Can someone explain how Picasa works?

[KarenLud]

So I've heard a lot about it but what is it exactly? I went to the website and have since uploaded my pictures but I'm not sure what it's purpose is. I normally upload pics to folders on my computer but it appears that Picasa is now on my computer and has all my pictures in it. Is it comparable to Photoshop? I've also heard this is where people store their photos online. I'm clueless here! If you use picasa how do you use it? Thanks! I'm probably not being very clear here..but I don't know!

[JustMe]

I have never used photoshop so don't know how it compares. Picasa does a lot of great editing stuff that I like better than the other free programs I have used...okay, dont remember exactly what it does better now, but I do use it for cropping, changing the lighting/shading of a picture, focusing on a certain area of a picture, etc.

You can also store all your pics there, which I do as well, although I also have mine in my kodak gallery account.

[wellyes]

Picasa is photo editing software that also allows you to store photos online for free up to a certain amount - maybe 1000 photos? - then gives you the option to pay for addtional storage.

It's not my favorite - if you install Picasa it creates a new directory on your hard drive in a way I find invasive - but many people love it. Its interface is quite elegant.

There are many sites that allow you to store photos online for free - Snapfish, Shutterfly, Photobucket, etc. These all also allow you to edit. But it is usually faster and easier to edit photos on your hard drive and then upload them.

My personal choice for photo editing is Photoscape (screenshot). It is so easy to use & effective. I also prefer Photoscape over Picasa because it allows you to keep / work within your own directory structure instead of forcing you to do things "their way" the way Picasa does.

Short story is that Picasa will do it all for you, it's a nice system, it's by the Google people, if you like it - great! There are lots of other options, too, if you want to try something else.

[melrose7]

Originally Posted by wellyes

Picasa is photo editing software that also allows you to store photos online for free up to a certain amount - maybe 1000 photos? - then gives you the option to pay for addtional storage.

It's not my favorite - if you install Picasa it creates a new directory on your hard drive in a way I find invasive - but many people love it. Its interface is quite elegant.

There are many sites that allow you to store photos online for free - Snapfish, Shutterfly, Photobucket, etc. These all also allow you to edit. But it is usually faster and easier to edit photos on your hard drive and then upload them.

My personal choice for photo editing is Photoscape (screenshot). It is so easy to use & effective. I also prefer Photoscape over Picasa because it allows you to keep / work within your own directory structure instead of forcing you to do things "their way" the way Picasa does.

Short story is that Picasa will do it all for you, it's a nice system, it's by the Google people, if you like it - great! There are lots of other options, too, if you want to try something else.

Thank you so much for recommending Photoscape. I have been using Picasa and it was fine but I was looking for something more like Photoscape. Now I can edit the 2 years of pictures I am behind on.

[jgenie]

Is this Mac compatible? TIA

Originally Posted by wellyes

Picasa is photo editing software that also allows you to store photos online for free up to a certain amount - maybe 1000 photos? - then gives you the option to pay for addtional storage.

It's not my favorite - if you install Picasa it creates a new directory on your hard drive in a way I find invasive - but many people love it. Its interface is quite elegant.

There are many sites that allow you to store photos online for free - Snapfish, Shutterfly, Photobucket, etc. These all also allow you to edit. But it is usually faster and easier to edit photos on your hard drive and then upload them.

My personal choice for photo editing is Photoscape (screenshot). It is so easy to use & effective. I also prefer Photoscape over Picasa because it allows you to keep / work within your own directory structure instead of forcing you to do things "their way" the way Picasa does.

Short story is that Picasa will do it all for you, it's a nice system, it's by the Google people, if you like it - great! There are lots of other options, too, if you want to try something else.

[KarenLud]

Thanks. So when I upload my pics from my camera they go onto my hard drive and picasa..it's confusing. I played around with the editing and I do like it. Very smooth. But it gets confusing when you have pictures in different places. When I edit them in picasa do they carry over to my hard drive? *sigh*

I'm going to check out that other website suggested too. Thanks again!

[BayGirl2]

Picasa is just a photo organizer that allows editing. It is scanning your hard drive and knows where all the pictures are, but it does not duplicate them. So you don't have pictures in more than one place - one picture, but you can view it through multiple programs. It makes it very easy to search for images. In Vista you can add 'tags' to images to make this work even better.

You can choose to publish some or all of your photos online through Picasa which is great for sharing with others. I like Picasa online for a few reasons:

1. It allows you to share full resolution images for free. Most sites (snapfish, kodak gallery, etc.) are geared toward selling prints and don't let you download a picture someone shared with you. I want to be able to share digital pictures and then decide whether to print them on my own, store them for later, use them in a digital scrapbook, etc. (I get super annoyed when my brother posts pics on Kodak gallery and I can only download them 1 at a time in poor resolution, they are basically useless to me in that format since I don't want to buy a bunch of 4x6 prints)

2. Picasa allows you to share videos, so if you've taken a short video on you camera you can post that along with your pictures.

3. I believe the fee storage capacity is fairly large.

I don't use Picasa to edit because I use Photoshop, but for very basic stuff Picasa could be helpful. Its a Google program, so its well designed, and its on version 3, so all the kinks are worked out. I am a big fan.

[BayGirl2]

Originally Posted by wellyes

I also prefer Photoscape over Picasa because it allows you to keep / work within your own directory structure instead of forcing you to do things "their way" the way Picasa does.

You can change the way Picasa shows your directory structure. I have my images in a folder structure that I created and my Picasa reflects that view. There are other views/structures offered that I find confusing too, but that can be changed.