Using Picasa 3 to Manage Stock Photos

If you write content for the Internet, you probably want to spice up what you write with photos. Many writers don't have a photo that they have personally taken for every occasion, so they end up using stock photography. Even if you do take your own stock photos, after a while, you may end up losing track of the photos you have taken and where they are stored. This is where a free program like Google's Picasa 3 can come in handy. While primarily designed to manage family photos, Picasa 3 can be used to manage every kind of photo that you have on your computer, including stock photos that you use for your web writing. This guide will help you use Picasa 3 to manage your stock photos.

Use Picasa 3 to Create a Stock Photo Album

The first step to using Picasa 3 to manage your stock photos is to create a stock photo album. This is relatively easy. On the top of the program is a toolbar with a + and a picture of a book on it. Click this book to create a new album. You will be asked to give it a name; I just labeled mine Stock Photos. If you want to add a description, that's fine, but you don't have to. Click OK to finish making the album.

Add Stock Photos to Your Album

If you already have a folder where you keep stock photos, add all of the photos to the Stock Photos album. You can do this by selecting the photo in Picasa 3 and then clicking on the book in the lower left-hand corner. You then select the album that you want to add your photo to. If you have stock photos in other places, then you'll want to add them as you come across them. When you download new pictures to use with your writing, you will want to add them to your stock photo album.

Give Credit to your Photos

In many cases, you need to give credit to the photographer when adding it to your web page. Any work that you use with a Creative Commons license will have to be credited; even if the work is in the public domain, it is still a good idea to give credit to the creator (photos you purchase or create yourself may be an exception). You can do this by adding the credit information in the caption field. Put the name of the author, as well as the web site where you found the photo, in the caption, and you can reuse the photo without having to look up the credit information again.

Tag Your Photos

If you want to find your photo again, you'll want to tag your photos. Try to use as many tags as you need to so you can find the photo again. For example, if you have a picture of a waterfall on the island of Upolu in Samoa, you might want to use the tags waterfall, Upolu, tropical, forest, and Samoa. If I want to find photos of waterfalls in the future, I could search through my files in Picasa and find this waterfall, plus Niagara Falls, or any other waterfalls that I have in my stock content.

Using Photos in Picasa 3

When you are ready to add a photo to your content, you can use Picasa 3 to find the photo you are looking for. While in your library, you can search for the tags that you are looking for by using the search bar in the upper right hand corner. When you find the photo that you want to use, you can right click on the photo and choose "Properties" from the menu that pops up. On the top of the popup window, you will see the location of the photo that you want to use. Your caption should tell you the photographer and the location where you found the original file so you can give proper credit. Use the location and credit information to upload your photo.

While creating a stock photo album in Picasa 3 isn't going to replace popular places to find stock photos like Wikimedia Commons and sxc.hu, it will help you find pictures that you already have on your computer, so you don't have to find them and download them again. It will also help you use the photos that you take yourself more effectively.