How to make a neat "Golden" effect in Picasa

Today, we're going to make what I like to call a "Golden" effect. I'm going to use a picture of my mom's dog Peanut with his head in the grass for this tutorial.

First, open Google Picasa and select the image you want to try this effect on.

Next open your green effects bucket.

Now click on Cinemascope and uncheck Letterbox

Once you've applied this effect, click on Cross Process.

And that's all you have to do! You should have a nice golden photo.

How To Make A One Photo Collage In Picasa

Do you ever see those pictures where a pile of photos connect together to make one large photo? Those are pretty cool, n'est pas? Today, that's what we're going to make.

First, I open my Picasa program and select a photo I really like. I chose a photo of my sweet baby Michaela.

I select Create > Make a poster

Now I choose the percentage. This increases the photo size so that you can print it for a poster, but that's not what we're going to do today. I choose 300% for this project. This will cut my photo into nine pieces.

Picasa generates the pieces of my "poster". 

Once Picasa is done, I highlight the pieces and select Create > Picture Collage...

I choose an 8x10 format to make sure it looks good when printed.

I go to Settings and select Picture Pile so that I can move the pictures around.

Now I select my style. For this project I use the photographs with the small white border. I highlight all the pieces so that I can convert them all at once.

Now I'm going to bring the piece with Michaela's face to the top. Her face is the most important part of the picture. I don't want to hide it.

Now I highlight and remove extra pieces that don't want. 

I drag a texture picture from  public-domain-photos.com on to the board and select it for the background.

Once I've done this I can remove the tile.

Now I have a lovely and unique picture suitable for framing and hanging.

How To Blur The Background Of A Photo

Welcome, class. Today I'm going to teach you how to blur the background of your photograph. This makes the subject of the photo more noticeable and reduces distractions.

I'm going to use Artweaver, but you should be able to transfer the knowledge to most popular photo editing software.

Just like in the last tutorial, we're going to start off by duplicating the photo.

Click on the BOTTOM photo. Make sure you're on the bottom. Now select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

Slide the bar all the way to the right. Now we're going back to the top image. Click on it.

You can use the lasso tool to select as much area on the top layer as possible. Then press you delete key to clear the selection.

Once you've cleared the majority of the background, switch to the eraser tool. Erase gently around the edges.

When you're finished you're photo should have an effect similar to this. Save as...and choose a name for your new masterpiece.