4.5 Out of 5

Picasa is the photo editor and organizer from Google. It’s free to download, and comes with a variety of tools and options to help you make the most of the digital photos stored on your computer.

Picasa’s main purpose is to allow you to organize your photos, though it also has other tools and functions. For now, let’s focus on organization.

Picasa automatically imports all of the photos on your computer (you can select which folders it will scan). After the initial import, the Folder Manager (under Tools) allows you to choose which folders on your computer are scanned always, once, or never. This is useful if you want Picasa to pick up things like your family photos under My Pictures, but not other random image files that might be tucked away in My Documents or other folders.

Once your photos are imported, you can choose how they are displayed. There are two basic areas of display that you can change. The first is the folder window on the left, which shows you all of your picture-containing folders. For this window you can select the traditional Tree view, or the default Flat view. There is also an option to hide any folders you don’t wish to be seen. If you hide a folder, the pictures from that folder will not show up in the main window and the folder name will be sent to the Hidden Folders cache. When you hide a folder, Picasa will ask if you want to password-protect your hidden folders or not. To unhide them, simply open the Hidden Folders cache (at the bottom of the Flat folder view, they can’t be seen in the Tree view), right click on the folder, and select Unhide.

The second set of options is in the main window where your photo thumbnails are displayed. Here you can choose to have either small or normal size thumbnails. This is also the window where you can bring up a full view of any selected photo (just double click on the photo you want to bring up). Bringing a photo to the main window automatically puts it into edit mode. From here you can take advantage of the editing tools Picasa has to offer, or you can simply flip through your collection via the navigation buttons at the top of the screen.

This brings us to Picasa’s editing tools. Picasa has some pretty neat editing tools, some of which you can’t find in online programs like Snapfish. However, for downloaded software, they are somewhat limited. Many of the tools, like Sharpen, Contrast, Film Grain, and Warmify, are automatic, which doesn’t give you very much control. Others, though, give you some leverage, such as Highlights, Color Temperature, and Saturation. If you save your edited work, Picasa automatically makes a backup of your original. Picasa also gives you the option of batch editing photos, meaning you can do things like highlight or black-and-white multiple photos at once.

Although the editing options are limited, especially compared to professional software like Photoshop, they are true to Picasa’s purpose – helping you make the best of your digital photos. Here’s a set of photos for comparison:

I used the Highlight, Shadow, and Saturation tools to bring out the light and color in this Easter photo. In this case, small adjustments made a big difference. Picasa can also combine color adjustment with cropping, or make photos black and white, or tons of other options to take your photos to the next level.

Normally, that would be where this review ends, but Picasa offers some other interesting features that need to be touched upon.

First, as part of Picasa’s organizing tools, you can create new albums that only appear in Picasa, not in your computer’s folders. This is useful if you want a quick, painless way to put together a simple slide show for friends and family, or if you want to group various pictures by date, content, or subject. Then, if you want, you can then upload them to your very own free online album or email them to others.

Picasa also has an option to let you create a photo collage. This sounds neat, but it is limited in that it doesn’t let you arrange the photos manually. It comes out looking like a haphazard stack of Polaroids. You can click on it to auto-rearrange, but that’s about it.

One of Picasa’s more convenient features is that it helps you order photo prints and other products. It gives you the option to order from various vendors, including Kodak, Shutterfly, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, and about a dozen others. Some will require you to go pick up your photos (like Walgreens), whereas others will send them to you by mail (like Shutterfly).

For you bloggers, Picasa also has a BlogThis! button, which takes you to your very own Blogspot page (everyone gets one with a Google account). Just highlight a picture, click BlogThis! and away you go. The picture quality kind of scared me in the editor, but it actually posted a good quality image, which itself linked to a larger image.

Overall, Picasa is a pretty top-notch program, especially for one that comes with no cost. At first
it can be difficult to know where to start, but a little trial-and-error goes a long way. Of course, if I had paid for this program, I would expect to have more options and control, especially in editing. However, most programs with high-powered editing tools usually focus on just that, and have none of the other functions that Picasa brings to the table.

Conclusion

4.5 out of 5
Picasa is great as a centralized program for basic editing, organizing, sharing, and print ordering. It’s like a one-stop shop: you can get the most popular, one-size-fits-all brands of just about everything you need. If you want something more tailored, though, you’ll need to take it to a skilled, focused pro.