Social Media Commerce: Store and Edit Photos in Google+ and Picasa

By Marsha Collier from Social Media Commerce For Dummies

A simple method for using (and improving) photos you want to upload to social media is available through Google and Picasa’s web albums. Picasa is versatile in that it has a great web interface and you can download their free photo organization program.

After you install Picasa, it will find every photo on your computer and help you organize them into albums. You may also choose to automatically upload photos on your computer to Picasa storage.

Keep photos used for your business (whether for blogs or just to share) and personal images in separate albums.

After Picasa indexes your photos, it scans for facial recognition and displays a folder of all faces it finds in the photos. You will be able to tag photos with the names of the people in your images. This feature is handy if you're taking pictures of employees for your blog or web page.

Picasa includes a free photo editor that enables you to perform most basic photo corrections, including retouching. If you want to add fancy effects, use the online Picasa Creative Kit. Creative Kit also allows you to edit in side-by-side mode so you can compare the results of your edit.

Google+ has a built-in photo editor that allows you to double-click any mobile upload and perform most edits necessary to make your image web-ready (see figure).

If you’re a Google+ member and use an Android phone, photos you take on your phone can upload automatically to your private space on Google+. No photos become public until you choose to share them. From Google+, you can edit, download, and share any photo you take with your smartphone.