After almost thirteen years of reviewing software for the PC I can honestly say I don't run in to many programs today that make me go "Oh My God!" However, Picasa from Google, yes that is the same Google at lot of people go to, to search for things on the web makes me go "Oh My God!" It does this for a couple of reasons.

1. Picasa is feature packed.
2. Picasa has a wonderfully friendly, attractive and clean interface.
3. It is free!

Now I am sure you are wondering what Picasa is? Picasa is perhaps the best image and video cataloging program I have ever seen. For shear power, speed, flexibility, features, interface and price it can't be beat.

 

Picasa lets you catalog almost all of today's most used image formats including JPG, GIF, TIF, PSD, PNG, BMP, RAW (including NEF, CRW and CR2). It also catalogs movie files including MPG, AVI, ASF, WMV, and MOV.

 

Besides providing basic features like creating categories to organize your images, and moving images from one folder to another on your drives, Picasa also includes basic image editing features like rotating, cropping, color and exposure correction and even some special effects like sepia, black and white and more.

 

You can print your images one to a page or you are able to print more than one image per page as well as doing poster printing up to 1000%. You can create slide shows, slide show CDs and DVDs, desktop wall paper and more. One of the cool features is the collage feature which lets you choose a selection images and it will create a pile of them or a grid of them and then allow you to save it as a single image for various uses.

 

You can use Google’s Blog service to post your images to your own personal blog or you can use the Google Hello service to chat and show family and friends images online in real time, think of it as instant messaging for images.

 

Finally, you can order prints from several online companies including SnapFish, Kodak Ofoto, Shutterfly and Wal-Mart. Prices are good and image quality is excellent. With the exception of Wal-Mart your images are professionally printed and then mailed to you. With Wal-Mart they are professionally printed but you have to pick them up at your local store (you choose which one).

 

While I love Picasa it also has a few short comings.

 

While most of the image editing features of Picasa are non-destructive. Meaning they are applied in Picasa only and are not applied to your actual image file, so you can undo them at anytime. There are some that don’t work this way. For example the Filtered Black and White, if you click the apply button it will be applied to the image file and without a single word of warning. I hope this is fixed in the future. Picasa should either be 100% non-destructive or 100% destructive. It shouldn’t be a mix, or at least it should warn you before it modifies the image files. I lost a couple of images learning this the hard way. Personally, I like the 100% non-destructive mode of operation.

 

Google needs to release updates faster at least updates for the RAW file support. Having to wait 6 months to a year for updates is just too long. The computer world moves at warp speed and Google needs to do a better job keeping up with this. The reason for the slow updates may have more to do with the fact that Picasa is free. If this is the case then I want to let Google know that I would be willing to pay for Picasa. Say $19.95.

 

These are my two biggest complaints. I do have quite a list of features or improvements I would like to see added. But, this review is about Picasa 2.1 as it stands now and not about what I would like to see added.

 

Picasa is nothing short of amazing. What I have talked about above is just the tip of the iceberg as far as features and capabilities are concerned. Picasa 2.1 is simply incredible when you consider its cost. I strongly urge you to download it and give it a try I think you too will be very impressed.

• Picasa can scan any drive or folder you want, it can a drive or folder(s) once or it can monitor drives or folder(s) so that when you add new images to them they are automatically cataloged in Picasa 2.
• Picasa organizes your entire collection while you watch, scanning the images on your computer and automatically sorting them by date.
• Want to clean up messy folders and move pictures around on your computer’s hard drive? Simply drag and drop pictures from one folder in Picasa to another. Picasa will make the change permanent after double-checking with you. Want to change a picture’s filename from 671056398a.jpg to Lisa.jpg? In Picasa, it only takes seconds to re-name one picture or a group of pictures.
• Use labels to tag your photos into quick groupings inside Picasa. Viewing and sharing the pictures you grouped under a label is easy – they make great slide shows and movies or you can email them to friends.
• Give a gold star to any photo you love: it turns your favorites into visual standouts at a glance. Picasa even has a star search that reduces your entire photo collection to the best of the best in less than a second.
• Picasa creates a new “instance” of each photo you label without taking up more space on your computer, so you can put the same picture into multiple albums.
• Have photos you want to keep to yourself? You can add passwords to any of your Picasa collections (this does not affect which pictures you and others can see on your computer’s hard drive).
• Picasa 2’s Basic Fixes are buttons that make it fast and easy to crop, remove red eye, fix the contrast and color, and enhance your digital pictures.
• You can see how much Picasa’s 12 new visual effects can improve your photos – and in seconds, not hours. Go sepia. Warmify. Make pictures pop with color or try austere black-and-white. Try easy one-clicks or the more finely tuned sliders for better control where you want it. And of course, you can undo your changes at any step along the way.
• Picasa 2 makes captions the way journalists do – using the IPTC standard. That means your captions are saved within their pictures and stay with them, whether you export as a web page, make a CD presentation, or share them using Hello. Picasa captions are fully editable and searchable, and you choose whether to display them or not.
• So you didn’t get the shot? With Picasa, that’s not the end of the story. Go in closer and move the focus slightly to the left. Your camera was slightly crooked? So what? Your picture is perfect anyway.
• Photography aficionados can now fine-tune their photos with Picasa's EXIF display. This window shows you all the camera data that is stored in a picture's original file - such as camera model, date the photo was taken, even if a flash was used. The EXIF display also has a RGB histogram, a real-time graph that shows the intensity of colors in your picture and how they change when you make edits in Picasa.
• Take the guesswork out of sending photos. Picasa 2 automatically resizes and attaches pictures to email messages at sizes your friends will be able to open. Works with most email programs, including Google’s Gmail, Outlook, Outlook Express, AOL, Thunderbird and others or you can use Picasa mail which is built-in to Picasa 2.
• Hello is Picasa’s instant-message product – it’s chat with pictures. You can send out hundreds of pictures instantly using the "Hello" button; it’s a great way to look at pictures with friends and family online. Just point at a picture or website and tell the person who sent it exactly what you think (but when you criticize their artwork, remember – they can do the same).
• Hello sends pictures using an encrypted person-to-person connection, so the pictures you share are sent directly to your friend’s computer, and nowhere else online (unless you use Bloggerbot to post pictures to your blog; see below). Picasa shows shared pictures in your From Hello collection, sorted by Hello usernames. And it’s as easy to remove shared pictures as it is to get them. Find a buddy and sign up at hello.com.
• Picasa’s new Blogger button automatically opens Hello’s Bloggerbot tool, which transfers pictures and text up to your blog. Learn more and get started at blogger.hello.com.
• With Picasa, you can turn a group of photos into a presentation with one click, and then share your slide show on a CD.
• You can take your photos with you no matter how you like to carry them. Picasa works with all the newest compact flash devices.
• Picasa 2 automatically fits your pictures perfectly onto the expensive paper used by your home printer. It’s finally easy to print wallets, 4×6, 5×7, full pages, more sizes and even more than one picture on a page.
• You can pick photos straight out of Picasa and upload them directly to your favorite photo finishers to order prints and other products.
• Picasa makes it easy to protect your pictures by archiving them on a CD or DVD. Picasa even displays the pictures that haven’t been backed up yet to make absolutely sure you don’t make mistakes with images that matter.
• Effortlessly create slide show CDs for friends and family.
• Save to a folder on your computer, plus any device that is an external drive or disk. Moving edited pictures out of Picasa has always been as easy as clicking the Export button. Now you can also control the quality and sizes of your exported pictures. Picasa even will save photos back to any drive, including the newest flash memory cards and sticks.
• It’s so easy to play filmmaker with your pictures. Select your best shots, and then adjust the delay time, dimensions, and video compression settings. That’s it – Picasa 2 will render a movie, complete with title graphics, that you can play and share.
• Your best pictures are now on display. Pick a favorite photo as your desktop picture or add several into your screensaver rotation. What better way to enjoy your photographic genius at your desk?
• Picasa can tile any picture you select, allowing you to print each part and reassemble them at poster size – up to 1,000% larger than the original.
• Select a group of pictures choose one of the beautiful templates, and Picasa will create a collage that expands your creative horizons. Picture pile it. Make a multi-exposure image. Create a contact sheet. Done? Simply save your collage to a folder, as a new desktop background or as a screensaver.
• Picasa’s automatic photo organizer exports your pictures to any TiVo Series2 DVR connected to a home network. You do of course have to buy or already have your own TiVo Series 2 DVR unit.