Telling Google, and visually-impaired people, about the pictures in your blog

<b>This article is about why and how to attach keywords and related text to the pictures in your blog posts.  This is helpful for both search engine optimisation (SEO), and for making your blog accessible to people who use screen-reader software.</b> <br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><h2>Pictures and your blog</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfvbY0d62EgK2Ph0113rpTu5wncOFZd7sRXEq1wQp4RVIo_GYZgP8KjfocUNbsOZ-LGMIZdj4cJPTR7Qfd8dB8ohjGksuMBSVw4VL969FAwnUF9uYL-KpIlpF7DyjhyGixx7efIfuqrb0T/s320/picture-with-example-of-descriptive-alt-text.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfvbY0d62EgK2Ph0113rpTu5wncOFZd7sRXEq1wQp4RVIo_GYZgP8KjfocUNbsOZ-LGMIZdj4cJPTR7Qfd8dB8ohjGksuMBSVw4VL969FAwnUF9uYL-KpIlpF7DyjhyGixx7efIfuqrb0T/s320/picture-with-example-of-descriptive-alt-text.png" width="320" /></a></div>Blogger has a <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/picasa-blogger-part-2-putting-things.html">set of tools for putting pictures into your blog</a>, including several options for putting images into posts or gadgets.  <br /><br />In most cases, the other content in each post provides enough information for Google's indexing tools to know what the post is aobut.<br /><br />But if your blog <b>mainly</b> has photos, your posts may not have enough key words to get properly indexed.  And even if the image-indexing tools do some auto recognition, a description of a picture written by a human being  will almost always be better than one which was created by a computer.<br /><br />Also, if your blog's visitors may include visually impaired people or others who use screen-reader software, then you need to think about how well your content will work for them:  if you important information is inside images but not in the text, then they won't be able to get this information in any way.<br /><br />These two good reasons for adding "alternate text" to your pictures - and there may be more.<br /><br />What's even better is that Blogger now has a tool for to make it easy to do this.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to add captions and alt-text to pictures in Blogger</h2><br /><b>Add</b> the picture to your Post.<br /><br />In <b>Compose mode</b>, float your mouse over the picture.   This will show the picture-editing-toolbar, like this:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1N1ONY3Hk_qwy10UhdxM-ibHsx9lg4dMb5EzV9TH7ZB3P9d6uzXA7GmH6ZWt4HLjOfB5amfF5I4Xr8hiQlRChVoYujZVAHzUXpe84pmOLcmKF53-V-ehU2GskGgebAm22rEVphy7_G9Ji/s551/post-editor-picture-toolbar-alt-text-title-via-add-properties.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1N1ONY3Hk_qwy10UhdxM-ibHsx9lg4dMb5EzV9TH7ZB3P9d6uzXA7GmH6ZWt4HLjOfB5amfF5I4Xr8hiQlRChVoYujZVAHzUXpe84pmOLcmKF53-V-ehU2GskGgebAm22rEVphy7_G9Ji/s640/post-editor-picture-toolbar-alt-text-title-via-add-properties.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Choose the <b>Properties</b> option.<br /><br />This opens a dialog box where you can enter<br /><ul><li><b>A title</b> - this is shown when a visitor hovers their mouse over the picture</li></ul><ul><li><b>Alt text</b> - this is kept in the background, and only displayed to people who (for whatever reason) cannot see the picture.</li></ul><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHRDoU8ABHe4-CLE24FKXUBJ4i3FzLPDENX0IdNJScN62o8voV-W9W4m2TOTB5IDieyb9AWqa_N_dTICohBU4ziNVv6z7DKOqYSEccMgPYIyDJFzHrmb1bJjZjc5bZuDRr-ufHozTQH6o/s485/post-editor-image-properties-title-aka-hover-and-alt-text-fields.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHRDoU8ABHe4-CLE24FKXUBJ4i3FzLPDENX0IdNJScN62o8voV-W9W4m2TOTB5IDieyb9AWqa_N_dTICohBU4ziNVv6z7DKOqYSEccMgPYIyDJFzHrmb1bJjZjc5bZuDRr-ufHozTQH6o/s640/post-editor-image-properties-title-aka-hover-and-alt-text-fields.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><h2>What your readers will see</h2>People who read your blog <b>on line</b>, either with a standard browser or an RSS feed reader, won't see anything different, until they hover over the photo.   When they <b>hover</b>, they will see the text you put into the Title field.<br /><br />People who read your blog <b>in their email</b> (because you've offered a <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/03/follow-by-email-gadget-easy-way-to-add.html">subscribe-by-email option</a>) may see the alt text instead of the picture, depending on what setting they have in their email system.<br /><br />People who use <b>screen reader software</b> will have the text that you added read out to them in the usual way that their software works.<br /><br />And most importantly, <b>search engines will see the text you added</b>, and hopefully the will use it in indexing your post.<br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><br /><br /><h2>Other Alternatives</h2>The Post and Pages editor also has an Add Caption option on the photo toolbar, although I only recommend using  if you're comfortable editing HTML, because it puts the picture into a table, and so to move it inside the post you need to edit the code, not just drag-and-drop it.<br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/picasa-blogger-part-2-putting-things.html">Tools for putting pictures into your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/picasa-blogger-part-4-putting-slideshow.html">Addingng a Picasa slideshow to your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/tools-for-applying-copyright-protection.html">Tools for applying copyright protection to your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-rss-subscribe-to-posts-is-important.html">Why RSS/Subscribe to Posts is important for your blog</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/03/follow-by-email-gadget-easy-way-to-add.html">Adding a subscribe-by-email option to your blog</a>

Telling Google, and visually-impaired people, about the pictures in your blog

This article is about why and how to attach keywords and related text to the pictures in your blog posts.  This is helpful for both search e...

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Getting the HTML code to put a picture into your blog's sidebar, header or footer

<strong>This article explains how to use Blogger's Post Editor to get the HTML code that you need to put a picture into your sidebar (or header or footer, or anywhere else a gadget can go).</strong><br /><strong><br /></strong> <strong><br /></strong> <br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3uZUqTA-diq0sHwhZpRKdHdXrVHRntj_z4ffCs0EovyDrUcVUSzBS0baoi5rTogzPQdw1T8kLg2vJ8KWSnBfBmZLQQL_E15VQWYMUI2wvzjeW-JtZSr8sW9OydgMPpdXSA8IrOQWYiO_d/s557/get-html-code-for-an-image-file.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3uZUqTA-diq0sHwhZpRKdHdXrVHRntj_z4ffCs0EovyDrUcVUSzBS0baoi5rTogzPQdw1T8kLg2vJ8KWSnBfBmZLQQL_E15VQWYMUI2wvzjeW-JtZSr8sW9OydgMPpdXSA8IrOQWYiO_d/s320/get-html-code-for-an-image-file.png" width="320" /></a></div>The <b>Picture gadget</b> is the normal tool for <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/insertng-picture-as-gadget.html">adding a picture to your blog's sidebar</a>.<br /><br />But sometimes you want more control over the picture size or behaviour.  Eg, you may want to have two pictures very close to each other and guarantee that they're the same size.<br /><br />To do this, you need to get the HTML code for the picture, and then put it into your blog as an HTML-gadget.  Fortunately, Blogger's Post-editor make it very easy to do this without writing the code yourself.<br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br /><br /><h2>Using the Post Editor to generate the HTML for a picture</h2>1  Start a <b>new Post</b>  (you're not ever going to publish this:  it's just a work-area)<br /><br />2  Don't enter any text:   just use the Picture icon on the toolbar to <b>add a picture</b>.   Blogger will prompt you to upload the picture, or to choose it from a Google-album-archive or to enter its URL:  <b>add the picture</b> the way that you usually would.<br /><br />3  Switch to the <b>HTML</b> tab   (top left of the editing window).<br /><br />This show you the HTML code for displaying the picture, as it is set to display in the Post (depending on the picture-settings you've chosen, it may be centered or right/left aligned, and the size may vary).<br /><br />4  <b>Copy</b> the HTML.<br /><br />5  Switch back to <b>Compose</b>, so that you don't get confused the next time you edit a post.<br /><br />6  <b>Return to the list of posts</b>:  you may be asked if you want to leave the page without saving - the answer is Yes.  Or you may have a new draft-status post, which you can delete.<br /><br /><br /><br /><b>Job Done!   </b>You now have some HTML code which you can <b>paste </b>into an HTML/Javascript gadget, or anywhere else that you may need it - even into another post that you are editing in a separate window, or into a totally different tool.<br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/11/stopping-pictures-on-your-blog-from.html">Stopping pictures on your blog from being "clickable"</a> <br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">Inserting a Picture into a blog Post</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html">Putting 3rd party HTML into your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/03/centering-gadgets-on-on-your-blog.html">Center-align the gadgets on your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/hosting-pictures-outside-of.html">Hosting pictures outside of Google / Picasa</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/insertng-picture-as-gadget.html">Inserting a picture into your blog as a gadget</a>

Getting the HTML code to put a picture into your blog's sidebar, header or footer

This article explains how to use Blogger's Post Editor to get the HTML code that you need to put a picture into your sidebar (or header ...

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How to put pictures into unusual shapes, using PowerPoint

<b>This article explains how to put a picture that is one shape (a "square peg") inside an image of another shape (a "round hole" - or star, elipse, octagon, etc) - using Microsoft PowerPoint.</b><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br /><i>Original title:   How to put a square peg into a round hole - in pictures</i><br /><br /><a name="more"></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh905xNm2k6OXJXyAO7KeD-NGidGUYnz2QbsESHACpGa-o2vk8Xu7HPtnrAAGDAV1t0uyoLuwxvnrQ6AIb33niHxqgAiMa_0j5th4xRbVa3_2VR6s2s7_S1FGWj0kvunXEfLzkFAAUp1nbG/s433/square-wooden-clothes-peg-photo-rectangle-two-rounded-corners.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Wooden clothes peg in a customized rectangle with rounded corners." border="0" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh905xNm2k6OXJXyAO7KeD-NGidGUYnz2QbsESHACpGa-o2vk8Xu7HPtnrAAGDAV1t0uyoLuwxvnrQ6AIb33niHxqgAiMa_0j5th4xRbVa3_2VR6s2s7_S1FGWj0kvunXEfLzkFAAUp1nbG/s200/square-wooden-clothes-peg-photo-rectangle-two-rounded-corners.png" title="Based on a work by Loadmaster (David R. Tribble) This image was made by Loadmaster (David R. Tribble) Email the author: David R. Tribble Also see my personal gallery at Google Picasa (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons" width="200" /></a></div>Recently, I've been using PowerPoint to make the <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">thumbnail image</a> for my posts. This means that I own the copyright of the pictures, so can share them without worrying about <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-blogs-and-bloggers.html">copyright issues</a>.<br /><br />One approach I've used is to find an interesting copyright-free picture that is related to the theme of the post, and then put it inside a shape that adds some visual interest or has some words along side it.  Another thing that I'm going to try is using multiple pictures in this way to make a more-interesting-than-usual collage.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to put a picture inside a shape</h2><i>NB PowerPoint commands are based on Office 2007 and 2010 - but the same principles most-likely apply in other versions where the commands may be slightly different.</i><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUo5s7zHxEg99CH1qwvEluMVEaZS-k22-cq8208JP8jb88YvdZzsrEdtCwH-8wAUnGRX8CH_QXrTFvl4UsNmZQB3V4YuHqK1fCvpmPb2KrwHpidUSB2ti9JI3AWKpErR_5S57RFN1xA2AG/s286/image-file-types-supported-by-PowerPoint-2007.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUo5s7zHxEg99CH1qwvEluMVEaZS-k22-cq8208JP8jb88YvdZzsrEdtCwH-8wAUnGRX8CH_QXrTFvl4UsNmZQB3V4YuHqK1fCvpmPb2KrwHpidUSB2ti9JI3AWKpErR_5S57RFN1xA2AG/s286/image-file-types-supported-by-PowerPoint-2007.png" /></a></div>1   Get your <b>image file</b>, and save it somewhere on your computer.<br /><br />A wide range of picture-file formats are supported by PowerPoint:  in the 2007 version this includes as shown in this list: <br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />2     In PowerPoint, <b>make a blank side</b> (Home > Layout > Blank)<br /><br />3     Then <b>add a shape</b> (Insert > Shapes, click on the shape you want)<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitM3jm-9SBrQIc4cHEWmvHCBvNkjjr-xJc3ALvUw7NtqmiRRJDri7uvoaeqjtk2-OGIiGyPIND4v6G7zZnd3Ry4na2FDKX6OnqGoX_HR8Oj3a5On80gxlUp50Mw6_8JeqIRf19nGLFHDNX/s424/Powerpoint-insert-shape-default-format.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitM3jm-9SBrQIc4cHEWmvHCBvNkjjr-xJc3ALvUw7NtqmiRRJDri7uvoaeqjtk2-OGIiGyPIND4v6G7zZnd3Ry4na2FDKX6OnqGoX_HR8Oj3a5On80gxlUp50Mw6_8JeqIRf19nGLFHDNX/s400/Powerpoint-insert-shape-default-format.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />Intially, the shape with have the fill-colour and border that are the current default values. But you can change this, which is what we are going to do.<br /><br /><br />4    Right-click on the shape, and choose <b>Format Shape</b> from the pop-up menu<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZXDzewD38hiHET8ZsG9Px25efGoBcmZqwNY8zAr_Gsz_vKcuXOaKk2V99tRokWtO6s5Ul-4rClILE26786rpN6z0lNnSa2i_y-n4O0sKWl_lIueKEUanxqoByXjPPNIsnEhYljx2OWjR/s640/Shape-format-right-click-menu-PowerPoint.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZXDzewD38hiHET8ZsG9Px25efGoBcmZqwNY8zAr_Gsz_vKcuXOaKk2V99tRokWtO6s5Ul-4rClILE26786rpN6z0lNnSa2i_y-n4O0sKWl_lIueKEUanxqoByXjPPNIsnEhYljx2OWjR/s640/Shape-format-right-click-menu-PowerPoint.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />5    In the Fill tab, choose <b>Picture or Texture Fill</b>, then click the <b>File button</b> and navigate to the image file you got in step 1, and click OK.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtdSHARuKJ-j-848WBXJCqKWd1mbyg9ZPS27bXkJGKAPQFu0wfFFL-CSeOkcKtlKrCJ7XSYtZkBcAOBlubXda7OPFpNkaqTf-ZxZiwiOQrIrgO2P_hFZHUPWJdPCsGcKr6f-GZiS1eT1NU/s720/drag-format-menu-away-from-edited-image-to-see-progress.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtdSHARuKJ-j-848WBXJCqKWd1mbyg9ZPS27bXkJGKAPQFu0wfFFL-CSeOkcKtlKrCJ7XSYtZkBcAOBlubXda7OPFpNkaqTf-ZxZiwiOQrIrgO2P_hFZHUPWJdPCsGcKr6f-GZiS1eT1NU/s640/drag-format-menu-away-from-edited-image-to-see-progress.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6d8IVy-mT0J9_t3ApeT3b9gaCvm-48z6BbBSDMwwcYEpe_2OMA9RjTli8plDdADvLNWfcVe79EsYLJkdL1Ydzt1261vr0jXuJCb94CQmQlnkDio6w1gJfd6IkWGn_0M0Mr8vrPASSAil9/s291/control-position-of-image-in-PowerPoint-shape-offset-buttons.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6d8IVy-mT0J9_t3ApeT3b9gaCvm-48z6BbBSDMwwcYEpe_2OMA9RjTli8plDdADvLNWfcVe79EsYLJkdL1Ydzt1261vr0jXuJCb94CQmQlnkDio6w1gJfd6IkWGn_0M0Mr8vrPASSAil9/s291/control-position-of-image-in-PowerPoint-shape-offset-buttons.png" /></a></div>6   Make sure that the portion of the picture that you want to show is in the picture:  to start with the shape is centered on the middle of the picture. <br /><br />Change this <b>using the Offsets to move the shape</b> to the left or right over the image.   You can make the offsets positive or negative as shown.<br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />You can monitor the results of different settings in PowerPoints slide thumbnails (on the left hand side, if you have it showing), or by dragging the pop-up menu to a different place in the screen so that you can see the shape itself.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtdSHARuKJ-j-848WBXJCqKWd1mbyg9ZPS27bXkJGKAPQFu0wfFFL-CSeOkcKtlKrCJ7XSYtZkBcAOBlubXda7OPFpNkaqTf-ZxZiwiOQrIrgO2P_hFZHUPWJdPCsGcKr6f-GZiS1eT1NU/s720/drag-format-menu-away-from-edited-image-to-see-progress.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtdSHARuKJ-j-848WBXJCqKWd1mbyg9ZPS27bXkJGKAPQFu0wfFFL-CSeOkcKtlKrCJ7XSYtZkBcAOBlubXda7OPFpNkaqTf-ZxZiwiOQrIrgO2P_hFZHUPWJdPCsGcKr6f-GZiS1eT1NU/s640/drag-format-menu-away-from-edited-image-to-see-progress.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><b>Job Done</b> - at this point, you have an image that is cropped to the shape that you chose - now you just have to <b>put it into your blog</b>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>Using the picture</h2>There are (at least) three ways to get the shape-cropped-picture from PowerPoint into your blog.<br /><br />I usually <b>copy the item from PowerPoint, and then paste it into a picture edito</b>r (Paintbrush etc), manually.   This is an old-fashioned approacb - but it lets me adjust the size and position of the image, and save it (usually a .png) with a file-name that describes the image really well which is good for mating the blog come up in search results (SEO).   The this picture can be <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">inserted into a post just like any other picture</a>.<br /><br />Another option is to choose <b>File > Save As from Powerpoint</b>, and choose to <b>save the slides in an image format</b>, eg JPEG which can also be <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">inserted into a post in the usual way.</a>  You are likely to be asked whether to put all the slides in one image, or to make one image per slide. Usually, it would be best to make one image per slide - but I don't use this method because the image that is created is the size of the whole slide, rather than just the pictures on it.<br /><br />A third option is to <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/showing-powerpoint-presentation-in-your.html">display the PowerPoint file as a slideshow</a>. This isn't something that I'd do for only one shaped image, but may be relevant in some situations.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Adjusting the size and quality of the picture</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglE-z1CMrV6Gl9GN_YG5kMrexorybmggmO7S_ik6xNRpVjn7D_fE7kD_Of31gKdwMXIkEj8QCn2Jss0LaMspFHwjPEQA2TTs63HHmN-YSZON6nFZhuc6di4XWj3AgwRv2SdC9ZL9Gc7zKu/s432/small-and-large-size-shapes-showing-same-proportiong-of-background-picure-displayed.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglE-z1CMrV6Gl9GN_YG5kMrexorybmggmO7S_ik6xNRpVjn7D_fE7kD_Of31gKdwMXIkEj8QCn2Jss0LaMspFHwjPEQA2TTs63HHmN-YSZON6nFZhuc6di4XWj3AgwRv2SdC9ZL9Gc7zKu/s320/small-and-large-size-shapes-showing-same-proportiong-of-background-picure-displayed.png" width="205" /></a></div>One thing that you don't have any control of inside PowerPoint is the zoom level of the inserted picture.<br /><br />If you make the shape larger, it doesn't show a larger proportion of the picture. Instead, it just shows the existing picture in a larger size, as you can see in the slides shown here.<br /><br />I suspect that if you want to zoom in to a particular area of the image file, the only approach is to <b>edit the picture in another tool, crop out the bit that you do not want to show, </b>and only keep the part that you want to include inside your shape.<br /><br />However PowerPoint does have some limited control over the contrast and brightness of the picture, from the Picture tab of the Format Shape window.<br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br /><h2>Can you do this in other tools?  Why PowerPoint?</h2>Yes, you can.<br /><br />Photoshop, and similar commercial tools  certainly have features like this, and I'm certain that GIMP (like a public-domain, less powerful version of Photoshop) and Inkscape (another public-domain image program which is more focussed on scalable-vector-graphics and objects than on pixels) also have these features.<br /><br />So why use PowerPoint?   In short, <b>many people have access</b> to it already.   It's also <b>very easy to learn</b>, compared to the other packages, and what you learn is likely to apply to lots of tasks and not just in making pictures for your blog.<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles:</h2><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">Putting a picture into a blog-post</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">Post.thumbnail and post.summary - ways of describing blog posts</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/showing-powerpoint-presentation-in-your.html">Showing a PowerPoint slideshow in Blogger</a><br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /> <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-blogs-and-bloggers.html">Copyright, blogs and Blogger/Google</a>

How to put pictures into unusual shapes, using PowerPoint

This article explains how to put a picture that is one shape (a "square peg") inside an image of another shape (a "round hole...

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How to find the URL for a picture in Google Photos

<b>This article describes how to get the URL or internet address of a picture in Google Photos, and the difference between Google's shareable links and URLs.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuEvCXs5NdFzfmDwDwAn6WVytiAJ-vclMiYr06LLuLfjsdZ26rrY_Bp0C_Dx8dPORhu_RwqqXZajQEh_kyzJBSo7SaFlLpHxAnGdff_sK9gZKXrTU52ILwGpJKWjHTBhoSN9J6jidsVvkQ/s1600/finding-the-url-of-a-pictures-image-photograph-in-google-photos.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuEvCXs5NdFzfmDwDwAn6WVytiAJ-vclMiYr06LLuLfjsdZ26rrY_Bp0C_Dx8dPORhu_RwqqXZajQEh_kyzJBSo7SaFlLpHxAnGdff_sK9gZKXrTU52ILwGpJKWjHTBhoSN9J6jidsVvkQ/s320/finding-the-url-of-a-pictures-image-photograph-in-google-photos.png" width="280" /></a></div>Google Photos is a tool that help bloggers (and everyone else) to manage their picture collections. It replaces Google+ Photos, and works alongside Picasa-web-albums.   You can read more about it <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-does-google-photos-affect-blogger-and-google-plus-photos.html">here</a>. <br /><br />In Google Photos, there are two different types of web-address for a photo.<br /><ul><li>One is the <b>URL</b>, and this can be used to refer to pictures from Blogger, or from other tools that want a link that just shows the photo, eg Twitter, Google Maps.  This is the <b>traditional style of internet-address</b> for a photo.</li></ul><ul><li>The other is the <b>shareable link.</b>   This is what Google Photos provides from the Share function.   Shareable links can be used in Facebook, and other places where the photo that is being shared is displayed within a web-display, rather than just as a picture.   (Ref:  <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2015/07/how-to-make-picture-sharing-links-in-google-photos.html">How to make and manage shareable links in Google Photos</a>.)</li></ul><br />Unfortunately shareable links cannot be used in many applications.  This is because they don't just show the picture.   Instead they load a display showing the <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/2015/06/how-to-change-date-of-photograph-in.html" target="_blank">picture-date</a>, the name and picture of the person who is logged in to Google at the time, and any other pictures that you have included in the same shareable link.<br /><br />If you want to use an image from Google Photos in a tool which cannot use shareable links, you need to find it's URL, instead.   At the moment, Google Photos doesn't have a way to get this - but luckily it's easy enough to find.<br /><br /><br /><h2>How to get the URL or web-address of a photo in Google Photos, using your computer</h2>Log in to <a href="https://photos.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Photos</a><br /><br />Navigate to the picture that you want to get the link for.   <br /><br />Click on the picture, so you see it in full screen mode.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyytEjwTbwLdJxnUCcDo4CIz-c6E_409tC1XRjNtGyh__87mMIQKsq2eB9qQLFbhh2MDurLF0uKOmwvju41HL1RDAdrojt8DoupE9J_rXq7ieSXWWZfD4Xb24RKJ5kQsgbf36hv_0K9Z-J/s743-Ic42/google-photos-full-screen-mode-viewing-picture-and-options-and-scroll-buttons.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyytEjwTbwLdJxnUCcDo4CIz-c6E_409tC1XRjNtGyh__87mMIQKsq2eB9qQLFbhh2MDurLF0uKOmwvju41HL1RDAdrojt8DoupE9J_rXq7ieSXWWZfD4Xb24RKJ5kQsgbf36hv_0K9Z-J/s743-Ic42/google-photos-full-screen-mode-viewing-picture-and-options-and-scroll-buttons.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>Right click </b>on the body of the photo and choose the "copy link" command from the menu that pops up where you clicked.   <br /><br />The exact wording of this command varies between browsers on operating system.   For example in <b>Chrome / Windows 8</b>, it is simply "<b>Copy Image URL</b>"<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhVLnQI7CzVc42a7Akuzg1fYKuSvzLeJ0uM2C6TNLV8veQHPV-D3hmAT3NsAX87sar6Kzy1l3oZmnRRSmV1xEeuitsOUkBNx4mPnkpnZZsERR3m5onZEBdl9NqTrUUHgx6XF2WA5oAX7Ej/s640-Ic42/copy-image-url-get-picture-website-address-in-google-photos.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhVLnQI7CzVc42a7Akuzg1fYKuSvzLeJ0uM2C6TNLV8veQHPV-D3hmAT3NsAX87sar6Kzy1l3oZmnRRSmV1xEeuitsOUkBNx4mPnkpnZZsERR3m5onZEBdl9NqTrUUHgx6XF2WA5oAX7Ej/s640-Ic42/copy-image-url-get-picture-website-address-in-google-photos.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br />In Internet Explorer 11 / Windows 8, you need to <b>choose Properties from the pop-up menu</b>, and then <b>copy the value from the URL-field</b> in the window that opens<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIAVstRNHrtzb6Di-CAC7NPN8tNgBgsr9kDD21k7l3FPWzhRP54LY-wI6AL4QNnzRl8HPp64vqg6eXm_B3iQaakgiA7kP-yRBIjJzb-pK47l5KsVnoqLv0_kPloSldQNdn3PA_oWaZDP4D/s972-Ic42/get-picture-url-website-address-google-photos-using-internet-explorer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIAVstRNHrtzb6Di-CAC7NPN8tNgBgsr9kDD21k7l3FPWzhRP54LY-wI6AL4QNnzRl8HPp64vqg6eXm_B3iQaakgiA7kP-yRBIjJzb-pK47l5KsVnoqLv0_kPloSldQNdn3PA_oWaZDP4D/s972-Ic42/get-picture-url-website-address-google-photos-using-internet-explorer.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><b>Job done!</b> The URL for the photo which you were looking at is now in your computer's memory, and you can paste it (with ctrl/v or Edit > Paste) into any other place that wants it - for example Blogger's photo-insert wizard, or an email message or discussion forum or chat window.<br /><br /><br /><h2>The URL from your address bar doesn't work</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfDnuo0HnX_TWYcToNroS4k0VZFvcRX94aCFbyE6q-NbQNA-DFVLQvGUiR93pjBWIaVMxUK6pFIrlzEZRqIYeKPCrTjnueyaMkJVgi1jktLTsyBc2sh9JIH0OvGJUbn6A3xJTTSIaud1sS/s1600/sad-face-function-doesnt-work.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfDnuo0HnX_TWYcToNroS4k0VZFvcRX94aCFbyE6q-NbQNA-DFVLQvGUiR93pjBWIaVMxUK6pFIrlzEZRqIYeKPCrTjnueyaMkJVgi1jktLTsyBc2sh9JIH0OvGJUbn6A3xJTTSIaud1sS/s200/sad-face-function-doesnt-work.png" width="80%" /></a></div>You may be tempted to just copy and paste the URL from the address-bar in your browser. And this will work <b>for you</b>.<br /><br />But if someone else (or you, when you are not logged in to the same Google account) tries to use it, they will get either:<br /><ul><li>A 404 error (if you are logged in to a different Google account), or</li></ul><ul><li>Invited to log in to your Google account - followed by a 404 error if the Google account you log in to is not the one that owns the picture.</li></ul><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to get the URL or web-address of a photo in Google Photos, using your phone (Android or iOS)</h2>Unfortunately I have not managed to find a way to get photogrpah URL (rather than the shareable link) from my smartphone as yet.<br /><br />If you can suggest any ways to do this, please leave a comment below.<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Where to find more information</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-does-google-photos-affect-blogger-and-google-plus-photos.html">Introducing Google Photos:  how does it compare to Google Plus Photos and Picasa-web-albums</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/2015/06/how-to-change-date-of-photograph-in.html">How to change the date of a picture in Google Photos</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2015/07/how-to-make-picture-sharing-links-in-google-photos.html">How to get the shareable link for one or more pictures in Google Photos</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/2011/01/putting-text-and-pictures-side-by-side.html">Putting pictures and text side-by-side in blog-posts</a>

How to find the URL for a picture in Google Photos

This article describes how to get the URL or internet address of a picture in Google Photos, and the difference between Google's shareab...

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How to share pictures from Google Photos, using shareable-links

<b>This article describes how to get a link to one ore more photos from your Google Photos collection, using the Shareable Link controls.   It also explains how to delete shareable links that you have made in the past</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWsfNB2Ipb7uAko4bgNDjkQQQ7rmsaOvvoUO1QBCrzuwLHLToTithPOGtL_iMGYQNb-TOpgyhFe4zE2aeW6ffIj6ZO3leXzKZVewBiy7kF24TqNLBTFzSc6RyE_z0QxajoAD-cCEZ22vX/s1600/getting-sharable-links-in-google-photos-and-deleting-shared-links.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWsfNB2Ipb7uAko4bgNDjkQQQ7rmsaOvvoUO1QBCrzuwLHLToTithPOGtL_iMGYQNb-TOpgyhFe4zE2aeW6ffIj6ZO3leXzKZVewBiy7kF24TqNLBTFzSc6RyE_z0QxajoAD-cCEZ22vX/s320/getting-sharable-links-in-google-photos-and-deleting-shared-links.png" width="280" /></a></div>Google Photos is a tool for managing picture collections. It replaces Google+ Photos, and works alongside Picasa-web-albums.   You can read more about it <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-does-google-photos-affect-blogger-and-google-plus-photos.html">here</a>. <br /><br />Shareable Links are a new type of linking introduced in Google Photos, which let you easily share one or more pictures at the same time.   You can email them, or use them in tools like Facebook.<br /><br />When someone opens a shareable link, they see a display with the date, the name and picture of the person who is logged in to Google at the time, and all the pictures that are included in the same shareable link.<br /><br />If you want to use an image from Google Photos in a tool which cannot use shareable links, you need to find the URL for the photo, instead.<br /><br /><br /><h2>How to get the shareable link for one photo in Google Photos</h2>Log in to <a href="https://photos.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Photos</a><br /><br />Navigate to the picture that you want to get the link for.   <br /><br />Click on the picture, so you see it in full screen mode.<br /><br />Hover your mouse towards the top-right of the screen, and you will see some control show up: these are quite small, and are white (so may be harder to see against some backgrounds). <br /><br />One of the controls is the Share icon:  it looks like a side-ways triangle with one bar missing.     Click it.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bsj6PPXk_WBA1gfeJlTKBIOp4L2zdn085ASZDcGzyTfGL5a9iBoBn5ZvPk8Uh5ju1PV_y7zftwsOwHkdHbe4U3PtH6iPDZGlphOAboKqY5YahoiWRB1PCctTK2muc0UlvdielMu8o71D/s1600/main-photo-viewing-screen-in-google-photos.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bsj6PPXk_WBA1gfeJlTKBIOp4L2zdn085ASZDcGzyTfGL5a9iBoBn5ZvPk8Uh5ju1PV_y7zftwsOwHkdHbe4U3PtH6iPDZGlphOAboKqY5YahoiWRB1PCctTK2muc0UlvdielMu8o71D/s320/main-photo-viewing-screen-in-google-photos.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />In the Share pop-up that opens, click "Get shareable link"<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaguB8_9fJ8x_cnGgt9pYL5mIrig4rTZvFq7dM5estzFA3FBPRlWu9OdkdRs91XNrRoCt5wl9Nw0UA2CkLyOanhWJfJt4XZTFaOREZGNJ4nDJ9GhU1ztFryRUVtsjSnuJSjZ4jvoYUbKIq/s420-Ic42/share-options-from-within-google-photos.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaguB8_9fJ8x_cnGgt9pYL5mIrig4rTZvFq7dM5estzFA3FBPRlWu9OdkdRs91XNrRoCt5wl9Nw0UA2CkLyOanhWJfJt4XZTFaOREZGNJ4nDJ9GhU1ztFryRUVtsjSnuJSjZ4jvoYUbKIq/s420-Ic42/share-options-from-within-google-photos.PNG" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br />Wait while Photos generates a link. <br /><br />When it is finished,<b> copy the link text.  </b><br />(Ctrl/c on the keyboard is the easiest way to do this, since the text is automatically selected).<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1zqkTWiXAyx2XG6DBO153xXiAs2do5kCDxLowVIzQxNYSoDPUTsfSLbWn-rjTtVEKkFS61I7bZt044IDiZEWpwLNT7aMeB0tpVDq8o_iOd4glfX-B2poVaHzNNgFNMg2LDwN-4Y7_OqGN/s411-Ic42/shareable-link-copy-and-paste-screen-in-google-photos.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1zqkTWiXAyx2XG6DBO153xXiAs2do5kCDxLowVIzQxNYSoDPUTsfSLbWn-rjTtVEKkFS61I7bZt044IDiZEWpwLNT7aMeB0tpVDq8o_iOd4glfX-B2poVaHzNNgFNMg2LDwN-4Y7_OqGN/s411-Ic42/shareable-link-copy-and-paste-screen-in-google-photos.PNG" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b> <b>Job done!</b> The display address for the photo which you were looking at is in your computer's memory, and you can paste it (with ctrl/v or Edit > Paste) into any other place that wants it (eg Facebook, in an email message, or something that will accept an address which displays the photo inside a "wrapper" of some sort.  s photo-insert wizard, or an email message or discussion forum or chat window).<br /><br /><br /><h2>How to get the shareable link for more than one picture</h2>You can share several (or lots) of photos with someone by just giving them one web-address, which opens up a screen with all the photos.<br /><br /> To do this:<br /><br />Click the small selection icon (tick) at the top left hand side of each picture that you want to include.<br />(Once a photo is selected, the icon shows as blue, and there is a border around the picture).<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuhI9T4BrQDhawUD4seR4Ka1lWeVUzgynoJxmk5UcMVniZYwX0CjgissfbyHOQdM-TzSb_3v62w8ivb2jKUq72wiB62h-UeeTuxpitE4UJaJlzvca5A0c_hi4l_nlaCVkyI3Wkej9WcFio/s1600/how-to-select-a-picture-in-google-photos.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuhI9T4BrQDhawUD4seR4Ka1lWeVUzgynoJxmk5UcMVniZYwX0CjgissfbyHOQdM-TzSb_3v62w8ivb2jKUq72wiB62h-UeeTuxpitE4UJaJlzvca5A0c_hi4l_nlaCVkyI3Wkej9WcFio/s320/how-to-select-a-picture-in-google-photos.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />Hover your mouse towards the top-right of the screen, and you will see some control show up: these are quite small, and are white (so may be harder to see against some backgrounds).<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_61hY51-sJ4R3NTqHui8mONtJhoQFASfMLAvRBT4_t4dXWaia3K8OC7J_qVc2fkRWaFaX_cO-_nd0sQxI0LTW9SW67uI3CmHk1MtS6-UpanpsyOvrjmu6WWJpnGvrRrrhxEDi5QBLMPpZ/s720-Ic42/find-the-share-link-in-google-photos.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_61hY51-sJ4R3NTqHui8mONtJhoQFASfMLAvRBT4_t4dXWaia3K8OC7J_qVc2fkRWaFaX_cO-_nd0sQxI0LTW9SW67uI3CmHk1MtS6-UpanpsyOvrjmu6WWJpnGvrRrrhxEDi5QBLMPpZ/s720-Ic42/find-the-share-link-in-google-photos.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br />Click the Share control icon:  it is the one that the arrow is pointing to in the picture just above this.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Continue in the same way as for getting a shareable link to an individual photo (ie the section above)</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>What does the Delete link do</h2>You may have noticed that there is a delete function on the Shareable link screen.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEDWpO21UD3obXRtjtEw4Rg5WtYDz8A8j7gL4Eb_1cdFLFvrsxgvbsYAjO60eYdFjWXq3F0Djnp0-6Jj4M4OZ54pkyZXIarPD7EHFnrjygpamoWfZbVLPKWpz-KUVmuowYFVjw447yKUdL/s1600/shareable-link-copy-and-paste-screen-in-google-photos.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEDWpO21UD3obXRtjtEw4Rg5WtYDz8A8j7gL4Eb_1cdFLFvrsxgvbsYAjO60eYdFjWXq3F0Djnp0-6Jj4M4OZ54pkyZXIarPD7EHFnrjygpamoWfZbVLPKWpz-KUVmuowYFVjw447yKUdL/s320/shareable-link-copy-and-paste-screen-in-google-photos.PNG" width="80%" /></a></div><br />If you click it, then you are given the chance to delete any existing links to the currently selected group of photos.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIOOIVbCId3D9I0UlEbiPSbnXonzUvs_7pNjW4E04CBORpyWNNssCK9LX2Dbv2TmmAgkrzwU-4vvxmWssvFFlJgQanFgsA7OZNOqR5w2YQWS1jKV4LD2_zjBM901WxHdGF-yPNoD-_kIjD/s1600/delete-warning-message-in-google-photos.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIOOIVbCId3D9I0UlEbiPSbnXonzUvs_7pNjW4E04CBORpyWNNssCK9LX2Dbv2TmmAgkrzwU-4vvxmWssvFFlJgQanFgsA7OZNOqR5w2YQWS1jKV4LD2_zjBM901WxHdGF-yPNoD-_kIjD/s320/delete-warning-message-in-google-photos.PNG" width="80%" /></a></div><br />This doesn't seem to make any sense at the time when you are first making the link.<br /><br />But it also works later on:  if you have the same photos selected and choose to get the shareable link again, you will get the same link - and you may delete it instead.<br /><br />This does not delete the photos themselves, just the previous link to the currently-selected group of photos.   If anyone (or anything, eg Facebook) tries to use that link again, they will get an error message instead.<br /><br />Another way to delete links is from the left-side menu in Photos:  Choosing  <b>More > Shared links </b>shows you al list of all shareable links you have ever made, and then for each one you can either copy the link or delete it.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEird_joT7jWqzsP7Hn3mLUDAHmRUJnPj35Bw23HKcz58pqlMbMyesYnh5I_cJE8EUTjTzwbO30F9U0P3AlXtmONGdxdKQyYg0YUCidInUn8XOpJyHrS2Jxy3vQOWonwBpgbh4dWZown6dFP/s1600/options-more-menu-item-google-photos-left-hand-side-control-bar.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEird_joT7jWqzsP7Hn3mLUDAHmRUJnPj35Bw23HKcz58pqlMbMyesYnh5I_cJE8EUTjTzwbO30F9U0P3AlXtmONGdxdKQyYg0YUCidInUn8XOpJyHrS2Jxy3vQOWonwBpgbh4dWZown6dFP/s320/options-more-menu-item-google-photos-left-hand-side-control-bar.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Where to find more information</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/2015/06/how-does-google-photos-affect-blogger-and-google-plus-photos.html" target="_blank">Introduction to Google Photos</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">How to put a picture into a post in Blogger</a><br /><br />

How to share pictures from Google Photos, using shareable-links

This article describes how to get a link to one ore more photos from your Google Photos collection, using the Shareable Link controls.   It ...

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How to change the date of a photograph in Google Photos

<b>This article shows how to change the date associated with a picture in Google Photos.</b><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><h2>Update- August 2015</h2>There is now a feature to change the date of individual pictures or videos in Google Photos.<br /><br />To use it:<br /><ul><li>Navigate to the picture / video you want to set a new date for</li><li>Click the "information" icon (small "i" currently near the top-right of the photo viewer screen)</li><li>In the right hand panel, hover your mouse over the item in Details which has a picture of a calendar beside it.</li><li>Click on the pen icon which appears while you are hovering</li><li>Enter the new year, month, date and/or time (in 24-hour clock) for your photo or video.</li><li>Click Save.</li></ul><div>Job Done!   You have now changed the date stored with your image or video.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_gX_DQI8nTe11VHCZgQEY1iAK_bcWJ_B3sZw4mtK-wbmB11U0e9emkJ1jIr5il1MniJpxXJkp_OpZ7hj975ZypWKvVsZtZq7ds7KWR5mhSmoBhFkC8JW3es9-eOVHeutsuCtDvLQ2WVHw/s1600/set-picture-video-date-time-inside-google-photos-interface.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_gX_DQI8nTe11VHCZgQEY1iAK_bcWJ_B3sZw4mtK-wbmB11U0e9emkJ1jIr5il1MniJpxXJkp_OpZ7hj975ZypWKvVsZtZq7ds7KWR5mhSmoBhFkC8JW3es9-eOVHeutsuCtDvLQ2WVHw/s640/set-picture-video-date-time-inside-google-photos-interface.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />There are still some photos that you cannot see through Google Photos (eg ones uploaded directly through Blogger with some settings, or shared in Google Hangouts).   For these you need to use the date-editing features in Picasa-web-albums, which are described below.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Original Article </h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10e5aeD5mlhEpwEz1WOT8SgGmRos86QVqLD_reXOyztAskiiz2uWPHd8VTctZuDjAJDloF8pG5wewxgXi4fZjOc6fjwBlweeMk7Dk42DTJv25wYi5hcIvCSAHJcI560McZVpK8n7vf9CQ/s576/altering-date-of-pictures-in-google-photos-picasa-web-albums-via-google-plus-photos-editing.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10e5aeD5mlhEpwEz1WOT8SgGmRos86QVqLD_reXOyztAskiiz2uWPHd8VTctZuDjAJDloF8pG5wewxgXi4fZjOc6fjwBlweeMk7Dk42DTJv25wYi5hcIvCSAHJcI560McZVpK8n7vf9CQ/s320/altering-date-of-pictures-in-google-photos-picasa-web-albums-via-google-plus-photos-editing.png" width="280" /></a></div>When you open <a href="https://photos.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Photos</a> by default you see the All Photos tab, which shows every picture in your Google account, sorted by the date on which the picture was taken, with the newest at the top.<br /><br />This works well for recent photos that were taken with smartphones, and so most likely have the correct date-time attached to them.<br /><br />But for older photos, that were added to Google in bulk when you finally uploaded them from your camera's memory card, the attached date may not be right.<br /><br />It's even possible to have some photos with no date attached to them - and it looks like Google Photos, very confusingly, shows a nominal date figure in 2075 for these.<br /><br />One way to avoid the confusion caused by these wrong dates is just to use the Collections tab to view your pictures, and to put photos with the wrong dates into appropriate collections (aka albums) yourself.<br /><br />But if you want to keep using the All Photos view, you may want to alter the date for some of your  individual photographs, so they show up in the right order.<br /><br /><br /><h2>How to change the date for a picture in Google Photos</h2>Unfortunately Google Photos doesn't have a feature for doign this (yet).   But you can adjust the date assocaited with with a picture by <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-picasa-very-basic-introduction.html">using Picasa Web Albums</a> - provided you have at least some aspects of a Google+ profile (eg a Google+ Page) associated with your Google account.<br /><br /><h3>Follow these steps:</h3>Go to Picasa Web Albums, using the no-re-direct link: <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1" target="_blank">https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1</a><br /><br />Find the album that the photo(s) you want to change are in<br /><br />Click on the album - this will open the album, and display each picture in it.<br /><br />Click on the photo you whose date you want to change.<br /><br />From the menu bar, choose <b>Actions > Edit on Google+</b>.   This opens the photo in Google+'s photo viewer mode.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0sv4UwvIsrRkJQ8uuC-rb6nmApQgoSJgVMcgoJP5BX5FgA1_h_QYau652Q7h2-Fy9YYjZe_d8QmWRw6boOxjIXl77DOQAf9MtcVwrBJqaP0R8dySSw9OWNMO_XNxnOjJl8fy8PGUHTBsJ/s1600/google-photos-date-change-by-edit-from-picasa-web-albums.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0sv4UwvIsrRkJQ8uuC-rb6nmApQgoSJgVMcgoJP5BX5FgA1_h_QYau652Q7h2-Fy9YYjZe_d8QmWRw6boOxjIXl77DOQAf9MtcVwrBJqaP0R8dySSw9OWNMO_XNxnOjJl8fy8PGUHTBsJ/s640/google-photos-date-change-by-edit-from-picasa-web-albums.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br />Click on the drop-down beside Photo Details in the right hand information bar.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCA5DdZp7iVBbJhWK3UycSCxpUJLHBk6Qz1NEJNYO3pGuJ7D4OVz1D7JQeTsBtrUg0wwEXx4ZynrqB6s4e-NOm8k6WMsTMZ7oIQwFqvCHSRO56B6SETHNJjUPo4hnzNnYd22lgA6xJYEUV/s1600/google-photos-date-change-photo-details-page-google-plus-photos.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCA5DdZp7iVBbJhWK3UycSCxpUJLHBk6Qz1NEJNYO3pGuJ7D4OVz1D7JQeTsBtrUg0wwEXx4ZynrqB6s4e-NOm8k6WMsTMZ7oIQwFqvCHSRO56B6SETHNJjUPo4hnzNnYd22lgA6xJYEUV/s640/google-photos-date-change-photo-details-page-google-plus-photos.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br />Use the options in the pop-up window to choose the correct date, time and even time-zone.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQAZtW4xvKd-bB61aKoE2s58ULf5TqMLD_BrggzQsMwVIEhneDcIqgdN_9aXKGKTF9EW-6j834SOfpgTWCXd1JCyJeCK5NnwpC-BKfq845ydnPn9Wh_Gh-ZHrCx4OlIg6uH7pnEYYVZlJr/s1600/google-photos-date-time-timezone-picker-change-function.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQAZtW4xvKd-bB61aKoE2s58ULf5TqMLD_BrggzQsMwVIEhneDcIqgdN_9aXKGKTF9EW-6j834SOfpgTWCXd1JCyJeCK5NnwpC-BKfq845ydnPn9Wh_Gh-ZHrCx4OlIg6uH7pnEYYVZlJr/s640/google-photos-date-time-timezone-picker-change-function.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br />Click Save<br /><br /><br /><b>Job Done! </b> If you now look at the picture in Google Photos, you will see if with your newly changed date associated with it.<br /><br /><br /><h2>What if you don't have Google+</h2>If Edit in Google+ is greyed out and cannot be selected, then this means you do not have Google+ associated with your Google account.<br /><br /> The only work-around for this currently is to share the photo (from Google Photos) with another Google account that does have Google+, and use that to change the date.<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Where to get more information</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-does-google-photos-affect-blogger-and-google-plus-photos.html">Introducing Google Photos - another tool for managing your photo collection.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-picasa-very-basic-introduction.html">Understanding Picasa desktop vs Picasa-web-albums</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/understanding-google-accounts.html">All about Google accounts</a>

How to change the date of a photograph in Google Photos

This article shows how to change the date associated with a picture in Google Photos. Update- August 2015 There is now a feature to change t...

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Blogger and Google Photos - what's changed, and what hasn't (yet)

<b>This article gives a brief introduction to Google Photos, and how it relates to both Blogger and Google+ Photos.</b> <br /><b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixA4WxkHZeZeQj1hYkVjmtXlutrrLTut2vd5zi6-uE6xLn5db2yHU13zDIMMdkxoKhkNTE4eI-eEuz9ycugRnwZkFki7DuesEqRUtUAdQLz4D_eJVA5kyOn2stACkVnSpVltgeM9nz7-sp/s720/bh-gpt.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixA4WxkHZeZeQj1hYkVjmtXlutrrLTut2vd5zi6-uE6xLn5db2yHU13zDIMMdkxoKhkNTE4eI-eEuz9ycugRnwZkFki7DuesEqRUtUAdQLz4D_eJVA5kyOn2stACkVnSpVltgeM9nz7-sp/s320/bh-gpt.png" width="280" /></a></div>Google's recent <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/05/picture-this-fresh-approach-to-photos.htm" target="_blank">announcement</a> of Google Photos opens the door for Blogger to make some improvements to how it works with pictures.<br /><br />Why? Well Google+Photos simply wasn't a way forward.   Too many Blogger users chose not to "upgrade" their Google accounts to Google+ accounts, so it wasn't possible for Blogger to force Google+ features on everyone. And that was even after they removed the rule about one G+ account per person, and allowed <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2014/03/set-login-id-and-password-for-a-google-plus-page.html">Google+ Pages to be turned into stand alone accounts</a> with their own passwords.<br /><br />However Google Photos is basically Google+ Photos, without the need to have a "plus" account, and with some other nice features, like<br /><br /><ul><li>Free picture and video storage (any number of pictures, provided they aren't "too big"), </li><li>Image recognition and search</li><li>Sorting pictures by date, but giving options for you to group them into albums</li></ul><br />Read more about these Google Photos options <a href="http://lifehacker.com/how-the-new-google-photos-makes-your-picture-library-aw-1708189976" target="_blank">here</a>.  <br /><br />This means it will be possible for Google to replace Picasa-web-albums features with Google Photos features at some time in the future, even if they're not ready to do this yet.<br /><br /><br /><h2>What's changed - and what hasn't (yet)?</h2>So far, I haven't noticed any changes to the photo-upload or image-choice features in Blogger.<br /><br />There's still an upload option, there's still a tab to choose photos from Picasa and one for your phone - and I don't know what the criteria for showing photos in the latter tab is, but it's certainly not listing all the photos I've taken from my phone.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9SB2BeE24y9YbB2kclhwc_nh6vJI0GQNKlr4Q_SwMms1omYP9UHgIWraRuvJI1a9YCwIkDS9XRw5QjU9rep3Q4Mn7LxxpQBCB7cpTaLlEiWTmFKdeXzpBlVV_TEftiKLesfdZbM7sbDfk/s1600/no-changes-to-blogger-picture-handling-screen-yet.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9SB2BeE24y9YbB2kclhwc_nh6vJI0GQNKlr4Q_SwMms1omYP9UHgIWraRuvJI1a9YCwIkDS9XRw5QjU9rep3Q4Mn7LxxpQBCB7cpTaLlEiWTmFKdeXzpBlVV_TEftiKLesfdZbM7sbDfk/s640/no-changes-to-blogger-picture-handling-screen-yet.PNG" width="90%" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />I am expecting they will change to become more Google-Photos-esque, sooner or later. <br /><br />But for now, though, not that much has changed.<br /><br />Your Google account still only has <b>one collection of pictures</b>. <br /><br />Your pictures may be <b>photographs you have taken or other image files</b> that you have created and uploaded (eg like the thumbnail picture that I constructed for this post).<br /><br />As well as the various mobile phone applications (official ones for iOS and Android, unofficial ones from various other companies), there is now one more (to make six)<b> pieces of desktop software or websites from Google that you can use</b> to manage (aspects of) your picture collection:<br /><ul><li>Google Photos: <a href="https://photos.google.com/" target="_blank">https://photos.google.com</a> (website)</li><li>Google Photos app: <a href="https://photos.google.com/apps" target="_blank">https://photos.google.com/apps</a> - and choose Desktop Uploader  (program)</li><li>Google+ Photos: <a href="https://plus.google.com/photos/" target="_blank">https://plus.google.com/photos/</a>    (website)</li><li>Picasa Web Albums: <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1" target="_blank">https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1</a>   (website)</li><li>Google Drive <a href="https://drive.google.com/" target="_blank">https://drive.google.com</a> - and choose My Drive from the left-side tab</li><li>Picasa Desktop - get it from <a href="https://picasa.google.com/" target="_blank">https://picasa.google.com</a></li></ul><br />Note:   Even though you only have one photo collection, each tool may need to build it's own "index" (or whatever it calls it) to work with your photos.  Making all your photos (especially the historic ones) available in each tool might take a while to do: For example, not all my photos are visible on Drive yet: when I scroll to the bottom of the display I get a message saying "Stay tuned, your older photos are coming soon" - and looking at what is displayed, it's only photos that I have posted from my current smartphone (not the old one) to one particular blog.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9goQdnSQu0PdCsTLHyiAsA9hIVN_AtVlgM810NIkD62L8bycZhv6Bw5nUvjdLKyTsSgkx2vwNk9kxLgl4ublV9vvBC3OqieX7GauqftpdNKZzn4t1JLxGpkwCHcbMI5zbQeoVtOwgD5D9/w417-h147-no/bhat-gPhtDrv.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9goQdnSQu0PdCsTLHyiAsA9hIVN_AtVlgM810NIkD62L8bycZhv6Bw5nUvjdLKyTsSgkx2vwNk9kxLgl4ublV9vvBC3OqieX7GauqftpdNKZzn4t1JLxGpkwCHcbMI5zbQeoVtOwgD5D9/w417-h147-no/bhat-gPhtDrv.PNG" width="80%" /></a></div><br /><br />And the tools <b>don't all do the same things</b>. In particular, there are features like albums and slideshows are still best done from Picasa (more info here: <a href="http://picasageeks.com/2015/05/google-photos-announcementthis-is-big/" target="_blank">http://picasageeks.com/2015/05/google-photos-announcementthis-is-big/</a>) - and  Picasa Desktop's photo editing tools are still vastly better.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_z3DKgf6RxsfswD-ajskT_bGqO7OHvCivYkRPVRVY9hDyA8No4tkPeU7Auom3UqgHNHycPgLQAcy4dRTOP34yWh7auQOUCxt-u0mbmUpW0GOf2smxoNbdAgqPDt5v9eKvSd8WRUuoXIC/s1600/things-picasa-sofware-can-do-that-google-photos-cannot-achieve.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="edits you can do in Picasa dessktop but not on-line" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_z3DKgf6RxsfswD-ajskT_bGqO7OHvCivYkRPVRVY9hDyA8No4tkPeU7Auom3UqgHNHycPgLQAcy4dRTOP34yWh7auQOUCxt-u0mbmUpW0GOf2smxoNbdAgqPDt5v9eKvSd8WRUuoXIC/s320/things-picasa-sofware-can-do-that-google-photos-cannot-achieve.png" width="80%" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Example of a photo editing effect which is possible in Picasa Desktop, but not in Google Photos</i></div><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Where to find more information</h2><h2><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Google's <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/05/picture-this-fresh-approach-to-photos.htm" target="_blank">official announcement</a></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Google support article:  <a href="https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6156103?hl=en" target="_blank">Using Google Drive to manage your photos</a></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /><a href="http://lifehacker.com/how-the-new-google-photos-makes-your-picture-library-aw-1708189976" target="_blank">LifeHacker's summary of the features in Google Photos</a><br /><br /></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/2010/01/what-is-picasa-very-basic-introduction.html" target="_blank">Picasa-web-albums vs Picasa-desktop, what's the difference</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2014/03/set-login-id-and-password-for-a-google-plus-page.html">Turning a Google+ Page into a stand-alone Google account</a><br /><br />Picasageek's detailed description of <a href="http://picasageeks.com/2015/05/google-photos-announcementthis-is-big/" target="_blank">Picasa vs Google Photos features</a></div></h2>

Blogger and Google Photos - what's changed, and what hasn't (yet)

This article gives a brief introduction to Google Photos, and how it relates to both Blogger and Google+ Photos. Google's recent an...

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Putting pictures side-by-side in a blog post or gadget

<b>This article shows how to put pictures side-by-side in Blogger (or any other website) using HTML, in a way that works for visitors using mobiles (smartphones and tables) as well as larger screens.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdbnBuN99GEKj7qQ4Hv-pv5mY90xCviHHMpQujriapUiQJV7Gv-G4KU19_fLPb-mEpwDvQfvzCU_5DxBzA9ul22uAiXnpiByrMmi6kQxOjhPh9XYai4o9g8pn8i_2ty0qRmt1ACIi7O9T/s640/putting-pictures-side-by-side-in-html-code-for-bloggers.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Placing pictures side by side in Blogger: a picture of three images next to each other on the same line" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdbnBuN99GEKj7qQ4Hv-pv5mY90xCviHHMpQujriapUiQJV7Gv-G4KU19_fLPb-mEpwDvQfvzCU_5DxBzA9ul22uAiXnpiByrMmi6kQxOjhPh9XYai4o9g8pn8i_2ty0qRmt1ACIi7O9T/s640/putting-pictures-side-by-side-in-html-code-for-bloggers.png" title="Positioning images in horizontal-alignment using HTML" width="300" /></a></div>Previously I've explained <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/08/using-tables-to-show-data-in-your-blog.html">how to use a table</a> to force photos (and other things) to all show into a line, even if the user's screen is too small to display them all at once.   And I've looked at <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/01/putting-text-and-pictures-side-by-side.html">putting text and pictures side-by-side</a> - assuming you're only working with one picture.<br /><br />Tables are great if you are showing data and need rigid alignment, or if you don't mind your mobile device visitors having to either scroll, or to pinch their screen so much that they cannot read the text.<br /><br />But there is a way to lay out pictures so that they display side by side if there's room on the screen, or start on a new line if there's not.<br /><br />I've done this recently on a blog where really wanted to make a display for last / next week and last / next year on two different dimensions. It looks like this on a smartphone vs a tablet.   Notice that on the tablet, the two middle pictures are on the same line.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbM01ga0Y1aHQbzGm1g5be8aeEle2DNp1aIHoUhDReH2HfCr25injKX_PkF130r5EZKx3gnH5fLqINoAD8W7LvblgViBycWek2FiI2RCi9yDR-SOnxEO_NSjuCGo-JRIV9Kn04RpVbVHCg/s912/effect-of-div-statement-alignment-of-images-in-webpage-smartphone-vs-tablet.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbM01ga0Y1aHQbzGm1g5be8aeEle2DNp1aIHoUhDReH2HfCr25injKX_PkF130r5EZKx3gnH5fLqINoAD8W7LvblgViBycWek2FiI2RCi9yDR-SOnxEO_NSjuCGo-JRIV9Kn04RpVbVHCg/s912/effect-of-div-statement-alignment-of-images-in-webpage-smartphone-vs-tablet.png" width="90%" /></a></div><br /><br /><h2>How to lay out several pictures side-by-side if there's space, or one-under-another if not</h2>Start to prepare your post in the usual way.<br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">Add your pictures</a> to the post in the usual way. Ideally, put them just before or just after some <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2014/07/use-marker-text-to-go-to-a-place-in-html-code.html">marker text</a> that you can use to help you to find the code for it in the next step.<br /><br />Hover over each picture, and choose the <b>small</b> size (you can change this later)<br /><br />Go into <b>HTML mode</b>.<br /><br /><b>Find the place</b> where the pictures are.   (If you've used marker-text, just use your browser's search feature to go to it.)<br /><br /><b>Add this code</b>, just where you want the line of images (or other items) to end up.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><div style="display: inline-block; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-right: 2em; width: NN;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">IMAGE CODE FOR PICTURE</div></span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><div style="display: inline-block; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-right: 2em; width: NN;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">IMAGE CODE FOR PICTURE</div></span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><div style="display: inline-block; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-right: 0em; width: NN;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">IMAGE CODE FOR PICTURE</div></span></blockquote><br />That has space for three pictures - you can <b>delete one or add more lines</b> if you want to - just make sure that the very last one has margin-right: 0em; and the others all have margin-right: 2em;<br /><br />Now, for each picture that you added,<br /><ul><li>Find the HTML code for it.   (<a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/11/stopping-pictures-on-your-blog-from.html">This post </a>has a detailed explanation of what the HTML code for a picture)</li></ul><ul><li>Delete the <b>height = "nn"</b>  part from it   (nnn = whatever number is there)</li></ul><ul><li>In the <b>width = "nnn"</b> part, <b>replace</b> nnn with  "100%", so it says   width = "100%" <br />Note:  this is saying to make the picture take up the whole width of the division you have assigned it to.   You can make it smaller than 100%.   But you want to do it put a bigger margin between the two pictures, then you can do this by increasing the value in   <span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">margin-right: 2em;</span>      </li></ul><ul><li><b>Move the picture code</b> to where it says IMAGE CODE FOR PICTURE</li></ul><ul><li>Decide how wide the picture should be, and <b>change the value in Width: NN</b> within that DIV statement to the right amount. <br />You can either use pixels (eg width: 100px;), ems (eg width: 20em;) or percentages (width: 40%;)   If you use percentages, then the total amount for all the pictures should be a little less than 100%, so allow for some space between the pictures:  for example, with a 2em margin and three pictures in a row, you may need to make the total approx 90%.</li></ul><br />Go back into <b>Compose mode,</b> and check that your pictures look roughly right - if necessary, you may need to adjust the picture sizes.   (See the note below under Troubleshooting for more about this.)<br />Delete the marker text.<br /><br /><br /><b>Job done!   </b>Your pictures will now display side-by-side if they can all fit into the user's screen, or one under another if not.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Troubleshooting</h2>Getting the pictures right can be quite fiddly, so I recommend preparing the blog post in private, so you can do this in stages, and save your work regularly as you go.<br /><br />Your pictures will be vertically aligned on the bottom axis, and this means that the approach will work best with pictures that are the same height.    (I'm working on another article looking at alignment issues - it's they're quite tricky.)<br /><br /><h3>Post editor view vs your visitor's screen</h3>An issue that many new bloggers struggle with is that what they can see in the post editor is<b> not the same </b>as what their blog-visitors will see.<br /><br />The post editor screen is only a certain width.    Most times, it is smaller than the width of the main body of your blog.  So, if you have used fixed-widths (ie in pixels, or ems, not percentages), more pictures fit on the same line in your blog than in the post editor. But if a visitor is using their smartphone to read your blog (and I do a lot of my blog-reading on the phone these days) - the screen width is less than it is in the post editor.<br /><br />This is why using <div> statements instead of <table>'s is a good idea.  But it does means that sometimes you will have to compromise on whether things can be put together.<br /><div><br /></div><h3>Is this only for pictures?</h3>No - you can use this technique with blocks of text, videos - in fact anything that you can put into your blog.<br /><br /><h3>What about gadgets?</h3>You can use this technique anywhere that you can edit the HTML.  So, you can put pictures in a row in your sidebar, header or footer by using a HTML-gadget.    (<a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/getting-html-code-to-put-picture-into.html">This post</a> shows a handy way to get the picture code when you're making gadgets.)<br /><br /><h3>Captions</h3>I <b>don't</b> recommend using captions with this this technique.   Blogger shows them using tables:  they put the photo and text into a one-column-two-row table, and this makes working with the picture code a lot more difficult.   If you really want to use them, then add them after you have moved your picture code inside the <div>...</div> statements.<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles:</h2><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/08/using-tables-to-show-data-in-your-blog.html">Using a table to display data in your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2014/07/use-marker-text-to-go-to-a-place-in-html-code.html">Marker text helps you to find places in your blog post</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/01/putting-text-and-pictures-side-by-side.html">Putting text and photographs side-by-side </a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">How to add a picture to a blog post</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/getting-html-code-to-put-picture-into.html">How to get the HTML code for a picture when you don't have an insert-picture icon on the toolbar</a>

Putting pictures side-by-side in a blog post or gadget

This article shows how to put pictures side-by-side in Blogger (or any other website) using HTML, in a way that works for visitors using mob...

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Introducing the "Free high-quality picture search" tool

<b>This article introduces the Free High Quality Picture Search tool which has been added to this website</b><b>.</b><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIwuMBGsRY2re1j4mqCS_fpCptL0A-pAgemHVeB35xgCOb_aN9F8aPEaVe4wh1yYq1F8XYuI0TYpczLpkSk5xqFU0bQ36sp2o28Cde435JtY1QLP9vZGtmTVfW4nrwzuBKJV0EZ8FfgFsN/s720/picture-search-free-images-custom-search-high-quality-graphics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIwuMBGsRY2re1j4mqCS_fpCptL0A-pAgemHVeB35xgCOb_aN9F8aPEaVe4wh1yYq1F8XYuI0TYpczLpkSk5xqFU0bQ36sp2o28Cde435JtY1QLP9vZGtmTVfW4nrwzuBKJV0EZ8FfgFsN/s720/picture-search-free-images-custom-search-high-quality-graphics.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Today I've added a new feature to <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/">Blogger-Hints-and-Tips</a>.<br /><br />The <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/p/free-image-search.html">Free High Quality Image Search tool</a> is available from the menu bar. It is a tool to help you locate free, high-quality pictures to use in your blog posts or other website projects.<br /><br />It is based on a <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-custom-search-engine-in-your.html">Google-custom-search engine</a>, and a carefully selected <a href="http://www.labnol.org/internet/find-free-images/24990/">set of websites</a> that offer images you can use for free on your blog, even if it is "commercial" (ie you have advertising or any other way of making money from it).<br /><div><br />The difference between this and the images that you can get from a general-purpose search using the <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/12/find-free-pictures-with-creative-commons-search-tool.html">Creative Commons image and multi-media search tool</a> is the resolution of the images that are found and/or their photographic quality.<br /><br /><h2>How to use the Free-image-search tool</h2><div><ul><li>Choose it from the menu bar on this blog, or navigate directly to it at  <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/p/free-image-search.html">http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/p/free-image-search.html</a></li></ul></div><div><ul><li>Type a description of the image you want to see into the search-bar.</li></ul></div><div><ul><li>Press Enter</li></ul></div><div><ul><li>When the results display, click the Image tab, to see what photos are available.<br /><i>(Hopefully this step is only temporary, and I can soon manage to have the search-results default to images and still use the tool in Blogger.)</i></li></ul></div><div><ul><li>Use the numbers in the lower-left side to move to different pages in the image-search results.</li></ul><ul><li>Choose an image that you would like to use.</li></ul></div><div><br /></div><div>Once you have chosen an image, you can either link directly to if (if the site allows), or download a copy, put it on your own image-service (eg Picasa-web-albums), and use it in your blog.   The latter approach is required if you want the image to be used as the <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">thumbnail for your post</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><h2>Copyright</h2><div>By definition, all images returned by the search-tool should be free-use and so not subject to any <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-blogs-and-bloggers.html">copyright rules</a>. <br /><br />However some do have attribution requirements, and you may need to use image-captions or similar to make sure that these are followed in your blog.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><h2></h2><h2>Related Articles:</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/12/find-free-pictures-with-creative-commons-search-tool.html">Finding free photos for your blog, using Creative Commons</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-custom-search-engine-in-your.html">Introducing Google-custom-search engines</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">Summarise your blog-post with post.snippet and post.thumbnail</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-blogs-and-bloggers.html">Copyright, Blogs and Blogging, an introduction</a></div>

Introducing the "Free high-quality picture search" tool

This article introduces the Free High Quality Picture Search tool which has been added to this website . Today I've added a new feature ...

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How to take better pictures - no matter what sort of camera you have

<b>This weekly blogger tip is complements of Shutterfly:   tips about how to take great photos, of various types, no matter what sort of camera you use.</b> <br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><br /><h2>Why?</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-right: 3em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuNxEeDeuPemVjNq68LAvCD93O1UVZrOslVkDopDT6C4PztmTkjUurEG6DMsZ-Pvxsg18jDgmemRb8FDYKt18djLUnZHiEOeXWzIm4VKCfLdPMUZ-wzwXFFciXqa7d60GCIVWTK9RuzKWc/w795-h488-no/regular-blogger-hints-tips-weekly-post-generic-picture.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuNxEeDeuPemVjNq68LAvCD93O1UVZrOslVkDopDT6C4PztmTkjUurEG6DMsZ-Pvxsg18jDgmemRb8FDYKt18djLUnZHiEOeXWzIm4VKCfLdPMUZ-wzwXFFciXqa7d60GCIVWTK9RuzKWc/w795-h488-no/regular-blogger-hints-tips-weekly-post-generic-picture.png" width="200" /></a></div>Why take your own pictures, when there are so many free-photo-search tools out there?<br /><br />Well, if you want your blog to be <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-blogs-and-bloggers.html">copyright-legal</a>, then you need to either find free-use photos, or make your own. Creating your own post-photos is especially useful to prove that your local blog really is local (like <a href="http://www.galwaycafeguide.com/">this</a>) - and taking pictures that I take myself and host pictures in Picasa / Google+ Photos means that my posts always have a <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">thumbnail image</a>.<br /><br /><br /><h2>How?</h2>Great tips from the pros, here: <b><a href="http://www.shutterfly.com/how-to-take-the-perfect-photo/" target="_blank">http://www.shutterfly.com/how-to-take-the-perfect-photo/</a></b><br /><br />The best bit is that this isn't just a glossy, or a snobby "fancy-cameras-only" guide.    There are tips for <b>every combination</b> of  camera type:<br /><ul><li>DSLR</li><li>Smartphone</li><li>Point and shoot</li></ul><div>and photo type:</div><ul><li>Portraits</li><li>Selfie</li><li>Bokeh</li><li>Macro</li><li>Action shots</li><li>Close up</li><li>Wide angle</li><li>Food</li><li>Candid</li><li>By the water</li><li>Landscape</li><li>Panorama</li></ul><br /><br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="2400" scrolling="no" src="http://www.shutterfly.com/how-to-take-the-perfect-photo/content.html" width="100%"></iframe><br /><br /><br />PS Shutterfly said<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"Please share this interactive on your site or blog. Just copy and paste the code below" </i></blockquote><br />So I did. But it looks like it's not working 100%. To get into their tool, click here: <b><a href="http://www.shutterfly.com/how-to-take-the-perfect-photo/" target="_blank">http://www.shutterfly.com/how-to-take-the-perfect-photo/</a></b><br /><br /><br />Happy snapping!

How to take better pictures - no matter what sort of camera you have

This weekly blogger tip is complements of Shutterfly:   tips about how to take great photos, of various types, no matter what sort of camera...

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Use diagrams to make pictures for your blog posts

<b>This post from the <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/search/label/Weekly%20Blogging%20Tips">Weekly Blogging Tips</a> series is about a cost-effective way to make pictures for blog postings.</b> <br /><br /><br /><a name="more"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuNxEeDeuPemVjNq68LAvCD93O1UVZrOslVkDopDT6C4PztmTkjUurEG6DMsZ-Pvxsg18jDgmemRb8FDYKt18djLUnZHiEOeXWzIm4VKCfLdPMUZ-wzwXFFciXqa7d60GCIVWTK9RuzKWc/s795/regular-blogger-hints-tips-weekly-post-generic-picture.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuNxEeDeuPemVjNq68LAvCD93O1UVZrOslVkDopDT6C4PztmTkjUurEG6DMsZ-Pvxsg18jDgmemRb8FDYKt18djLUnZHiEOeXWzIm4VKCfLdPMUZ-wzwXFFciXqa7d60GCIVWTK9RuzKWc/s795/regular-blogger-hints-tips-weekly-post-generic-picture.png" width="320" /></a></div>The best blogging advice is that every post should have at least one picture:  is a stunning professional-looking shot which perfectly illustrates the point you are making perfectly.<br /><br />This is a great idea if you're a professional photographer and have all time in the world, or if you can afford to purchase images which are custom made for your blog.<br /><br />But most of us just aren't in that league.<br /><br />Sometimes, you can <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/12/find-free-pictures-with-creative-commons-search-tool.html">use a search tool to find a re-usable photograph</a> that you can put into your posts. (Remember to download your own copy and put it into a Google picture host, to make sure that it's accepted as the <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">thumbnail picture</a> for the post.)<br /><br />But another option is to use a <b>diagram</b> - like this<b>.</b><br /><b><br /></b> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYo9GTQ8E8_RDUjpNqBJOJl4EKJ3U2M5Ckmhl1taikJ2ZxQupynxlm0rEpytD-AjC4EgJcunZquuPdxugF5yQj_I3rQPN3qJQvq8Bi1xNymmYVcaBjvgrlPzIIFBBfaR6qcsM6Mk2F-w/s512/budget-cycle-plan-estimate-analyse-replan.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYo9GTQ8E8_RDUjpNqBJOJl4EKJ3U2M5Ckmhl1taikJ2ZxQupynxlm0rEpytD-AjC4EgJcunZquuPdxugF5yQj_I3rQPN3qJQvq8Bi1xNymmYVcaBjvgrlPzIIFBBfaR6qcsM6Mk2F-w/s512/budget-cycle-plan-estimate-analyse-replan.png" width="70%" /></a></div><b><br /></b> The picture above is a diagram that I used in a blog-post to emphasise that budgeting for an event is on-going through the planning phase, not a one-time job   I spent quite a while thinking about how to make the point about the original plan vs the on-going feedback loop.<br /><br />Diagrams don't have to be complicated. Sometimes something as simple as showing a bullet pointed list in a different shape can be an effective way to add "visual texture" to your post and thus make it more appealing for people to read.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj216z1xmClgERMNRDuOpWmzOIjRiapqRQcIBwhExWtBTlsrbuIYVd7koSMW5zOwzVQSETDgaAR4eWLrtAT0FDeN9_dKS3V9GfKpiZBccWxsSN0S3EPKFF7wXKQfMMq0BWEPO2j4Ymqzm2J/s912/example-diagram-to-illustrate-a-blog-post-flow.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj216z1xmClgERMNRDuOpWmzOIjRiapqRQcIBwhExWtBTlsrbuIYVd7koSMW5zOwzVQSETDgaAR4eWLrtAT0FDeN9_dKS3V9GfKpiZBccWxsSN0S3EPKFF7wXKQfMMq0BWEPO2j4Ymqzm2J/s912/example-diagram-to-illustrate-a-blog-post-flow.png" width="80%" /></a></div><br />There are various tools that you can use to make diagrams.<br /><ul><li><b>PowerPoint</b> is fantastic especially in in Office 2010 and 20123 where it has shape placement guidelines, as well as the usual squiggly word-art, smart-shapes, gradient-fills etc. </li></ul><ul><li><b>Google Spreadsheets</b> is catching up, though they've got a way to go yet, and your have to use screenshot tools to get an image (JPG, PNG or BMP) file from it. </li></ul><ul><li>And most other drawing and word-processing tools include some drawing tools too.</li></ul>

Use diagrams to make pictures for your blog posts

This post from the Weekly Blogging Tips series is about a cost-effective way to make pictures for blog postings. The best blogging advic...

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Stop Google from "fixing" pictures that are loaded through Blogger

<b>This article is about how you can stop Google from automatically "enhancing" pictures that are loaded in Blogger - even if you do not have a Google+ account.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><h2>Google has started automatically "fixing" new pictures as they are added to your blog</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1idcU9HS66hekMRcnolBEe8TSrxDFbkI5GDOG3xG5awH7ytR5y7FisTXlFPirQD-8KehE2DOAfYF-pExw-RrwYPzEvi0WPPDwYDiLv597a70hGOgX1tgkmGOlDtAXQBAjuSLw_56jL5V4/s512/stop-photo-enhancement-in-blogger-due-to-google-plus-photos.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1idcU9HS66hekMRcnolBEe8TSrxDFbkI5GDOG3xG5awH7ytR5y7FisTXlFPirQD-8KehE2DOAfYF-pExw-RrwYPzEvi0WPPDwYDiLv597a70hGOgX1tgkmGOlDtAXQBAjuSLw_56jL5V4/s320/stop-photo-enhancement-in-blogger-due-to-google-plus-photos.png" width="280" /></a></div>In May 2013 Google added the Auto-Enhance and Auto-Awesome features to Google+ Photos. These are meant to make your pictures look better, ie more like those which are taken by professional photographers.<br /><br />These features are turned "on" by default. And because:<br /><ul><li>Photos loaded using Blogger are stored in Picasa-web-albums, and</li><li>Picasa-web-albums and as Google+ Photos actually have the same collection of photos - yes, even for accounts that do not use G+,</li></ul>the effect is that<b> auto-enhance and auto-awesome are applied to all images loaded through Blogger's post-editor, header-picture loading tool and gadget-picture loading too;.</b><br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>Why is this a problem</h2>In many cases, these features work as they are intended to, and the illustration that is shown on your blog is more attractive than the one you uploaded - it's brighter, clearer and loads faster.<br /><br />But there are some situations where the effect of the auto-enhancement is not good. These include:<br /><ul><li>Pictures with some transparency - which is auto-corrected to either light grey or black</li><li>Pictures that are intended to be dull / dark / shady - these are automatically lightened.]</li><li>Pictures that are loaded at a certain photo quality - are automatically downgraded to a lower quality (which is fine for viewing on screen, but not so fine if you actually want to use your blog to share high-quality photos).</li></ul><br />Blogger users who have a non-white background, and who deliberately upload images with a transparent background so their blog background will "show through" the image have been particularly annoyed by this.   And I have been less than impressed by the faint grey "wash" added to the background of some of my diagrams - for example:<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFLoKfD7oBKaePH3UuxPG4EGvzA7dPwIMpz21Qzl9MTL0bLTXT2XfirdJ_7m7szen0wHE2i9Ze9TpUjZWEMAJZyojHivonWNvhPXwgPvCMKGVYu63HkNyHh1p-vfPdZcGwhchROswiG2G/s512/example-picture-uploaded-picasa-with-without-google-auto-enhance-feature-on.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFLoKfD7oBKaePH3UuxPG4EGvzA7dPwIMpz21Qzl9MTL0bLTXT2XfirdJ_7m7szen0wHE2i9Ze9TpUjZWEMAJZyojHivonWNvhPXwgPvCMKGVYu63HkNyHh1p-vfPdZcGwhchROswiG2G/s400/example-picture-uploaded-picasa-with-without-google-auto-enhance-feature-on.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The left-hand picture was auto-enhanced, the right hand one was not</b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to turn off photo auto-enhance if you use Google+</h2>If your blog - and the account you use to post to the blog - is linked to your Google+ profile, then you can stop your photos from being changed by:<br /><ul><li>Opening the <a href="https://www.google.com/settings/plus" target="_blank"> Google Plus settings</a> tab.</li><li>In the "Photos" section, un-ticking "Automatically enhance new photos"</li></ul><br />This stops the auto-enhance and auto-awesome tools being applied to any new photos that you upload from now onwards using Google+ Photos, Picasa-web-albums or any Blogger feature that lets you load a picture (the post-editor, the header widget settings, the picture gadget settings).<br /><br />Alternatively, you can turn off the auto-enhance and auto-awesome changes that are made to specific pictures by by finding them in Google+ photos and un-ticking "Auto-enhance" in the "More" menu.<br /><br /><br /><h2>How to turn off photo auto-enhance if you do not use Google+</h2>There is currently no option in Piscasa-web-albums to turn off the auto-enhance feature. <br />This means that if you load photos to either Blogger or Picasa-web-albums, using a Google / Blogger account that is not linked to a Google+ profile, you cannot stop auto-enhance from happening.<br /><br />Some people have suggested that the way around this is to:<br /><ul><li>Temporarily link the blog to a Google+ profile (either your own one, or one that you create just for the purpose - eg "Mr John Smith")</li><li>Turn off the auto-enhance feature using the Google+ procedure listed above</li><li>Fix up the damage to any pictures that you loaded through Blogger or Picasa-web-albums between mid May 2013 and today by finding them in Google+ photos and un-ticking "Auto-enhance" in the "More" menu.</li><li>Unlink the blog from the Google+ profile.</li></ul><br />However <b>I do not believe that this is entirely correct</b>:   my tests suggest that whether or not photos are auto-enhanced is controlled by <b>the settings on the Google+ account</b> that is used to upload the pictures, <b>no matter whether the blog is attached to a Google+ profile or not</b>.<br /><br />(I've been testing this a lot because I have a number of blogs that are linked to Google+ Pages that are in my personal profile, but which I generally post to using a different Google account that has a more generic name like "Editor, Table Quiz Helper", and it's own separate set of Picasa-web-albums:   I want to be able to hand these accounts on to my successor when I leave the community groups that they are for.)<br /><br />Previously, the main options that I identified and recommend were:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/10/setting-up-a-google-plus-profile-for-a-blogger-or-gmail-account.html">Making a Google+ profile for the Google account that you use to upload the pictures</a>, or</li></ul><ul><li><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/10/let-another-person-add-photos-to-your-picasa-web-albums.html">Giving your Google+ account permission to upload pictures to the Picasa-web-albums</a> of the Google account that owns the blog.   <br />This option is tedious, but more line with Google's terms and conditions for use of Google+, while still letting a separate non-individual Blogger account own the underlying blog and supporting pictures etc.</li></ul><br />However another option, which I now think is better, is to:<br /><br /><ul><li>Make a <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/2011/11/google-now-has-pages-letting-us-set-up.html">Google+ Page</a> for the blog</li><li>Give that Page <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/2014/03/set-login-id-and-password-for-a-google-plus-page.html">it's own login-name and password</a> - effectively turning it into a separate new Google account</li><li>Give that new Google account <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/12/setting-up-new-administrator-for-your.html">administrator rights</a> to the blog</li><li>Make the setting change described above in "How to turn off photo auto-enhance if you use Google+" while you are logged in as the new Google account</li><li>Use the new Google account to load photos to the blog:   this will mean that the photos are placed in the Google+ Photos album associated with the page, and so you can access them using either Picasa-web-albums or Google+ Photos.</li></ul><br /><br /><br /><h2>Other Options</h2>If you really don't want to use even a minimal Google-plus account, then your options are limited.<br /><br /><h3>Use another picture host</h3>You could load the pictures that you want to use in your blog to another picture-hosting service (eg Flickr) - however doing this means that you posts will not have a <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">thumbnail image</a>.<br /><br /><h3>Minimise the damage</h3>If you make sure that pictures which you load have a white background (or whatever colour background your blog has) instead of being transparent, then the impact of auto-enhance will be a lot less.    I have found that if you use a .png file rather than a .jpg, the background is white instead of transparent.   (This is fine for me, because I use white blog backgrounds.)<br /><br /><h3>Wait for things to change</h3>A very simple fix would be for Picasa-web-albums to use default values of "No" instead of "Yes" for auto-enhance and auto-awesome, or to set these up as settings in the PWA profile.<br /><br />Another option is that Google may improve the enhancement algorithms (ie rules which control how pictures are "touched up").<br /><br />Fingers crossed, one of these will happen soon.<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles:</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/12/setting-up-new-administrator-for-your.html">Giving another Google account Administrator rights to your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.ie/2014/03/set-login-id-and-password-for-a-google-plus-page.html">Turning a Google+ Page into a separate Google account</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">Post.snippet and post.thumbnail - how they are derived from your blog post</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/insertng-picture-as-gadget.html">How to add a picture to your blog, using the picture gadget</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/10/setting-up-a-google-plus-profile-for-a-blogger-or-gmail-account.html">Making a Google+ profile for the Google account that you use to upload the pictures</a>,<br /><div><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/10/let-another-person-add-photos-to-your-picasa-web-albums.html">Giving your Google+ account permission to upload pictures to the Picasa-web-albums</a></div>

Stop Google from "fixing" pictures that are loaded through Blogger

This article is about how you can stop Google from automatically "enhancing" pictures that are loaded in Blogger - even if you do ...

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How to edit a picture in Picasa Web Albums or Google+ Photos

<b>This article is about how to edit pictures in Picasa web albums, and how to use Picasa-destop to edit pictures in your Google+ Photos.</b> <br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><h2>Picasa-web-albums vs Google+ Photos</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg120Bv8jXiLSnEUdyNPDydGajTbCiw2A37SkPmPKNP8JEise1Pv3azQY8FUhE1nBFRHXFRmt0zwtjJ91bbxJRqCUAMqNaTzkSZtZj2wCtE9RbX0lip5Dr9g_u_D7KITZHGkkLIcaozNPw/s1600/how-to-change-photos-picasa-web-albums.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg120Bv8jXiLSnEUdyNPDydGajTbCiw2A37SkPmPKNP8JEise1Pv3azQY8FUhE1nBFRHXFRmt0zwtjJ91bbxJRqCUAMqNaTzkSZtZj2wCtE9RbX0lip5Dr9g_u_D7KITZHGkkLIcaozNPw/s320/how-to-change-photos-picasa-web-albums.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Picasa-web-albums is a on-line photo storage and management tool, now owned by Google.   It is the on-line version of Picasa, a desktop-tool.   (Learn more about PWA and Picasa <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-picasa-very-basic-introduction.html">here</a>.).<br /><br />Google would ideally  like everyone to use Google+ Photos. <br /><br />But there are many people who store pictures in albums that are not associated with their personal Google+ accounts:  these may be for businesses, schools, clubs, etc. <br /><br />So it is likely PWA will continue to exist for a good while yet.   And I am sure that Google appreciate this:  they have made a number of changes to Picasa-web-albums to make it work better both with Google+ and without it.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Options for editing pictures that are are uploaded to Google</h2><ul><li>If you have a Google+ account, then there are two ways of editing photos that you have loaded to Google (it doesn't matter whether you loaded them using Picasa-web or Google+Photos).   <br /><br />Both of these options are described below.   Using the Google+ editor (option 1) doesn't need any software installed on your PC.   But it's very slow to load, offers you less control, and is currently missing some key features - and it only works if you are using Chrome as your web-browser, not Firefox or Internet Explorer.</li></ul><ul><li>If you don't have a Google+ account, then Google / Blogger only provides only one way to edit photos that you have loaded to it (apart from downloading the photo, editing it on your PC and re-uploading it - which changes the URL you need to use to link to the photo).   This is Option 2 below.</li></ul><br /><h3>Option 1: Using Google + edit a picture in Picasa-web-albums</h3>Log in to <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/" target="_blank">Picasa-web-albums</a>, using your Google+ account.   <br />(See <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/07/start-picasa-web-without-redirection-to-googlePlus-photos.html">here</a> for what do to if you are automatically re-directed from PWA to Google + Photos)<br /><br /><br />Navigate to the photo that you want to edit.   <br />(Make sure you're looking just at that photo, not at the album it is in - this can be confusing in cases when the photo is also the album cover.)<br /><br />Choose <b>Edit in Google+</b> from the <b>Actions</b> drop-down menu.<br /><br />This opens a new window or tab.<br /><br />If you are not signed in with your Google + account, you will be invited to join.<br /><br />If necessary, sign-up for Google+, or sign in with the correct account, and start again.<br /><br />Now, you will be looking at the photo in the Google+ Photos picture view.   From here you can do simple edits:<br /><ul><li>Crop the photo</li><li>Tag people</li><li>Rotate the photo</li></ul>as well as using the other Google+ Photos features (share, slideshow, delete, zoom)<br /><br />To do more changes, choose <b>Edit</b> (yes, you need to choose it a 2nd time) from the top menu.<br /><br />If you are not using Google Chrome, then you will get a message saying that the Google+ photo editor only works with Chrome, and giving you a link to download it.    <b>If necessary, switch to Chrome</b> and start again.<br /><br /><b>Wait </b>while the photo editing tools are loaded  (this does take a while, perhaps even a minute or two).<br /><br />Once loading is finished, the current Google + Photo editor functions are available from the right-hand bar, like this:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg49LYOB0PvilZYDxcow2eZo4HajqEgn8aTNECUZwm-IBNDZHJSyGeKB6BQIVPz-l7NSR9IK_4Arxy80vT63s6IeE3EpbtfNhBhbyPsUe8hYZJsbCmrAf1TKK7qnvLimcT6rKUrdPrHWEQ/s1600/google-plus-photos-editing-options-right-hand-toolbar-black-background.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg49LYOB0PvilZYDxcow2eZo4HajqEgn8aTNECUZwm-IBNDZHJSyGeKB6BQIVPz-l7NSR9IK_4Arxy80vT63s6IeE3EpbtfNhBhbyPsUe8hYZJsbCmrAf1TKK7qnvLimcT6rKUrdPrHWEQ/s640/google-plus-photos-editing-options-right-hand-toolbar-black-background.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />At the moment these are:<br /><ul><li>Tune (brightness, contrast, saturation, shadows, warmth)</li><li>Selective Adjustment (lets you specific areas for other options to be applied to)</li><li>Details (sharpness and structure)</li><li>Crop and Rotate</li></ul><ul><li>Black and white</li><li>Centre focus (adjust brightness and blur around the centre)</li><li>Drama</li><li>Frames</li><li>Tilt-shift</li><li>Vintage</li><li>Retrolux.</li></ul><br />When you  are happy with your photo, <b>click the Finished Editing tick box</b> at the bottom of the right-hand bar, and the changes will be saved (this may take a few moments).<br /><br />You are <b>left in the open Google+ Photos tab or window, </b>not returned to Picasa-web-albums.   When you go back to Picasa-web-albums and refresh the page (F5), the changes that you made in Google+ photos will be shown.<br /><br /><br /><h3>Option 2:   How to use Picasa-desktop edit a picture in Picasa-web-albums</h3><i>This option only works if you have Picasa desktop software installed on your computer.</i><br /><br />Log in to <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/" target="_blank">Picasa-web-albums</a>, using your Google account.<br /><br />Navigate to the photo that you want to edit.   (Make sure you're looking just at that photo, not at the album it is in - this can be confusing in cases when the photo is also the album cover.)<br /><br />Choose <b>Edit in Picasa</b> from the <b>Actions</b> drop-down menu.<br /><div><br /></div><div>A pop-up window will tell you that your web browser wants to open another program (ie Picasa-desktop) to do the editing.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div><i>(The exact text is something like:   "External Protocol Request:  [your web browser] needs to launch an external application to handle picasa: links.   The link requested is ... The following application will be launched if you accept this request   c:\Program Files\Google\Picasa\Picasa3.exe ... If you did not initiate this request, it may represent an attempted attack on your system.   Unless you took an explicit action to initiate this request, you should press Do Nothing.")</i><br /><br />Choose <b>Launch Application</b>.</div><br />Picasa will load on your computer, and you will be asked to confirm that you do want to edit the selected picture.   Choose <b>Edit Image</b>.<br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div>A copy of the picture that you want to edit is opened in the desktop-Picasa editing tools window.</div><br />From here you have access to all Picasa's standard photo editing tools (including the text tool for <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/tools-for-applying-copyright-protection.html">adding watermarks</a>).<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The photo you are working in is <b>a copy taken from your Picasa-web-albums</b>, it is not the same as the copy of the picture which may already be on your computer.   It is stored in a directory of your Picasa-installation called <b>"Online Edits"</b>, not in your main My Pictures directory.   So if you choose a function like "Back to Library" you are taken to the Online Edits folder inside Picasa-desktop.<br /><br />From here you can <b>use all of Picasa-desktop's editing features</b>, including straightening, red-eye reduction, text-editing, re-setting the neutral colour.    The only exception is the <b>Edit in Creative Kit</b> option:  this is still one of the options in Picasa-desktop, but if you use it, it takes a long time to load and then eventually says "Error connecting to Creative Kit... error 500" - and explains that Creative Kit has now been <b>discontinued</b>.<br /><br />When you are finished editing, to put the edited photo back into the same Picasa-web-album that it came from, with the same file name and URL:<br /><ul><li>Make sure that you are logged in from Picasa-desktop to the same Google account that you were using initially.   <br />(Picasa-desktop remembers your sign-in details from the last time you used it - if it's different from what you need, just choose sign-out from the top-right corner, and then sign in to the correct account when asked.)     <br /></li><li>EITHER:</li></ul><ul><li>Choose <b>Share on Google+</b>    (if you are using a Google + account)</li><li>In the sharing-details window that opens, <b>change the Album-name</b> from Online Edits to  the album that the photo came from originally and choose <b>Upload</b><br /><br />OR</li><li>Return to the Online Edits <b>folder / library</b></li><li>Save the changes using the <b>Save icon</b></li><li>Choose <b>Enable Synch</b> from the Sharing drop down.</li><li>Wait for the changed photo to upload.<br /><br />(I think Google have some work to do here - you can only control synching for the whole album, not for individual photos.   I expect this to be improved in the future.)</li></ul><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUviDG3bN_Hr4LD9U7trkAbo1HhKlhkLbk9iomLzR3WRuB1Il22CFOl0CSKei5bbDQsr5TZtkjCDG73qoBaftVaNXhAB8PlwSaCge5BPD2hBiQOSebTngmjMwO2O0cBdI9atp4hbTPn2s/s1600/turn-on-synchronising-online-edits-folder-picasa-desktop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUviDG3bN_Hr4LD9U7trkAbo1HhKlhkLbk9iomLzR3WRuB1Il22CFOl0CSKei5bbDQsr5TZtkjCDG73qoBaftVaNXhAB8PlwSaCge5BPD2hBiQOSebTngmjMwO2O0cBdI9atp4hbTPn2s/s640/turn-on-synchronising-online-edits-folder-picasa-desktop.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><b>Job Done:  </b>your Picasa-desktop-edited photo appears back in your online Picasa-web-albums with the changes that you just made, and any existing links to it (eg from your blog posts) will show the changed version of the picture.   And you can put the edited picture <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">into your blog posts</a> or other websites in the usual way.<br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-picasa-very-basic-introduction.html">Introducing Picasa and Picasa-web-albums:   an overview</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/07/start-picasa-web-without-redirection-to-googlePlus-photos.html">Stop automatic redirection to Google+ Photos</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">How to put a picture into a blog-post</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/tools-for-applying-copyright-protection.html">Tools for applying copyright protection to your blog</a>

How to edit a picture in Picasa Web Albums or Google+ Photos

This article is about how to edit pictures in Picasa web albums, and how to use Picasa-destop to edit pictures in your Google+ Photos. Pica...

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