One step required for an awesome image search with Picasa

Updated: April 23, 2016 | Contains affiliate links
Tags:

One main reason why you would spend the time and effort to create an efficient context for your digital photos is to be able to search for them. Search results and image metadata go hand in hand. In other words, you can’t have meaningful image search results if your pictures don’t have meaningful image metadata. As I have written before, creating a meaningful image context can be done in layers since not everyone has time to do all three layers. So, even if you create only meaningful folder names for your digital pictures, Picasa can still find your pictures quickly. Searching in Picasa is one of my favorite features. Read on to see how you search for pictures with Picasa.

Enroll in my Independent Course and start organizing your digital photos now.
6 video modules - over 30 videos containing step-by-step instructions for Windows or Mac programs like Lightroom, ACDSee, Picasa and Photos.
All my e-Books for free - all my products are included.
Completely self-paced. Learn at your own pace and take as long as you want until you learn how to organize your photos. More info

If you have been reading around my site you probably have seen the simple acronym I use to describe my entire photography workflow.

I use the simply acronym S.T.O.R.E (Shoot, Transfer, Organize, Retrieve and Export) to describe all the steps of my photography workflow (Read “How I organize my digital pictures”).

Out of all the steps, I have written the fewest articles about retrieving photos. It’s not because I have forgotten to write about it, but actually because if the other three prior steps are done properly, then searching and retrieving your favorite pictures becomes very simple.

Only one step needed for finding your digital pictures quickly

If you have spent the time and effort to create an efficient context (Read “Easy steps for making your pictures memorable”) for your images then things should be easy. Any decent software should be able to help you find your pictures quickly. This is true about most software programs, but with Picasa search is simply awesome!

So, the only step required for efficient image search results is to create an efficient context for your digital photos. That’s it! Once you do this, Picasa will do the rest when you search.

It’s true that my entire site is dedicated mostly to being able to create an efficient image context for your digital photos. So it’s not a simple step, but it is the one necessary step (consisting of many other steps) to make searching for your digital photos very easy.

In addition, with Picasa, searching is fast…very fast. Searching with Picasa is probably one of my favorite features. It’s awesome…it’s like having the entire power of Google internet search on your desktop. Picasa has a very efficient and fast search algorithm.

Did I say searching in Picasa is fast? Yeah I did ’cause it’s fast, really fast!

How to search for digital photos with Picasa.

I like the fact that Picasa presents the results instantly and in a logical manner.

Searching for your digital pictures in Picasa is super fast!
Using Picasa to searching for digital photos.

A simple example of searching for digital photos with Picasa

For example let’s say I have some pictures with the keyword “birthday” but I also have the word “birthday” in some folder names. When I search for pictures with Picasa and type “birthday” in the Search box, then the pictures with the keyword “birthday” appear first and then the folders with “birthday” in the folder name appear next.

In addition, on the left side where you normally see your folders, when you search for a keyword, Picasa will actually show you the folders containing the pictures that match your search criteria. It’s really cool.

The timeline slider and various buttons allow you to filter your search results even further.
Filter your search results in Picasa

You can further filter your search results by using the timeline slider which will give you fewer results the closer you get to today’s date. In addition the various buttons to the left of the slider give you the option to only search for images, videos or starred images. That’s pretty cool.

Picasa Search is awesome but…there is one thing missing

In conclusion, searching for your digital pictures in Picasa simply works and it works very fast! It’s true!

But there is one thing missing…I’m not sure why, but it is missing.

What is missing from the Picasa Search is the ability to only search by keywords and exclude folders. Currently, Picasa will show you search results matching keywords, folders and image captions. This is cool but what if you only want the pictures filtered by your keywords? Well, you can’t filter anything out. That’s too bad!

Essentials for organizing your digital photos

Here are the essential products and services I have come to rely on for many years to keep my media collection organized and safe. Even though these are affiliate links, I wholeheartedly recommend them.

Excellent Lightroom and Picasa alternative. If you need a cheaper and simpler photo manager then ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac (save 40% until Aug 9th) or ACDSee Pro for Windows (save $40 until Aug 9th) is my preferred solution for organizing all my media. It has a very fast browser, great image editing and it's simple to use.

If you do a lot of image editing like I do, I recommend using Adobe Lightroom Classic CC via the annual Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Lightroom has best photo editing capabilities even though it comes with a steeper learning curve. If you do image editing, Adobe Lightroom is my favorite.

I recommend Backblaze Cloud Backup for affordable & reliable unlimited cloud backup. I have been using Backblaze for backing up all pictures & videos for more than 5 years now. All my invaluable digital memories are safe and secure. This is the best solution especially if you have a large quantity of media files.

Use a reliable & affordable external hard drive for backing up everything on your computer. It is absolutely essential for keeping all your memories backed up and safe.

Start organizing now using detailed, step-by-step instructions and videos:
Personal Coaching (closed) Independent Course Private Lessons
Reference book Basics book Picasa book

.
Tags:

Read similar articles:

4 Comments

  1. Alan Gornik
  2. Alan Gornik

Leave a Reply