Sort your photos using face recognition

When the Picasa web page appears click on Download Picasa. If the File Download Security Warning dialogue box appears, click Save and then choose a location for the downloaded file. Firefox users should select Save File to save the download to Firefox’s default download folder. Now locate and double-click the file just downloaded and ignore any security warnings to proceed with the installation.

Work through the installation wizard, accepting the default options. At the final stage review the settings in the tick boxes, clearing the tick if you don’t want to change the default search engine to Google. Click Finish and Picasa will launch. Subsequently, Picasa can be launched by double-clicking the shortcut on the Windows Desktop or from the All Programs menu.

The first time Picasa is launched it will search the PC for photos. Two options are offered here: either to search just My Documents, My Pictures and the Windows Desktop or to search the whole computer. Having made your selection click Continue. When the Photo Viewer Configuration dialogue box appears, decide whether to set Picasa as the default photo viewer application. Click on Finish when done.

The face-recognition feature starts working right away, scanning all photos for faces. This can take some time to complete, especially if the photo collection is large. A progress meter will be shown under People in the sidebar. Picasa groups faces together making it easier to name them. Click People on the sidebar to see the faces that Picasa has found. These photos will be listed as Unnamed.

Adding names to the photos will allow the photo collection to be searched and sorted accordingly later. Click one of the photos and then click on Add a name under the photo. Type the name of the person, then press Enter. The People dialogue box will appear. Click the New Person button and use the fields to the right to add more detail about that person, including an email address, then click OK.

Now click the name of the person in the sidebar (under People). Picasa will have automatically added other photos of that person to the group. When Picasa isn’t sure about a photo, it will have a tick and a cross button underneath. Click the appropriate button to include or exclude the photo. Repeat this process for all the photos listed as unnamed under People in the navigation sidebar.

Picasa does a good job of identifying faces in photos. However, if photos have been placed under a wrong name it’s easy to rename them. Under People navigate to the offending photo. Right-click on the photo and choose Move to New Person. If the person has already been identified, select the correct name from the list. Click on Choose and the photo will be moved.

When adding a new folder of photos to Picasa the face-detection feature runs automatically. If you don’t want this to happen for a particular device or folder, select Remove from Picasa on the Folder Manager dialogue box; otherwise click OK to proceed. If faces are found in these new photos they will be matched to the existing names under People. A question mark symbol alongside a name indicates that a face or faces have been added. Click on the name and confirm or cancel by clicking the tick or cross button as appropriate. Faces that Picasa cannot match to existing names will be labelled Unknown Person.

Select a name from People in the sidebar. To the right of their preview picture are three buttons. Click on the first (the play button) to view a full-screen slideshow of all photos of that person. Press the Esc key to exit the slideshow. The Create Photo Collage button creates a montage that includes all the photos of a person. Under the Settings tab use the dropdown menu to choose a display effect.

Finally, use the Create Video Clip Presentation button to create a video using the selected person’s photos. An audio track can be added along with transition styles. Click on Create Video when finished to save the video file to your computer’s hard disk; or click the Youtube button to upload the video directly to the video-sharing site (you’ll need to register for an account if you don’t already have one).