Click "Change."
4. From the list of programs, select the programs you wish to view JPG
images with
5. Click "OK."
6. Click "Close."

>From now on, clicking on a JPG image on your computer or email will open
your chosen picture viewer.

Regards,
The Google Team