Fixing picture imperfections using Picasa 3

Posted on December 30, 2008 at 7:26 am

Picasa is a free picture editing software from Google. Although a free software, it packs a lot of features that will ease up basic to intermediate photo improvement and management tasks. [Note: please checkout also our article on creating picture collages using Picasa].

One of the things we always wanted to do with our digital pictures is to fix unwanted imperfections. They could be blemishes in the subjects themselves or smudges caused by dirty camera equipment. In the example below I took a picture of a starfish using my old digital camera. The picture has some blemishes caused by dirt on my camera’s lenses.

To fix the blemishes I opened the picture using Picasa 3. Click the “Basic Fixes” tab then “Retouch”:

Adjust the size of the brush depending on the size of the blemish. I use a larger brush size to cover the blemish completely.

Position the brush cursor on the blemish then click once to select it. Move the mouse

Move the mouse a little away from the selected area to see a preview of the replacement area. Try to choose a position where the replaced area is blending naturally with the surrounding area. Click the left mouse button to apply the retouch.

Once you are satisfied, you can apply the changes and exit retouch mode by clicking the “apply” button:

Those are the steps to quickly retouch your pictures. With Picasa’s retouching capability, you will not need other bloated software to fix your pictures’ blemishes. With this holiday season, like me you might have a lot of pictures to retouch. Happy Holidays!