A new free software program with which you can organize and find the mass of digital photographs you keep on your hard drive has been released by online search kings Google.
Called Picasa 2, the software offers you easy tools to organize even the largest collection of images and turn average snapshots into higher-quality pictures, Google said January 18, announcing the new release.
"With Picasa 2, we've made it easier for people to find, organize, improve and enhance their photographs, as well as create photo CDs, personalized slideshows, desktop collages, and much more," said Lars Perkins, Picasa general manager for GOogle, which bought Picasa, Inc. last year.
"Digital photos are an important and growing category of personal information,” he continued, “and Picasa is in line with Google's commitment to develop advanced technologies that further help users to find, organize and share information that's important to them."
The software doesn’t require you to import individual photos from your drives but, rather, detects them automatically as you add them, whether from e-mail or from digital camera transfers. Then, it puts them into a single “bucket,” sorts them by date, and still lets you pull them from date or event ranges as you request, Google said.
Once costing $29, Picasa software became free after Google bought the company. Other new features in Version 2 include making skies bluer, blurring backgrounds and focusing on main subjects, and rotating images to compensate for camera tilts, the company added. You can even mark the absolute best images with gold stars and search for those by themselves. And, Google added, you can print with standard sizes, or even order photo prints by uploading pictures to Ofoto, Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Walmart.com.
The bad news: For now, Picasa 2 is available only for Windows computers. The good news: You can use it best with Mozilla’s Firefox browser as well as Internet Explorer.
