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Google releases Picasa 3 for Mac

by Todd Ritter Jan 6th 2009 at 3:00PM

Picasa 3
iPhoto haters rejoice! Google recently released their popular photo management and editing program, Picasa, for Mac OS X. In my early testing, it didn't crash or seem sluggish, but like many Google offerings, this version still bears the "Beta" designation.

Picasa integrates nicely with Google's online photo-hosting service, Picasa Web Albums, by allowing album syncing, uploading, and access control. Album syncing allows you to change a photo (by retouching, changing the caption, cropping, etc.) and have the changed photo appear in seconds on your web album.

Your iPhoto library can be viewed in Picasa in "read-only" form. If you want to make edits to photos in your iPhoto library, you'll have to let Picasa make a copy of the photo and then edit it. Picasa also lets you upload photos to Blogger, create videos of your photos, and create a collage.

It's nice to have a solid option aside from iPhoto to manage our photo collections locally and on the web. Picasa is a free 17MB download.


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iPhoto haters rejoice! Google recently released their popular photo management and editing program, Picasa, for Mac OS X. In my early...
 

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Dori*

HELP!!! What am I doing wrong??? I am trying to upload my photos from iphoto to Picasa but I am only able to upload one at a time.....There has to be an easier way....
I need a walkthrough....anyone?
Thank you...in advance!
Dori*

January 14 2009 at 11:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
umijin

Yeah, the Intel Only part sucks for me. My photo management is done on a G5 iMac right now.

January 07 2009 at 11:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Howie Isaacks

It's not very elegant. I played around with this for about an hour and, I'm not that impressed. I think I will stick with iPhoto. I don't like Google's UI very much. It's too... Windows.

January 07 2009 at 9:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chuck

now if they'd just lower the price of the web albums storage...

January 06 2009 at 8:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
david

It looks pretty good but it is unstable. Keeps crashing when it gets past the iPhoto index and starts on the Aperture files.

January 06 2009 at 6:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Josh Minzner

Okay... Now where the heck is chrome?!?!?!

January 06 2009 at 6:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Johnny

I had just switched over to Picasa yesterday, having really been impressed by the PC version. Now I'm going to switch back to iPhoto once I get ahold of iPhoto '09!

January 06 2009 at 4:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
DaveyGM

This would an amazing announcement if it weren't just overshadowed by the Faces and Places features of iPhoto '09. I've been waiting for facial recognition in photo software for a long time. I have almost ten thousand images in iPhoto and tagging all those has become a task I dread. If Google manages to cram facial recognition in I'll be next inline for that download.

January 06 2009 at 4:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to DaveyGM's comment
dano272

Google already has facial recognition once the photos are put online through picasa webalbums..so I would bet the technology will come soon to the desktop client.

January 06 2009 at 4:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
nggalai

Beware, though: As with Windows, Picasa 3 for Mac can’t handle color profiles. No color management at all, stuff is sent in unprofiled RGB to the display profile, so be prepared for lots of trial-and-error if you want to print photos from Picasa on your (sRGB) inkjet. Especially if you run the OS X default of Gamma 1.8.

I think that’s not really all that great for a photography management software. But then, it’s speedy. So there you are.

January 06 2009 at 3:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to nggalai's comment
Digaos

Not only the speed. If you want to share pictures with a windows machine, like me, that's great news.

Might be not that great as a photography printing software (which I really don't care anyway). For managing my pictures it will be much better than iPhoto.

January 06 2009 at 4:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Patches

it's not much of a flaw: picasa is a free app designed mainly to push you to google's online offerings, not a do-it-all photography solution. color management isn't something the average user even thinks about. those who do care wouldn't be likely to depend on picasa alone.

here's the killer feature for me: picasa embeds your tags and stars (not captions, however) directly into the photos themselves, not a proprietary database. you can switch between computers, even OSs, without losing them. it's not easy to find an app that does this, short of expensive professional software or wonky windows shareware.

January 06 2009 at 8:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
andy c.

i may be the only one left using a g4 processor, but picasa for mac is only for intel based macs.

i've been waiting for picasa on mac since it was released for pc. this is a huge let down.

January 06 2009 at 3:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to andy c.'s comment
balls

get use to it buddy: http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/12/mac-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-confirmed-to-be-intel-only/

January 06 2009 at 3:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Drew

I must ditto Andy C.'s comment... Also, it would be nice if Google publicized that Picasa is Intel Mac only.

January 06 2009 at 7:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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