How to use Picasa to make picture previews

        One of the great things I learned at the Teachers Pay Teachers Conference is that you can use Picasa to make a photo collage and then that photo collage can become your preview if you sell on Teacher's Pay Teachers.  Say what?!!  All this time I have spent hours making page previews.  My struggle is real.  Hours. Screen shotting, clicking, dragging.  Repeat.  I about fell out of my chair when I discovered Picasa for page previews.  I have used Picasa before for storing and editing photos but this opened up a whole new world for me.

Oh Picasa, how I love thee!

  Even if you aren't making and selling products Picasa rocks!  Imagine the possibilites.... A photo collage for parents as gifts, for your classroom volunteers, for end of the year slide shows, and the list goes on. So today is your lucky day (I can almost hear the cheering you are doing right now) because I'm going to show you how to use Picasa to make a photo collage on your PC (sorry, I have no clue how to do this on a Mac)  and if you do sell, imagine all the pages of your product in a small screen view.  I know...right?  Awesomeness.

First, you need to download Picasa. Now, I must warn you ahead of time. Pour yourself a glass beforehand.  Be careful what you click on or download as you go through the process so you don't end up with a whole new toolbar, 15 flashing screens and an entry into Publisher's Clearinghouse.  Get the drift?  Ok. Here we go...

1.)Save your product in a PDF.  I use Adobe Pro.  In the file menu click save as other then Image, then JPEG. If you secure your documents in a PDF make sure to do this step before securing.

 You should see this while it is saving:

2.) Choose a folder to save your document in. I create a folder for each one of my products.  Click save as, making sure its in the folder you want and then click o.k.


3.) Open Picasa.

4.) On the left hand side you will see all of your folders. (If you're like me you have a mini panic attack every time you see how many folders you have!)

5.) Double click on the folder where you saved the images from the PDF.

6.) Double click on create photo collage which is the middle button at the top left of the screen.  Or you can click on the create tab and then choose picture collage.

 7.) Your photos will then be put in a collage.  Like it?  Great!  Save it and move one to step 8. If you don't you can use your mouse to move the images, shrink, enlarge rotate, etc.  Right click on an image to move it under or to the top of the collage.

8.) Once you have it the way you want, double click on create collage.  Your screen will then look like this with the word DRAFT across your collage and "in progress" underneath.

9.) When it has finished just click on save as and save your collage to a folder.  Done!  Wasn't that easy? I hope this was helpful. If it wasn't-pour another glass. 

Happy Creating!