Thursday, September 28, 2006
Picasa 2.5 from Google
Posted by Jason Dunn in "SOFTWARE" @ 12:43 PM
Google has released Picasa 2.5 (it happened while I was away travelling it seems), a significant upgrade to what is by far the easiest and best-looking free photo management software on the planet. Upgrading is simple - when you fire up Picasa is detects a new version, installs it, and your next start up of Picasa triggers the install. I wish all software developers would make their products this easy to upgrade. I started writing this up as a new post, then I realized I basically was reviewing it, so here you go...
The release notes have all the details, but here's the quick version:
Share photos online: Upload photos to Picasa Web Albums for easy sharing on the web
Nested Folder View: Now you can choose how to display folders in Picasa, whether they're nested or sorted by date
Save Changes to Disk: Now you can save your edits and have access to them in other programs
Improved import: We know you've wanted to import files into an existing folder. We've also made importing faster, and made it easier to copy just a few files at a time.
Screensaver: Show starred photos in a collage, or pan and zoom your Web Album photos
Geotagging: Picasa now works with Google Earth. Tell Picasa where you shot each photo, and view them on a 3-D globe in Google Earth
Larger thumbnails: Our thumbnails are slightly larger, so images are clearer, and we've improved speed as well
New RAW features: We support more cameras and RAW formats (including the Canon 30D, Nikon D200, and DNG). Color accuracy is better, and conversion speed is improved.
Other goodies: Improved caption editing, starred photos organize automatically into a special album, "Just raw frames" option lets you export time-lapse sequences in the movie maker, the bottom row of buttons can now be configured to suit your needs
The new features look great - the batch edit tool is, I believe, new. It allows you to select a group of photos and adjust them all at once. The Web Album feature is cool and a great improvement - they must have realized that no one was using Hello (cool as it might have been). You get 250 MB of space to use, and there's an option to upgrade to more for a small fee. It's a bit curious they wouldn't just tie this directly into the Gmail storage, giving access to the 2+ GB of space I have for email (that is mostly un-used). Printing hasn't been improved, and no new options are offered for online printing in Canada (just the loathsome BonusPrint).
Some of the experimental features (yes, they're under a menu item called Experimental) are cool, though clearly un-finished. Being able to FTP up a Web album is awesome, but the folder name on the server is hard-coded to match the name of the page - so if the name of my page is "John's 28th Birthday Party", the folder name on the server will match - which makes for a ridiculously long URL. Other experimental features include finding pictures that match a certain colour spectrum (black and white, red, blue, etc.), and uploading videos directly to Google Video. There's also a Create Movie feature that I swear wasn't in previous versions, though it's not listed as a new feature. It should probably be listed under as experimental, because it's raw and unpolished - you select the photos, select Create Movie, and you're given a video codec picker - which will baffle 99% of all Picasa users. The resulting video is a silent movie with some nice transitions, but not terribly useful. PhotoStory 3 is a much nicer product for this.
Unfortunately, this release is also pretty buggy from what I can see: when I draw a selection over multiple images, or even when Picasa is updating thumbnail images (not the scan, the in-app updates) the CPU usage on my PC pegs to 90% and causes my music to skip. Clicking the Timeline button should kick off the full-screen timeline view, but it gives an error about photos needing to be selected in the tray. There's still no option to send multiple full-resolution photos (or even anything above 1024-pixel wide images), and scrolling down in the duplicates view causes the UI window to jump. There are many new user interface glitches as well - the Google team is slowly but surely ruining the gorgeous Picasa interface, which is a shame.
All in all, I find Picasa 2.5 to be a mixed upgrade - because it's tied into Google services, it really limits you as a user. I'd prefer to use YouTube rather than Google Video, my WordPress blog instead of Google's Blogger, etc. Although I remain a fan of Picasa and will continue to recommend it to others, I think I would have preferred seeing Picasa sold as a stand-alone product - I think it would have ended up being a stronger product than it is today.
Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He wishes Picasa would have said no to Google.
The release notes have all the details, but here's the quick version:
The new features look great - the batch edit tool is, I believe, new. It allows you to select a group of photos and adjust them all at once. The Web Album feature is cool and a great improvement - they must have realized that no one was using Hello (cool as it might have been). You get 250 MB of space to use, and there's an option to upgrade to more for a small fee. It's a bit curious they wouldn't just tie this directly into the Gmail storage, giving access to the 2+ GB of space I have for email (that is mostly un-used). Printing hasn't been improved, and no new options are offered for online printing in Canada (just the loathsome BonusPrint).
Some of the experimental features (yes, they're under a menu item called Experimental) are cool, though clearly un-finished. Being able to FTP up a Web album is awesome, but the folder name on the server is hard-coded to match the name of the page - so if the name of my page is "John's 28th Birthday Party", the folder name on the server will match - which makes for a ridiculously long URL. Other experimental features include finding pictures that match a certain colour spectrum (black and white, red, blue, etc.), and uploading videos directly to Google Video. There's also a Create Movie feature that I swear wasn't in previous versions, though it's not listed as a new feature. It should probably be listed under as experimental, because it's raw and unpolished - you select the photos, select Create Movie, and you're given a video codec picker - which will baffle 99% of all Picasa users. The resulting video is a silent movie with some nice transitions, but not terribly useful. PhotoStory 3 is a much nicer product for this.
Unfortunately, this release is also pretty buggy from what I can see: when I draw a selection over multiple images, or even when Picasa is updating thumbnail images (not the scan, the in-app updates) the CPU usage on my PC pegs to 90% and causes my music to skip. Clicking the Timeline button should kick off the full-screen timeline view, but it gives an error about photos needing to be selected in the tray. There's still no option to send multiple full-resolution photos (or even anything above 1024-pixel wide images), and scrolling down in the duplicates view causes the UI window to jump. There are many new user interface glitches as well - the Google team is slowly but surely ruining the gorgeous Picasa interface, which is a shame.
All in all, I find Picasa 2.5 to be a mixed upgrade - because it's tied into Google services, it really limits you as a user. I'd prefer to use YouTube rather than Google Video, my WordPress blog instead of Google's Blogger, etc. Although I remain a fan of Picasa and will continue to recommend it to others, I think I would have preferred seeing Picasa sold as a stand-alone product - I think it would have ended up being a stronger product than it is today.
Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He wishes Picasa would have said no to Google.
