Picasa 3 for Windows - Review of Google's Digital Photo Management Software

Print, Burn, and Share Your Photos

You can select a photo or a range of photos and print them from your computer. You can format the photos as standard sizes, like 8x10 or 5x7, and you can print multiple pictures on the same page.

You can also create a collage of photos. In Picasa 3, you can even rearrange the photos in a collage and add captions. This doesn't give you the same options as dedicated digital scrapbook programs, but it's still a nice, easy option.

If you'd rather order prints, you can press a button to order prints online from multiple printing services, such as Snapfish, Shutterfly, or Kodak.

This is another area where Picasa has a lot of options. You can select photos and email them as attachments. You can post photos directly to your Blogger account. Picasa resizes the photos for the web for this, if you wish.

Picasa lets you make your own gift CD slide shows with your pictures and a copy of Picasa. You can also make a backup CD or DVD of your photos for archiving.

YouTube

Picasa 3 has added a lot of features that tie in with video. This works really well for people who own a digital video camera or occasionally shoot small video clips on their digital camera.

You can manage video clips in Picasa and do some minor editing, like setting an in and out point and writing captions. You can then upload the movie to YouTube with the push of a button.

You can also make easy slide shows with text captions, transitions, and audio backgrounds. Export the finished movie or upload it to YouTube from Picasa.

Don't look at Picasa as a replacement for a full featured video tool. You're not going to make a masterpiece. However, you don't need much more to make quick video blog posts. The one sorely missing piece from this is the ability to string more than one video clip together like you can slides in a slide show.

Picasa Web Albums is technically a separate product, but the desktop software and the Web album are certainly very connected.

In Picasa 3, you can select folders to automatically sync, so any changes to pictures on your desktop are reflected in the Web album. Although I generally prefer Flickr to Picasa Web Albums, the desktop syncing is a superior feature.

Screen Captures

This is a nice touch. Whenever you take a screen capture using the standard print screen button, it's saved to Picasa. You can then edit it or add text. It would really complete the feature if you could also add arrows or circles.

Mini Viewer

Rather than launching Picasa every time you want to preview a picture, Picasa 3 has a mini viewer that lets you take a quick look at photos.

The Bad

There are times when the interface is confusing. When viewing thumbnails, the scroll bar on the right side of the menu does not change relative to your location in the list. Instead, it controls the speed and direction of scrolling. This is vertigo inducing and confusing to users not familiar with this type of navigation. The Timeline button is also not very useful for navigation, and it almost seems out of place with the rest of the application.

Interface issues aside, this is one of the best photo organization tools I've seen at any price. The integration with other Google products, like Gmail, Shopping, Blogger, and YouTube is a nice touch, and its really nice to not be tied to a single photo processor for prints.

Picasa begs for comparison with Apple iLife, and it actually comes out favorably. The Mac OS version is still in beta, but it's also worth exploring. If you have digital photos , I'd definitely recommend Picasa.