Picasa

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Picasa
Image:Picasa-logo.jpg <tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"> Picasa 2 running on Windows Vista</td></tr><tr><th>Developer:</th><td>Google, Inc.</td></tr><tr><th>Latest release:</th><td>2.5.0, Build 32.95 / 11 October 2006</td></tr><tr><th>OS:</th><td>Windows 2000/XP/Vista, GNU/Linux</td></tr>
Use:	Digital photo organizer <tr><th>License:</th><td>Freeware</td></tr>
Website:	picasa.google.com

Picasa, Inc is a Pasadena, California based digital photography company that produces an automated digital photo organizer application of the same name. In July 2004, Google acquired Picasa from Idealab and began offering Picasa for free download.

1 Picasa software
2 Picasa Web Albums
3 Version history
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Picasa software

Picasa is marketed as being easy to use and it offers many simple effects such as color enhancement, red eye reduction and cropping. Other features include slide shows, printing and image timelines.

Pictures can be organized into albums. Albums can be organized into collections. Pictures can be rearranged in albums by drag and drop. Images can be resized and exported for external use, be e-mailed or printed. There is also an integrated facility to order photo prints.

Picasa does not overwrite photos when changes are made. Instead, it lists all the changes made and puts the list in a separate file. Whenever the image is opened in Picasa it will check the list and apply the changes that the list tells it to. If you open the photo in any other program, though, the image will not have the changes applied to it. To see the changes when using the photo in other programs you must 'export' the photo. In the latest version of Picasa (Picasa2), a new feature has been added to allow users to save changes made to the pictures in Picasa by overwriting the actual picture file. However, a backup version of the original picture is made and saved in a hidden folder named "Backup", which is located within the same folder as the original picture.

On 15 August, 2006, Google announced they had acquired Neven Vision whose technology can be used to search for features within photos such as people or buildings. Google have stated that this technology will be applied to searching for photos within Picasa at some stage in the near future. [1]

[edit] Picasa Web Albums

This article or section contains information about computer software currently in development.
The content may change dramatically as the software development progresses.

Image:Nuvola apps kpager.svg

Image:Picasa Web Albums galleries.png

Picasa Web Albums is a photo-sharing web application from Google, often compared to programs like Flickr and Zooomr.

It allows users with accounts at Google to store and share 250 MB of photos for free. US based users can upgrade to an additional 6 GB of storage for a $25.00/year fee. Users may upload pictures either via a web interface, the newest beta version of Picasa (2.5.0), [2] on Windows, using the Exporter for iPhoto or Uploader on Mac OS X [3], or F-Spot on GNU/Linux. In both paid and free accounts, the actual resolution of the photo is maintained (even though a smaller resolution photo may be displayed by the web interface), and the original photo can be downloaded.

On October 11, 2006, the "Test" name was removed, in favour of purely Picasa Web Albums.

No ads are shown on Picasa Web Albums, in either free or paid accounts. The Terms of Service[4] permit Google to use the uploaded photos to display on the website or via RSS feeds, and also for promoting Google services royalty-free.

Picasa Web Albums was first leaked on June 6, 2006. [5]

[edit] Version history

Windows

1.618 (build unknown) July 2004 - free download version offered since Google's acquisition of Picasa
2.0.0 (build 18.77) January 18, 2005 - myriad new features including improved search functions, an automated photo collage maker, massively enhanced photo editing functions and further integration with Picasa's Hello and Google's Blogger services.
2.0.0 (build 18.84) June 8, 2005 - bug fix release
2.1.0 (build 27.60) September 19, 2005 - new features including international language support, one-click photo blogging, CD cover printing, improved RAW handling and improved support for external drives.
2.2.0 (build 28.20) January 30, 2006 - 25 additional languages are supported, new network drive support, and bug fixes for IE7 support and CD Burning.
2.5.0 (builds 32.01 through 32.71) 12 June 2006 onwards - Beta versions including Picasa Web Albums support - final version (build 32.91) started rollout on 12 September 2006

Image:Picasa.png

Linux

As from about early June 2006 Linux versions (2.2.2820-5) became available as free downloads for most distributions of the Linux operating system. It runs with Wine.

Mac OS X