- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows XP/Vista
- Date added: December 15, 2009
- Total Downloads: 2,435,023
- Downloads last week: 16,482
- See full specifications
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 665 votes
See all user reviews -
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: Jessica Dolcourt on September 24, 2009
Google's Picasa: Peer at it closely and you'll find an app teeming with features that do everything from import to edit to upload to share photos and videos online. Let your eyes glaze and that feature set blur, and Picasa is still as easy to use for the photo management basics as it was when it was first conceived, before it came into Google's fold. Firmly in the consumer camp, Picasa doesn't strive to be the most powerful image manager or editor in its class, but for all its tools, this freeware middleweight does hold the distinction of being the most easygoing option for a wide swatch of home users.
Picasa scans your hard drive for photos and organizes them by folder, making it easy to find pictures and videos taken over the years. Editing tools include light adjustment, straightening, effects, and retouchers to cover over blemishes. You can annotate and geotag photos, and can turn pictures into collages, and pictures and video clips into movies. But where Picasa really shines is in its online storage and sharing tools. Syncing and sharing buttons on the album level let you keep folders up-to-date on your free, online Picasa Web album--all without leaving the desktop app. The same goes with sharing. Select contacts and Picasa will e-mail them the link to the online photo album as it simultaneously uploads photos to that very album.
The latest version integrates facial recognition technology that spots faces and lets you identify them with an address from your Gmail account, or just with a name. Although time consuming at first, the genius of this exercise in visual metadata is revealed the next time you hunt for an image and find yourself searching not by an individual album, but by the name of the subject within that sought-for snapshot.
There is one caveat: Picasa eats a lot of memory, so be wary of a performance drag, oh ye of modest memory. In every other respect, this free photo editor and organizer program is an excellent choice for amateur shutterbugs with plenty of photos to lightly edit and share.
Watch the CNET video review of Picasa:
Publisher's description
From Google :Transfer, find, organize, edit, print, and share images, all with this easy-to-use product. Watch Picasa automatically organize all your pictures into elegant albums by date. Having all your photos in one place means no more time wasted searching for folders or files. The program works with JPEG, GIF, BMP, PSD, and movie files and is compatible with most digital cameras; it detects your USB driver and imports pictures into albums. Editing tools include cropping (standard or custom), removal of red-eye, and enhancing--even switching from color to black and white. Create slide shows set to your MP3s. Integration with Picasa's free Hello instant picture-sharing software lets you share hundreds of photos in seconds and chat in real time. E-mail photos with Picasa's built-in client to take the guesswork out of compressing images, and order photo-lab quality prints or print at home with no mistakes. You can also make instant backups to CD (or to other hard drives) of your photo collections, to organize your photos using labels and stars (just like with Gmail), to write captions for all pictures, and to organize videos as well as pictures.
What's new in this version:
Version 3.6 build 95.25 fixed an issue where Picasa would only show the face thumbnail when a new album is created from a 'People' album and made a stability fix to Timeline.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 4.2 stars out of 665 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 8 user reviewsSee all 8 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
Version: Picasa 3.6 build 95.25
Pros: Everything
Cons: Nothing i don't think there is anything wrong with it
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Version: Picasa 3.6 build 95.25
"Awesome Product Way to go Google!"
Pros: Nice easy interface easy to use
Cons: none that I can see
Summary: Awesome! Way to go Google
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Version: Picasa 3.6 build 95.25
Pros: It's all right there for Beginners to Advanced, FREE, and soooo simple to use. Automatically organizes your photos by Date,and provides many editing tools that are simple and easy to use, with just a click or three, you have great looking photos.
Cons: I would like to be able to view a photo "Full Screen" when going thru my library. - ( You can press control/alt at the same time and do this, but it goes back to normal size when released)
Summary: This is the one to have for all your photo organizing and editing needs, unless you just HAVE to tweak and fiddle with many aspects of your pix. - - - - There's a fix for that as well, and it's called Paint.net, - (also free), and is alot like high ... read more >>
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Version: Picasa 3.6 build 95.25
"Great for working with photos"
Pros: Like everthing about it
Cons: No dislikes
Summary: Great way to work with photos, can upload, export to other systems, edit. I like it the best of all I have tried. I have used Kodak and Adobe photoshop, like Picasa better.
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Version: Picasa 3.6 build 95.25
"It is a good tool even for beginners"
Pros: No comments
Cons: no comments
- See all 8 user reviews Write review
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