Using Filters to Find Photos

What We'll Learn

  1. How Picasa filters work
  2. Common approaches to finding photos

Searching with Filters

Picasa has a number of tools to help you quickly locate your photos. These tools act as filters and allow you to only show the photos that match your filter.  In some ways this is the same as searching, but instead of just finding the first match, Picasa hides all of your photos except the ones that match your search or filter.

Picasa includes filters that match:
  • Showing photos that match specific text
  • Date range of when the photo was taken
  • Showing only photos with certain characteristics
Once you pick a filter, Picasa will show you only the photos that match what you specified.  Cancel the filter to return to viewing all your photos.

Making it Easy to Find Photos

As we mentioned in your Describing New Photos tutorial, it's important to add helpful details to your Folder Descriptions in Picasa. This makes it easy to do Text Search filters.

Exercise

  1. Use the text filter area in Picasa to quickly isolate and find photos in your collection, see the example below:



  2. Cancel the filter to return to showing all your photos.





 


Finding Recent Photos

Picasa has a Date Filter and a Automatic Recent Photos Album to help you quickly find pictures by date range.

Exercise

  1. Make sure you don't have a current filter turned on.
  2. Click on the Recent Photos album to quickly view recent and recently edited photos
  3. Try the Date Filter Slider as indicated on the diagram below to narrow down photos by date


Finding Photos by Characteristic

You can also narrow down the matching photos by type in the area indicated in the diagram below:



Exercise

  1. Click on the Star filter to show only photos you have marked as Favourites
  2. Click on the Star filter again to turn off this filter.
  3. Try each of the settings below and see what they do.
  4. You can mix and match filters (including the ones above) to fine tune what you are looking for.
 - Filter for Favourites

 - Filter for Photos you have uploaded to the Internet

 - Filter for Photos that include a person's face

 - Filter to only show Movies in your collection

 - Filter for Photos that include a geographic place marker


Advanced Tip:  There is also an experimental option in Picasa that allows you to find only photos that include a specific colour.