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So you have about a million pictures and are trying to figure out what to do with them now. Luckily, there’s a terrific, FREE solution for your digital image dilemmas.
We all love the Google search engine for its elegant, efficient functionality. Well, their FREE image editing software, Picasa is just as wonderful. Picasa makes it easy to manage the digital photographer’s basic image management tasks: importing, organizing, editing and sharing whether you have a Mac or a PC.
Importing and organizing images
When you install Picasa, it immediately scans your computer for photos and collects them into a library. This means that they all display in one place, a huge advantage over looking in individual folders in Windows ‘My Pictures’. By default, Picasa scans your entire hard drive on install and beyond. If you’ve got pictures all over the place, it may be wise to set it to only scan your Windows desktop, My Documents folder, and My Pictures folder. By the way, Picasa collects not only JPEGs and GIFs, but all sorts of other image formats—even video files.
Picasa can also be set to automatically import images from your camera or card reader when you plug them in.
With past versions of Picasa, this photo library acted independently of your Windows file tree, but now both views are available. One view of the library, called Folders On Disk, shows how your photos are organized within Windows, and you can easily move photos from folder to folder.
The other view of the library enables you to drag and drop photos into virtual albums or "labels" that don't correspond to your Windows file system. You can also use the same photo across multiple albums. Albums can be organized into collections.
Picasa's Timeline also lets you instantaneously scroll through a chronological catalog of your photos. This is a terrific way to browse large numbers of photos.
As you organize your pictures, Picasa also lets you change filenames, create captions, and add ratings to your favorites. Then, as time goes on, you can easily track down old photos with an improved search tool, which lets you locate files by keywords, ratings, and dates.
Editing
The best news, however, is the long list of photo-editing tools available with Picasa. You can instantly adjust highlights, shadows, fill lights, and color temperature. You can add all sorts of effects, including sepia, black and white, and soft focus. You can crop, straighten, remove red-eye, have spot removal, and more. And if you don't like an edit, you can reverse it with no more than the click of a mouse. Bottom line, Picasa combines the deep-level editing tools of Adobe Elements with the ease of Paint Shop Pro and other popular programs, without the expense.
Sharing
For hard copies, Picasa links out to several well-known services, such as Kodak Gallery and Shutterfly or you can print directly yourself from the software.
Picasa even provides new ways to share your photos. In addition to resizing and sending pics via your local e-mail client or Picasa's built-in client, you can now send images via Google's Web-based e-mail service, Gmail. Plus, the app still integrates with Picasa's photo-sharing client, picasaweb, and you can still upload pics to Google's popular blogging tool, Blogger as well as directly to Facebook.
And more!
The new edition of Picasa also burns albums to your computer's DVD or CD burner -- something missing in earlier versions.
A few notes…
Unlike other programs, Picasa does not overwrite photos when changes are made. Instead, it lists all the changes made and puts the list in a separate file, saving a lot of space by avoiding the storage of on original plus an edited copy of an image. Whenever the image is opened in Picasa it will check the list and apply the changes posted in the list. Therefore, if you open the photo in any other program, the image will not have the changes applied to it. To see the changes when using the photo in other programs you must 'export' the photo.
Since Picasa version2, a feature has been added to allow users to save changes made to the pictures in Picasa by overwriting the actual picture file. However, a backup version of the original picture is made and saved in a hidden folder named "Originals", which is located within the same folder as the original picture.
There is also face recognition on the local machine as well as on picasaweb - it works uncannily well to find all the images of a person across all folders.
In conclusion
With its latest release, Picasa stands toe to toe with Photoshop Album, and unlike ACDSee, it's intuitive enough for even the greenest of computer newbies. Without a doubt, it’s been Googled to the max.
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