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EDITOR NOTES
Picasa is currently in beta.
DESCRIPTION
Picasa and Picasa Web Albums allows you to organize, edit, and upload your photos to the web from your computer in quick, simple steps. Arrange your photos into folders and albums and erase their blemishes using powerful editing tools in Picasa. Then use Picasa Web Albums to share those perfected photos online with family, friends, and the world.
WHAT'S NEW
Version 3.5.2.90:
  • Improved stability when downloading photos from Picasa Web Albums.
  • Added RAW support for the following cameras:
    • Canon EOS 7D
    • Olympus E-620
    • Canon EOS 500D
    • Olympus E-P1
    • Canon PowerShot A530
    • Pentax K-7
    • Canon PowerShot G11
    • Panasonic DMC-FZ35
    • Canon PowerShot A470
    • Sony DSLR-A230
    • Kodak EasyShare Z980
    • Sony DSLR-A330
    • Kodak EasyShare Z1015
    • Sony DSLR-A380
    • Nikon D3000
    • Sony DSLR-A8
    • Nikon D5000
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

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Developer:Google
Downloads:58,631
  - Version d/l:3,423
Multimedia & Design:Image Editing
License:Free
Date:04 Nov 2009
Platform:Intel
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Picasa User Reviews (44 posts)Write A Review
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Nov 4 2009

SURFSPIRIT  Better RAW Support than Apple Aperture!!! WoW!!!!  
(Version 3.5.2.90)

praisebury
+3
[ Reply ]
Sep 24 2009

HARRY HIRSCH  Attention: If you use Snow Leopard Google Adressbook sync this Picasa version will corrupt your adress data in the Adressbook App.  
(Version 3.5)

praisebury
+7
[ Reply ]
Sep 23 2009
*****

LEMERLOT  Having not been able to use Picasa for Mac due to its incredible high amount of CPU usage in earlier versions seems that with version 3.5.x the Picasa team finally did their home work pretty well:

Now Picasa for Mac is great app to find and manage images on your hard drive without the need of organizing them in specific folders before or link them to iPhoto.

While the new face recognition feature needs some time to find and index faces in thousands of images the results really impressed me.

Finally well done, Picasa team!

One important hint regarding your data protection:

Think twice if you want to use Picasa with an online connection - especially if you try to import the name tags of your existing Picasa online account !

If you do it, Picasa imports ALL addresses from your Google online address book too without asking - and if you want to tag your images in your local Picasa for Mac app later, it always tries to connect the pictures with the real name, email address, phone number etc. of your Google address book entries.

That's definitely not what I like - especially since Picasa for Mac doesn't allow you to delete those imported addresses from your Google online address book later in a batch mode, so you would have to work on every single one - for me nearly 2.000 entries. Be prepared !  
(Version 3.5)

praisebury
+5
[ 2 Replies - Reply ]
Replies:
Sep 25 2009

DR. GIRLFRIEND  Great review, LeMerlot! Thanks for the helpful info, but I do think you were much too generous giving Picasa 5 stars considering the huge Privacy Fail of the address book and contacts syncing.

~Take care. Dr. G  
(Version 3.5)

praisebury
+5
Sep 25 2009

DR. GIRLFRIEND  Sorry, that post above was not supposed to be appear as a "review", but a comment.  
(Version 3.5)

praisebury
+1

Sep 23 2009

PIZZACAKE  Picasa now doesn't require installation, just drag and drop. The face recognition feature is fun. Needs great improvement in folder navigation or a simple way to view all photos.  
(Version 3.5)

praisebury
+2
[ Reply ]
Sep 23 2009
*****

SURFSPIRIT  Picasa IS A Killer App! It's Free!!! And even open my Raw Files that iPhoto and Apple Aperture CAN NOT! It's quite easy to use even if it can get better in that category, but it's amazingly powerfull for the price, FREE, not even iPhoto gets on it, if Picasa gets more integrated with the Mac OS X, Address Book integration and interface polish, it will certainly start to fight with some so called pro apps...  
(Version 3.5)

praisebury
0
[ Reply ]
Jul 31 2009

LEMERLOT  De facto seems using Picasa on a Mac with CrossOver is much less (CPU) trouble than using Picasa for Mac (last tested version 3.0.6)... - but search the Internet archives for Picasa (Win) version 2. After many tests I did on my Mac this works best by far if your main goal is to keep the overview of ALL your images on your Mac.  
(Version 3.0.6)

praisebury
+2
[ Reply ]
Jul 31 2009
**...

LEMERLOT  Picasa for Mac's newest version 3.0.6 still uses 90% of my CPU with a test set of only 100 (!) JPG images when Picasa has focus - even after hours...

I really would like to know what Picasa does here in the background with your data - especially since it's offered by Google.

It's a pity... - I would really like to use Picasa if its developers finally would offer a version of Picasa like in earlier Windows days when version 2 didn't eat up all your CPU and offered the same core functionality: just an overview of all pictures stored on your hard disk.

But with this new version it's still a CPU nightmare.

(Core2Duo - and a very well fostered system - Mac OS X 10.5.7)  
(Version 3.0.6)

praisebury
+6
[ Reply ]
Jul 30 2009

DBAGDADI  If you look above this app's description (top of the page) the Editor notes that Picasa is still in beta. We are up to version 3.0.6 and this software is still in BETA??? Maybe that's the reason it using 90% of some user's CPU!

Hey Google, how about you guys make this app PowerPC compatible? There are still plenty of PPC Macs out there, even if Apple has already completely switched to Intel and there won't be further OS X upgrades as of OS X 10.6.  
(Version 3.0.6)

praisebury
+3
[ 2 Replies - Reply ]
Replies:
Jul 31 2009

ICONZ113  Google's philosophy about their apps being in beta is meant to convey that their standard for applications is higher then other companies. Another companies stable release would be considered beta in googles eyes, thats what is meant by the beta label. Their apps really aren't in beta stages, its just their way of saying the bar is set higher at google. It has nothing to do with the stage of development.  
(Version 3.0.6)

praisebury
-1
Jul 31 2009

SJK  > Google's philosophy about their apps being in beta is meant to convey that their standard for applications is higher then other companies.

I've never noticed Google actually claim that's what they intend "beta" to convey, though DEVONtechnologies seems to have a similar philosophy for its products with extended beta periods, like DEVONthink 2.0.  
(Version 3.0.6)

praisebury
+3

Jul 3 2009

ANG  What is very STRANGE from Google is that there is no support of JPEG2000 !!!

Hey guys, we (on mac) have no problem with this great old "new" format !

Iphoto, iworks, finder, photoshop can read... BUT not your great picasa ?

JP2 SUPPORT PLEASE !!!

And if it is a question of licence...

http://www.openjpeg.org/  
(Version 3.0.5)

praisebury
+1
[ Reply ]
May 31 2009
**...

PLOINKR  Too bad about the CPU hogging problem; nice features but it's just unusable to me because of that (even with 3GB of RAM and not that many photos).  
(Version 3.0.5)

praisebury
+3
[ Reply ]
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