Monday, December 22, 2008

Picasa goes to Version 3.1 (and rocks!)

Picasa, the free photo editing (and uploading software) from Google took a little jump to version 3.1 last week.

The software's secret is something we talk about a lot here.

It's easy (and now it's faster and better).

Picasa 3.1 (at your option) will search your computer's hard drive for images at light speed.  From there, like many other programs, you can sort them into albums, add titles, and more.

One button upload to Google's picasaweb.com, one button e-mail or blogging it makes it super-simple.

The editing tools have been improved and are also very easy for those not familiar with photo editing.  Adding geo locations has been added as well.

Overall, it's certainly not Photoshop.  It IS easy and produces excellent output in a variety of export formats.

Add the freeware Paint.Net (one of my favorites) and you've got a decent 'suite' of photo and image tools .... for FREE.

Both programs now support larger image sizes being produced by the higher megapixel cameras now in the marketplace.

You can explore or download Picasa 3.1 here.  Paint.Net can be found here.

Update 1: It's worth noting here that Windows Live Essentials from Microsoft has also been 'refreshed' and more information on the new Photo Gallery beta, Free 25GB online storage and more new features can be found here.