PICASSA 2

Review of Picasa 2
Submitted by Corey Schultz (Stanford University)

On January 18th, Google began offering their image managementand
display tool, Picasa 2, for free on their website. This program is fun
and easy to use, a great tool for those lecturers and students who need
a program to help organize the digital image collections on their computers
but who don't want to take the time needed to learn a more complex
software program or purchase one. Not only does it help them to organize
their images (and find ones that they've "lost" on their hard drives),
it also helps them adjust and correct the images, create slide shows,
and create web pages for class study sets. There's only one
drawback:Picasa 2 just works on PCs running Windows 98 and
later (sorry Mac users!)

Picasa can be downloaded using the button below.
Its only 3 MB in size, so it can even be downloaded
via the slowest dial up connections.

After you've downloaded and installed Picasa, it searches your
hard drive for all image and video files and displays their
thumbnails in its interface. Whenever an image is added to
your computer, Picasa notes its location; if an image is moved,
Picasa refreshes its info and records the new location.
You can even import images from your scanner or digital
camera directly into Picasa.

Organizing images in Picasa is quite easy. Captions can be
assigned to each image; the text is saved within the image
file (EXIF data, using IPTC standard), thus allowing the
data to stay with the image if its exported to a web page,
emailed, burned to disk, etc. "Virtual folders" of image
collections can be created by making "labels"; the images
are not physically moved into other folders, therefore allowing
an image to exist in any number of labels. Labels include such
information as label name, date, place taken, and caption.
Keywords can also be added to each image. The search box
found in the upper right corner of the screen searches any text
associated with an image, including keywords, file names,
captions, labels, etc.

Another great administrative tool is the backup function.
After pressing the backup key, Picasa will calculate how
many CDs or DVDs are needed to save your images,
and will keep a record of what items have been backed up.
Next time you run the backup, it'll save only the images
that have been added or modified since the previous backup.

Picasa offers several easy to use the following image adjustment
tools. Images can be adjusted individually or by using the batch
edit tools.
1. Basic fixes: auto contrast, auto color (combined auto color/
contrast called "I'm feeling lucky"), red eye repair, rotate,
straighten, and crop.
2. Tuning: fill light, highlights, shadows, color temperature,
and a neutral color picker.
3. Effects: sharpen, tint, convert to black and white, sepia,
add film grain, soft focus, etc.

Changes to an image aren't made to the original, but to a copy
of that image that Picasa has made. Picasa records every alteration
that you do to an image, and allows you to reverse one or more
actions at any time. To open an adjusted image into another
program (e.g. PhotoShop),simply export the modified image.

Presentation tools include:
1. Slide shows (with or without captions), click through or
timed. Can even burn a "Gift CD" with your images that
includes the slide show installer program.
2. Several different styles of collages, including pile,
grid, contact sheet and multi-exposure.
3. Export images as movies (AVI files)
4. Web pages can be instantly created, complete with
thumbnail and preview size images.

You can print any size of image, ranging from contact sheet to
full page, on your local printer, or you can send them via the
internet one of four photo labs. Picasa will also automatically
resizes image for email attachments, and works with other
Google-owned programs such as Hello (instant messenger
program), and Blogger (blogger designing program).

Picasa 2 is a great tool for helping users organize and present
their digital images. It is fun and easy to use and makes
preparing lectures and web page study sets a breeze. Best
of all, its FREE! Check it out; you won't be disappointed!