Picasa is a software application for organizing and editing digital photos Ubuntuland

26/03/2008 GMT 1

Picasa is a software application for organizing and editing digital photos

ubuntuland @ 17:31

Picasa is a software application for organizing and editing digital photos, originally created by Idealab and now owned by Google. 'Picasa' is a multi-wordplay on the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso plus the phrase "mi casa" for "my house" and "pic" pictures (personalized art).

The icon and logo is a stylized house formed by the aperture blades of a photographic lens. In July 2004, Google began offering Picasa for free download.

There is native support for Windows XP and Windows Vista, as well as a version for Linux, available through Google Labs. For Windows 98 and Windows ME, only an older version is available. There is also an iPhoto plugin or a standalone program for uploading photos available for Mac OS X 10.4 and later.

Features

Organization and editing

For organizing photos, Picasa has file importing and tracking features, as well as tags and collections for further sorting. It also offers several basic photo editing functions, including color enhancement, red eye reduction and cropping. Other features include slide shows, printing and image timelines. Images can also be prepared for external use, such as for e-mailing or printing, by reducing file size and setting up page layouts. There is also integration with online photo printing services.

Keywords

Picasa uses picasa.ini files to keep track of keywords for each image. In addition to this, Picasa attaches IPTC keyword data to JPG files, but not to any other file format. Keywords attached to JPG files in Picasa can be read by other image library software like Adobe (Photoshop, Album and Bridge), digiKam and iPhoto.

According to the Picasa Readme, Picasa can parse XMP data. However, it cannot search local files for existing XMP keywords.

Searching

Picasa has a search bar that is always visible when viewing the library. Searches are live in that displayed items are filtered as you type.

When a word is typed into the search bar, an image will be displayed if that word is all or part of a keyword, or part of the file name. If the searched word is part of a folder name, all images in that folder are also displayed (but not necessarily images in subfolders, unless the word also exists in a keyword or filename.)

Picasa also supports boolean operators for searching in much the same way as Google's web search. All search terms are included by default (as with the operator "AND"), and keywords may be omitted by using the hyphen (as in the boolean operator "NOT"). For example, the search "family -friends" will cause Picasa to display all images with the keyword family, but which do not include the keyword friends.

Viewing

Picasa has no separate view window. There is only an "edit view" with a viewing area. Fullscreen view is only available in slideshow mode or by holding down the ctrl+alt keys while in "edit view".

Backup

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 Picasa 2, 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 "Originals", which is located within the same folder as the original picture.

Image recognition

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 has stated that this technology will be applied to searching for photos within Picasa at some stage in the near future.

Neven Vision incorporates several patentsspecifically centered around face recognition from digital photo and video images. Neven Vision's technology has been voted among the top finishers in both the FERET 1997 and FRVT 2002 independent tests comparing the world's best face recognition technologies.

Version history

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 is not a native Linux program but an adapted Windows version that uses the Wine libraries.
* A Release Candidate of Picasa for Linux 2.7 (Build 37.3607,0) was released on 21 November 2007.

Latest Updates for Picasa

Updates to Picasa are made on an ongoing basis. These updates may include bug fixes, performance enhancements, additional hardware/device support and other improvements.

To make sure you are running the latest version of the software, follow the manual update instructions below. If your software is out of date, you will occasionally receive automatic alerts when you open Picasa that updates are available. You may choose to update at that time. Please note that we don't always auto-update people when new builds are available since some builds contain fixes and/or improvements that are only relevant to a small percentage of users.

How to manually install or upgrade Picasa:

1. On Picasa Home, click the download button at the top of the page.
2. Follow instructions to run the program and install. (You do not need to uninstall first.)
3. Any previous edits you've made will be preserved.

LATEST UPDATES:

Version 2.7, Build 37.49 - March 06, 2008
o Improved performance for new Intel chips.
o Translation fixes for Hungarian and Chinese.
o Fixed a case that would result in an error when capturing images from webcams.

Version 2.7, Build 37.36 - October 30, 2007
o Added support for 11 additional languages: Bulgarian, Catalan, Filipino, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Thai, Vietnamese.

Version 2.7, Build 37.32 - October 02, 2007
o Fixed a case where corrupted AVI files could cause a crash.
o Fixed a case that would result in a "This account is not enabled for Picasa Web Albums" error.

Version 2.7, Build 37.29 - September 13, 2007
o Added support for RAW pictures from the Canon 40D.
o Fixed a case where certain RAW pictures appeared overexposed.
o Full-screen preview using Ctrl-Alt now works again.
o Fixed a case where uploading to Picasa Web Albums could result in an immediate "failed to connect" error.

Version 2.7, Build 37.23 - August 21, 2007
o Added support for 7 additional languages: Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, and Ukrainian
o Fixed a problem with Picasa jumping to the wrong picture after deleting a picture
o Fixed two issues which could cause a "Failed to Connect" error when logging into Picasa Web Albums
o Fixed a case in which an error could result when opening pictures with third-party products
o Fixed problems related to Picasa Media Detector not disabling properly.