Issues using Picasa (3.8) to create photo CD/DVDs

{Note:  I’m going to discuss the latest version of Picasa, 3.8; however, these comments are more or less true for earlier versions.}

How can I burn a CD or DVD from Picasa?  The answer is in “layers.” 

Layer 1:  Picasa says you should create a gift CD/DVD.  This is done by putting all the pictures in an album (not Picasa folder) and working from there.  Note that this does NOT move the pictures from the actual “physical” Windows folder; instead, it creates a copy “virtual” entry in Picasa’s “proprietary” database object called an “album.”  You can get the official detailed instructions here.   The result is a CD/DVD containing a copy of the photos along with Picasa software to view the photos.  The captions and comments associated with the slide show will be those you entered inside Picasa. 

   

Warning:  These captions and comments are in the Picasa proprietary database; they are NOT in the information Windows attaches to the picture file.  So, if you create a CD/DVD using the methodology used in Layer 2 below, your captions and comments won’t be in the collection.

I use Picasa because it really is powerful at managing and editing both photos and movies.  And, by the way, you can use almost any other photo/video manager and it has the same problem- it has a database that uses a proprietary database to contain labels and comments.

So,

Layer 2:  Use Windows Live Photo Gallery to edit file names, titles, and other information.  Get it here.  When you open Live Photo Gallery you can open the real Windows folder containing the photos.  Right click on any photo and click Properties.  At this point, the real Windows Properties dialog will pop up.  The general tab has the real name of the photo file.  You can change that, but leave the .jpg or .raw file type.  Then click on the Details tab. 

This tab shows you the Windows metadata associated with the picture.  It’s this information that, if you do it right, will be transferred with the picture to a CD/DVD in such a way that it will follow the picture wherever you copy it to.

You can click on any field, or nearly every field, and enter information into the field. 

1. Select all the pictures or folders you want to copy burn to the CD/DVD.
2. Click on the little folder icon at the top left of the window.
3. One of the options will be burn:
   
   
4. From here, follow the directions.  The Burn will use Windows burn technology. 

This technique works well if you have Windows 7.  Earlier versions don’t always work well- you might get repeated messages to load a blank CD/DVD and it never gets out of that loop.  This leads to level 3. 

Level 3:  Use a good general purpose burner to create your photo/video CD/DVD.   I use ImgBurn.   This application is reliable across Windows platforms.  Note that you are burning a data CD/DVD and you want the metadata to be copied as well.   

To summarize, the methodology for editing I recommend is:

1. Use Picasa to edit and manage photos.  But don’t add titles, descriptions, etc using Picasa
2. Use Windows Live Photo Gallery to add the titles and descriptions.  Note that these titles and descriptions WILL show up in Picasa. 
3. If you don’t have Windows 7, use a general burning app, such as ImgBurn, to burn. 

I know this post is loaded with techie talk.  Consider it just an outline. Please add comments if you want further explanation or have comments.