One of the most important qualities of a photo management software is the file and hardware support. This neat button is also helpful if you need to watermark certain images. Click it and and select the resize option. If you're not pleased with the result you can always revert to the original by clicking on the Picture -> Undo all Edits menu entry.Ī feature that becomes addictive in Picasa, although not immediately obvious, is the ability to resize groups of photos. Picasa is proof that basic digital image optimization doesn't have to be time consuming. Don't shy playing with the effects buttons. Personally, I was pleased with the result every time I tried it. This button automatically adjusts the lighting and color of the image. A "one click" fix that users will either love or hate is the "I'm feeling lucky" button. black and white, sepia, saturation, etc). crop, straighten, auto contrast, retouch, auto color, red-eye fixing, etc), tuning (of light, shadow, color or temperature) and effects (i.e. The editing options are split in 3 tabs: basic fixes (i.e. Once you've done this, Picasa's "one click" edit feature enters the “cool features” scene. Simply click on the appropriate buttons in the lower section of the window to share your photos online.ĭouble click on an image to start editing it. This gives Picasa a sure head start to other photo management applications. Google Picasa allows the casual user to share his or her images via Google Web Albums or Blogger. The results are not always accurate, but it's definitely worth giving it a try. The "show only photos with faces" is particularly interesting to play around with.
You can edit the folders that are scanned in the Folder Manager (Tools menu).Ībove the thumbnails area, there is a list of predefined filtering options.
This bar lists some extra options: play (creates a a slideshow of the images), create movie presentation, create gift CD with selected images, upload and sync future changes to the Web.Įvery time you download a file or add a new image to your Library Folders, Google Picasa will display a pop-up indicating the location and name of the item. Sliding through each folder displays the thumbnails of the available images, together with a semi-transparent bar. The Photo Tray is representative for Picasa's ability to surprise the user with useful features. Unfortunately, at the moment Picasa doesn't support MP3s while playing the movie. 'Export' allows you to copy photos to a specific folder in the hard disk, 'collage' lets you create a photo collage with your selection, and the 'movie' button is a helpful tool for creating a movie with your photo selection. Mostly self explanatory, they apply to your Photo tray selection. They can be removed or added in the Tools → Configure buttons entry. The bottom horizontal toolbar has 8 shortcut entries set by default: upload, e-mail, print, export, shop, blog this, collage and movie. By default, the My Documents, Pictures and Desktop folders are set. The folders available in the 'folders bar' are defined in the Folder Manager (Tools). In the Folder View sub-menu, you'll also notice that the images can be organized according to specific criteria (size, last modified, etc). To swap between these two viewing modes, just go to View → Folder view. Personally, I prefer viewing them in Tree view mode, instead of the default Flat folder view. On the left side of the window, the 'folders bar' lists the directories and tags available in the Photo Library.
In my case, the installation went very smooth on my Ubuntu 10.04, but feel free to write us if you encounter any problems.Īs a side-note, once installed, Picasa automatically registers itself within Mozilla Firefox, enabling you to use the Download Album feature from the web page. Downloads will be around 30 MB, including Wine and Gecko engine.
Then, use your favorite package manager to install the package (or type sudo apt-get install picasa, in Ubuntu). In order to install Picasa, either download the right package for your Linux distribution or simply add the Google testing repositories to your repo list ( ). So let's see how this software helps users organize their image collection, edit photos and shared them on the web. With a name that puts Picasa in the Google family tree, this photo management software creates a lot of expectations among Linux users even before it's tested.