When it comes time to clean up your photos, here are several ways you can make yourself look 20 pounds lighter: (just kidding)

• Carefully apply fixes and effects: When clicking the icons to apply fixes and effects to a selected image, keep in mind, many are only undoable in the order applied using the undo button. For example, if you realized you sharpened the image too much after you spent a lot of time cropping and fixing, you'll have to undo everything you did after the sharpening. To prevent wasted time, apply these fixes and effects cautiously before moving to a new one.
• Undo is available even after saving: One great thing about Picasa's undo scheme is that even after saving or applying changes, you can usually still undo them. Just reopen the image and hit the undo button. This is great if you cut too much out of the picture or made changes you want to now reverse.
• Level-out with the straightening tool: Did you have too much to drink? Did a little one get a hold of the camera? In any case, Picasa lets you straighten out lopsided snapshots--another feature I'm a fan of. Just double-click a picture, click the Straighten icon, and use the slider bar to tint left or right. You can also use this to unstraighten select photos, to give them a professional or artist look.
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• Retouch to remove blemishes: Want to cherish your memories without remembering the acne, blemishes, or shaving cut? You can use the Retouch feature to remove these unwanted spots. It's pretty nifty. Open a photo to edit, click the Retouch icon, select the problem area, and then move to an area of the face that's similar, but acceptable, and click. The good area you mark is copied over the problem area. You can adjust the brush size and/or the zoom, with a mouse scroll or keyboard arrows, for best results. You can also use this tool to make some goofy edits, add a third eye ball
• Make batch changes to save time: Picasa has some great batch editing tools that can make changes across multiple images at once--what a time saver. Select photos by choosing folders or albums, clicking and dragging to box in the ones you want, or holding the Ctrl key down while clicking individual images. Then click Picture > Batch Edit and choose want to want to do. Fix all the devil looking red-eyes, rotate images, rename images, and so on.

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