Greg mentioned to me recently that a friend of his uses Google’s Picasa program to organize his photos and that he swears by it. Since Picasa is a free downloadable program, I figured I might as well give it a try.
What a fabulous program! I would especially recommend it for users who do not already have some type of photo editing program (i.e. Adobe Photoshop, etc). It would be perfect for people who like to email pictures to friends. Have you ever gotten an email with pictures from someone, and when you click on the picture it is SO huge that you cannot view it all in your browser? Picasa can automatically resize your photos for you before you email them. You just click on the photos you want to email and go to File/Email. Choose your Email program (Outlook, Gmail, or Picasa/Hello). Then you are brought straight to your email program with an email draft started, including the pictures already attached for you.
Picasa’s editing tools are also very simple to use. So much simpler for the average user than navigating through Adobe Photoshop. You can easily reduce red-eye, crop the photo, and straighten the photo – all with just a couple clicks of your mouse. I love the straightener! I had a couple pictures that I took while in Vancouver of a sunset that were just gorgeous. But Greg pointed out that my horizon was crooked, which it was. With just a couple clicks of my mouse I can fix them now.
For users on blogger.com, Picaso also has an easy “Publish to Blogger” feature.
I am still learning to use this feature, but already I have fallen in love with it. And you can’t beat the price! I love Google. Thanks to Graham (via Greg) for the tip.