Software Review: Picasa 2

[AndyMan 7]

I tried out Picasa 2 last week, because I needed a better imaging archive solution.

Picasa 2: http://www.picasa.com/

It's a free download, since Picasa was purchased by Google.

On first startup, it scans specified hard disks for all images, and creates an index.

It groups folders by year, and sorts the folders within each year by creation date. Click on a folder and it quickly shows you thumbnails of the contents.

It has a good set of basic editing tools, such as crop, rotate, resize, contrast and color adjustments. It also has an interesting "I'm feeling lucky" button, which does auto contrast and color. That button works remarkably well.

Three things make the photo editing unique.

1) The interface is exceedingly easy to use. As an engineer, I'm very impressed.
2) It keeps a full history of edits, and can "undo" all edits, even after a program or computer restart.
3) It keeps your original files intact.

Since I mount my DSLR inverted, one feature I've been dieing for is "Bulk Rotate". Many of the editing features can be done in bulk.

When you import photos you can easily add keywords. Use this in searching later. To find the pics from the herc boogie, just search on 'herc'.

Lastly, a feature I found KILLER: One click publishing to Shutterfly. Select the images you want to publish, hit the "order" button and the selected images are uploaded to your shutterfly account. Then you simply have to go into shutterfly and "add the folder" to your pro gallery.

Obviously it pales in comparison to the power and depth of Photoshop, but that's just fine. For 99% of the editing I do after a weekend of jumping, this software is perfect.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[indyz 1]

I've been using Picasa for about a month now and I'm hooked as well. The levels adjustment doesn't work as well as I would like, but other than that I haven't found anything wrong with it.

I love that it never touches the original file, nor does it clutter the disk with new files.

I also love the Gift CD option. All of the graphics for the slideshow program are in one psd file, so you can change the look of the Gift CD with Photoshop. You can also edit the cdgo.tre file to remove the "Go to Picasa" button. I've replaced all of the logos with my contact info.

One gripe about the Gift CD: As far as I can tell, you can only burn an entire folder to CD, not just certain files. If I accidentally put a few jumps in one folder I have to go in and move the one I want to put on the CD to a new folder.

[riro 0]

Quote

because I needed a better imaging archive solution.

Tip: http://www.iview-multimedia.com/

Not for free, but a great program.

--
riro - http://www.ronnkvist.nu/gallery/

[jumphog999 0]

Quote

Since I mount my DSLR inverted, one feature I've been dieing for is "Bulk Rotate". Many of the editing features can be done in bulk.

Ive also been using picasa as a quick touch up/viewer recently, and I also have my stills mounted inverted. For bulk rotating ive been using a second program: XNView (at www.xnview.com). It can do lossless jpeg transforms - it reorganises the data in the file instead of uncompressing the picture before doing stuff to it and then recompressing it. So basically you can do a 180 rotate without loosing any quality at all.
Itll be no benefit if you are shooting in raw mode, but it might be worth a look...