Google Picasa 3.0 Beta Review

With a name that puts Picasa in the Google family tree, this photo management software creates a lot of expectations among Linux users even before it's tested. So let's see how this software helps users organize their image collection, edit photos and shared them on the web.

Installation

In order to install Picasa, either download the right package for your Linux distribution or simply add the Google testing repositories to your repo list (http://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/testrepo.html). Then, use your favorite package manager to install the package (or type sudo apt-get install picasa, in Ubuntu). Downloads will be around 30 MB, including Wine and Gecko engine. In my case, the installation went very smooth on my Ubuntu 10.04, but feel free to write us if you encounter any problems.

As a side-note, once installed, Picasa automatically registers itself within Mozilla Firefox, enabling you to use the Download Album feature from the picasaweb.google.com web page.

Interface

The interface has three main areas. On the left side of the window, the 'folders bar' lists the directories and tags available in the Photo Library. Personally, I prefer viewing them in Tree view mode, instead of the default Flat folder view. To swap between these two viewing modes, just go to View → Folder view. In the Folder View sub-menu, you'll also notice that the images can be organized according to specific criteria (size, last modified, etc). The folders available in the 'folders bar' are defined in the Folder Manager (Tools). By default, the My Documents, Pictures and Desktop folders are set.

The bottom horizontal toolbar has 8 shortcut entries set by default: upload, e-mail, print, export, shop, blog this, collage and movie. They can be removed or added in the Tools → Configure buttons entry. Mostly self explanatory, they apply to your Photo tray selection. 'Export' allows you to copy photos to a specific folder in the hard disk, 'collage' lets you create a photo collage with your selection, and the 'movie' button is a helpful tool for creating a movie with your photo selection. Unfortunately, at the moment Picasa doesn't support MP3s while playing the movie.

Photo management

The Photo Tray is representative for Picasa's ability to surprise the user with useful features. Sliding through each folder displays the thumbnails of the available images, together with a semi-transparent bar. This bar lists some extra options: play (creates a a slideshow of the images), create movie presentation, create gift CD with selected images, upload and sync future changes to the Web.

Every time you download a file or add a new image to your Library Folders, Google Picasa will display a pop-up indicating the location and name of the item. You can edit the folders that are scanned in the Folder Manager (Tools menu).

Above the thumbnails area, there is a list of predefined filtering options. The "show only photos with faces" is particularly interesting to play around with. The results are not always accurate, but it's definitely worth giving it a try.

Google Picasa allows the casual user to share his or her images via Google Web Albums or Blogger. This gives Picasa a sure head start to other photo management applications. Simply click on the appropriate buttons in the lower section of the window to share your photos online.

Editing

Double click on an image to start editing it. Once you've done this, Picasa's "one click" edit feature enters the “cool features” scene. The editing options are split in 3 tabs: basic fixes (i.e. crop, straighten, auto contrast, retouch, auto color, red-eye fixing, etc), tuning (of light, shadow, color or temperature) and effects (i.e. black and white, sepia, saturation, etc). A "one click" fix that users will either love or hate is the "I'm feeling lucky" button. This button automatically adjusts the lighting and color of the image. Personally, I was pleased with the result every time I tried it. Don't shy playing with the effects buttons. Picasa is proof that basic digital image optimization doesn't have to be time consuming. If you're not pleased with the result you can always revert to the original by clicking on the Picture -> Undo all Edits menu entry.

A feature that becomes addictive in Picasa, although not immediately obvious, is the ability to resize groups of photos. Use the Export button to do this. Click it and and select the resize option. This  neat button is also helpful if you need to watermark certain images.

File and Camera Support

One of the most important qualities of a photo management software is the file and hardware support. Picasa uses the gphoto library, so all the cameras listed on http://www.gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php should be supported. Also, RAW file support includes cameras from Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Kodak and Pentax.

One of the things that Picasa for Linux doesn't support is movie files. If you look under the movies checkbox in the File Types (Options) you'll notice that it cannot be checked.

Conclusion

Of course, the line between software complexity and fruitless variety can be a very thin one. Particularly when there are a number of alternatives capable of doing operations that Picasa also supports. But the paring between Picasa's surprising variety of options (face recognition, passport photo creation, easy adding of watermarks to groups of files, red eye correction etc.) and its ability to sync to Picasa Web makes this application an inviting playground for image collection owners.