Q.
Picasa finds many instances of the same pictures occurring in multiple folders
on my hard drive. Can I safely delete these duplicates?
A. You
continue to have questions about Picasa's handling of picture files. You will
have to gain some minimum understanding of the way it finds and organizes
pictures on your computer. I would suggest that you read the following sections
of the Picasa help file: Help/Organize/Labels and Help/Organize/Basic
Organization and Help/Organize/Folder Manager.
Of special interest is the explanation of Labels. I quote from the Help file:
"Labels are virtual folders that let you group related pictures without
moving any files around on disk. By labeling pictures, you can create lists of
favorites, or save groups of photos that you plan to do something with in the
future, like create a slideshow or a webpage about a specific event. When you
label a picture, Picasa creates an "instance," or a virtual copy of that
picture, and displays it in the label. The pictures in a label are totally
virtual, so they don't use any extra disk space. Labels are like playlists for
your pictures. When you make changes to a picture that appears in multiple
labels, your changes will be applied to every instance of the picture, including
the original. Remember, edits are always undoable and never destroy your
original pictures."
Alex