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Tag Archives: Picasa
Picasa Easter Egg
Those Google guys do have a sense of humour!
Open up Picasa 2.5, hit Ctrl + Shift + Y to see a teddy bear.
Source: Adidap
Posted in News and Commentary, Online Photography Community
Also tagged Easter Egg, Google
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Picasa 2 Out of Beta
Recall my review of Picasa 2 + web albums a little while ago? Well it is finally out of beta and comes with a few fixes and updates …
We’ve also fixed a whole bunch of things in Picasa. Folders finally work as you’d expect, so people who’ve kept their photos meticulously organized in folders and subfolders can see them displayed the same way in Picasa. And we’ve added a shiny new feature to photo-editing: Save. Your Picasa edits can now be preserved when using other programs. The save feature is even undoable, so you never lose your original files.
And there’s more — you can import into any folder you like, make time-lapse sequences into movies, search by color, create a screensaver with beautiful visual effects, and even re-arrange Picasa’s buttons. Oh, and we also made Picasa work with Google Earth, so you can put information about where you went on vacation into the photos themselves, and then, view your shots on a 3-D globe. Try it all out for yourself at picasa.google.com
Via: Google Blog
On of the things I have been waiting for is now present, you can more easily import into an existing folder. I hope it is more robust too, it used to crash for me when importing many gigabytes of files at once.
I have got to test how flickr reacts to the Google Earth / Picasa geo tagging, that might be the solution I have been looking for if flickr reads them.
Interesting is the time-lapse movie export – I have had a time lapse set hanging around my laptop for ages, will be good to try that out.
All good stuff, please do try it out and let me know in the comments what you think of it!
Technorati Tags: google, picasa, flickr, geotagging, free, software, download
Posted in News and Commentary, Online Photography Community
Also tagged download, flickr, free, geotagging, Google, software
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Picasa 2.5 + Web Albums Review
If you recall I was quite intrigued by the announcement of Picasa Web Albums but I had to wait for an invitation to try it. Well my invitation arrived and this afternoon I put it through its paces.
First of all to refresh your memory, here is how it differs from Flickr and right off the bat my main gripe with it
Unlike Flickr which has monthly upload restrictions, Picasa Web Albums are restricted by total volume. You can purchase additional space at $25 a year.
In the world of DSLRs and my usage habits, 250mb is not going to take me long at all to fill up. You will have to work out which makes most sense to you. Now that is out of the way, the good news!
When you first click through from your invitation you are asked to download the new beta of Picasa, the desktop application part of the pairing. 
The previous version of the software was, although not Photoshop by any means, all many amateur digital photographers would ever need including all the basics for workflow including even RAW compatibility. This version has only minor tweaks but just the fact that it is already so feature-rich and now you can upload to the web direct from Picasa, plus the fact this is free software, well it is pretty compelling.
After installing Picasa rattles through your machine looking for images to catalogue. Also you can import any folders you have in other locations such as external drives. 99% of the time it is happy to just get on with this in the background but I have had it lock up once or twice.
Arranging your library couldn’t be easier, it is even possible to hide images you don’t like rather than delete. You can favourite images as you navigate for later export or for dragging into an album. Once you have an album the way you like it you can then upload as a web album.
Unlike Flickr where sets are given cryptic urls, here they have names based on the title you gave it. Viewing the album is much like Flickr, having slide show or next/prev features but a nice addition is three thumbnail viewing sizes and the option to download a whole album. Bizarrely for a Google subsidiary they are not big on search and neither is there tagging, they do have RSS feeds however.
I could not find much evidence of community other than the ability to favourite other users, how you are supposed to find these other users I will have to work out.
Verdict
It’s a good start and is probably all anyone who has never seen Flickr would need but I am afraid the capacity restriction and lack of community gives Flickr the edge for me. Well worth taking for a spin though and definitely one to watch …
Take a look at my test account here at http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.garrett/
flickr, picasa, google, web, albums, photo, sharing, community, photography, news
Posted in News and Commentary, Online Photography Community
Also tagged albums, community, flickr, Google, news, photo, sharing, web
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Google/Picasa Launch Web Albums
Well they gone and done it, Google has launched Picasa Web Albums
Picasa Web Albums is Picasa’s newest feature, designed to help users post and share their photos quickly and easily on the web.
This has just launched in beta as well as a new Picasa download, both are invite-only. The two integrate allowing you to upload from Picasa straight into your web album or download them back down to your computer.
Unlike Flickr which has monthly upload restrictions, Picasa Web Albums are restricted by total volume. You can purchase additional space at $25 a year. My initial thought on this is I prefer a monthly upload restriction ala Flickr – my pics are usually big, I upload full quality images and tend to fill 1gb cards at an alarming rate while on a trip or vacation.
Nothing has been said so far about any community aspects, one of Flickrs key success factors I believe.
More info when my invitation comes through!
null flickr, google, picasa, web, albums, photography, news
Posted in News and Commentary, Online Photography Community
Also tagged albums, flickr, Google, news, web
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Adobe Lightroom
Darren points us to the new release from Adobe, Lightroom. At first it looks like a grown-up version of Picasa but being Adobe it has a bit more under the hood than that.
It is quite similar to Picasa, with tagging and filtering by tags, importing and organisation. Looking at the Overview Video it seems a fair bit more powerful, even if the developers might well have been inspired by the Google owned tool.
If you are a mac user you can download the beta from Adobe Labs – Project: Lightroom, a PC version is supposedly coming soon.
Posted in Photo Editing and Digital Workflow
Also tagged adobe, lightroom, Photo Editing and Digital Workflow
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Picasa for MacOsX Coming
According to TechCrunch a version of Picasa for Apple Macs will be coming along later:
This is great news, one of the applications I miss from the PC is Picasa. I had really gotten into the workflow and nothing I have found since works the same way. While iPhoto and Aperture are well loved by many, and I have Photoshop Elements which kinda does the job, Picasa was what I had gotten used to.
And it is free, which shouldn’t be overlooked!
You might say I am looking forward to this. Let’s hope they do a good job integrating into the mac experience rather than just port over a subset of the functionality.