How To Edit Videos With Picasa 3

Picasa is well-known as a top-notch integrated image organizer, photo editor and enhancer, with fantastic online galleries. In addition to its capable photo editing and organizing tools, the latest version, Picasa 3, now lets you do basic video editing and make your own movie as well.

As a Google product, Picasa 3 is a beta, and is intended for everyone to use. Not only does the program lets you create your own movie, it also allows you to do some basic editing to enhance your video clips before you proceed to the movie maker.

And, what's more, it's a totally free software and service that competes favorably with many others that you would pay for.

Download Picasa 3.8 here.

When you play a video file in Picasa 3, it opens the video editing interface which is basically divided into two areas. On the left is a function window with buttons to upload your video to YouTube, take a snapshot or export your edited clip. The other half on the right is the video preview screen with rows of function buttons located beneath the timeline.

Just below the preview screen is the first horizontal tasks bar that consists of a Play/Pause button on the left. And, on the right of the timeline are the In/Out buttons, an audio Volume Slider and a Play Full Screen button.

* In and Out buttons

The In and Out buttons are located in the lower-right corner. It is the most important tool as it allows you to cut or trim away unwanted footage from a video clip. Anything within these two buttons is the footage that you want to show to your viewers.

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You can also Reset the Start and End points by using the buttons located in the task window to the left of your screen.

You can use the "." and "," keys on your keyboard to step the video frame-by-frame. This is very useful to mark the exact spot where you want to trim your video clip, and to select the exact frame to take a snapshot.

* Volume Slider

Glide the slider left or right to lower or raise the volume of your video clip.

* Play Full Screen

You can use the Play full screen button to watch the large version of your video clip.

The second horizontal bar has a Show/Hide caption icon on the left that looks like a page with the caption in the middle and on the far right is the trash-can icon where you can delete the caption.

The third horizontal task bar has a few more buttons that you use to edit your video clips.

* Add/Remove a Star,

You can rate your videos with stars and view only the videos with a certain rating. This makes it easy to tell by thumbnail which videos you are looking for.

* Rotate counter-clockwise or Clockwise,

Picasa 3 is the only free video-editing software that I know which allows you to rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise your video clip using the Rotate buttons in the Photo Tray. This function is very useful if you want to correct a vertical video clip that you took holding the videocam sideways.

* Tag photos with words for searching

Previous versions allowed you to add only one-word tags. Now, Picasa 3 adds multiword tag support. This is a hugh improvement for quick search.

* Geo-Tag

Geotagging now integrates with Google Earth, letting you tag using that program or automatically fly to a video's location on its global display.

* Zoom Slider

You can use the zoom slider to adjust the size of the video in the Picasa editing window.

* Display Photo In Actual Size

Clicking on this button allows you to view your video in its actual size.

On the let of your screen is a task window comprising six buttons with the following functions:

* Upload to YouTube

When you are satisfied with your edited video clip, you can upload it directly to YouTube. Just fill in the necessary editorial details, log in to YouTube with your credentials and hit the Upload button.

* Upload To Picasa Web Albums

Using Picasa, you can also upload videos to Picasa Web Albums. Videos uploaded must not be larger than 100 MB in size. You can upload videos to Picasa Web Albums using the the Upload button which has a green upward-pointing arrow located at the right of the Photo Tray.

* Take Snapshot

You can also take a snapshot from any point in the video by hitting the Print Screen key fo your keyboard. A screen capture tool takes a single frame of the video of what's on your screen, and auto saves it as captured videos.

* Export Clip

By default, the edited video stays where it is in the Picasa gallery, unless you decide to export a file with the edits. Just click the Export Clip to output a newly trimmed or rotated video as a compressed wmv file.

* Reset Start and End, * Undo Start Point, and* Redo

These three buttons located at the bottom of the window are used along side the In/Out buttons for cutting or trimming your video to a shorter clip.

* Movie

When you are satisfied with the edited video clip and want to make a movie, just click the large Movie button in the Photo Tray. A new make-movie interface opens and you can now create a movie presentation with your selected video.