Picasa Free Download For Windows 10 64 Bit
Pamula Harrison
Picasa was a cross-platform image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, integrated with a now defunct photo-sharing website, originally created by a company named Lifescape[3] (which at that time was incubated by Idealab) in 2002.[4] "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the word casa (Spanish for "house") and "pic" for pictures.[4][5]
Native applications for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and macOS were available. Linux support was provided by bundling the Windows version alongside the Wine compatibility layer. An iPhoto plugin and a standalone program for uploading photos were available for Mac OS X 10.4 and later.
In July 2004, Google acquired Picasa from Lifescape and began offering it as freeware.[4] The name was also registered by Google as an LLC.[6] On February 12, 2016, Google announced it was discontinuing support for Picasa Desktop and Picasa Web Albums, effective March 15, 2016, and focusing on the cloud-based Google Photos as its successor.[7] Picasa Web Albums, a companion service, was closed on May 1, 2016.[8]
As of January 2015[update], the latest version of Picasa is 3.9, which supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, and has Google+ integration for users of that service.[9] Version 3.9 also removed integration with Picasa Web Albums for users of Google+.[10]
Since June 2006, Linux versions have become 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.[11] Google has announced that there will be no Linux version for 3.5.[12] Currently, Google has only officially offered Picasa 3.0 Beta for Linux.[citation needed]
To use latest version of Picasa on Linux, Linux users can use Wine and install Picasa for Windows.[14] Linux users can use other programs to upload to Picasa Web Albums, including Shotwell and Digikam.[15]
On January 5, 2009, Google released a beta version of Picasa for Mac (Intel-based Macs only).[16] Also, a plugin is available for iPhoto to upload to the Picasa Web Albums hosting service. There is also a standalone Picasa Web Albums uploading tools for OS X 10.4 or later.[17] The Picasa for Mac is a Google Labs release.
For organizing photos, Picasa has file importing and tracking features, as well as tags, facial recognition, 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. Other simple editing features include adding text to the image. Picasa supports Google's WebP image format as well as the JPG format and most Raw image format (RAW files). A user can view and edit RAW files and save the finished edit (as JPG, or other forms) without any changes to the original RAW file.
Picasa uses picasa.ini files to keep track of keywords for each image. In addition to this, Picasa attaches IPTC Information Interchange Model (IPTC) keyword data to JPEG files, but not to any other file format. Keywords attached to JPEG files in Picasa can be read by other image library software like Adobe Photoshop Album, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, digiKam, Aperture, and iPhoto.
Picasa has a search bar that is always visible when viewing the library. Searches are live, so that displayed items are filtered as one types. The search bar will search filenames, captions, tags, folder names, and other metadata.[18]
Picasa has no separate view window. There is only an "edit view" with a viewing area. Fullscreen view is available in slideshow mode, by holding down the ctrl+alt keys while in "edit view", or by pressing the Alt Gr key. This feature is also available through the context menu of Windows Explorer, and provides a way to start the Picasa editor as well.
In Picasa 2 and earlier versions, changes to pictures made in Picasa overwrite the original file, but a backup version of the original is saved in a hidden folder named "Originals" in the same folder as the original picture (.picasaoriginals on Mac OS X).
In Picasa 3, changes to pictures made in Picasa are saved to a hidden file picasa.ini in the same folder as the original picture. This allows multiple edits to be performed without altering the original image. Viewing the picture in Picasa or using the Picasa Photo Viewer will apply modifications on the fly, whereas viewing through other programs (such as Windows XP's Photo and Fax Viewer) will display the original image. Changes can also be made permanent using the "Save" function, where the original file is backed up in a hidden folder .picasaoriginals located in the same folder as the original picture and the modified version is written in its place.
On August 15, 2006, Google announced it had acquired Neven Vision, whose technology can be used to search for features within photos such as people or buildings. Google applied this technology for face recognition, and this functionality was launched on Picasa Web Albums on September 2, 2008.[20]
Besides Google+, Picasa also integrated with Picasa Web Albums, an image hosting and sharing web service. The service allowed users with a Google account to store and share their photos on the service. Users with a Google+ account received unlimited storage for photos of a resolution less than 2048x2048 pixels; all others received unlimited storage for photos of a resolution less than 800x800.
Hello by Google's Picasa was a free computer program that enabled users to send images across the Internet and publish them to their blogs. It was similar to an instant messaging program because it allowed users to send text, but Hello focused on digital photographs.[24] Users could opt to view the same pictures as their friends in real-time. One of the advantages claimed at the website is that photos could be shared through firewalls.
The service was canceled at the end of 2006, and users were instructed to try the Picasa "Blog This" functionality for uploading pictures to their blogs.According to the official website,[24] the Hello project was shut down on May 15, 2008.
On February 12, 2016, Google announced that the Picasa desktop application would be discontinued on March 15, 2016, followed by the closure of the Picasa Web Albums service on May 1, 2016.[25] Google stated that the primary reason for retiring Picasa was that it wanted to focus its efforts "entirely on a single photos service" the cross-platform, web-based Google Photos. While support for the desktop version of Picasa ended, Google stated that users who downloaded the software, or who chose to download it prior to the March 15th deadline could still be able to use its functionality, albeit with no support from Google.[26]
Since the image file now contains GPS coordinates in its Exif metadata, when I look at the same file in WLPG, you can see from this screenshot that WLPG has performed reverse geocoding by using the GPS coordinates to derive the closest address for where the photo was taken, in this case, Energieweg, in Doetinchem, in The Netherlands:
Under certain circumstances, WLPG can store this address information in the image file, using the IPTC Extension LocationCreated metadata fields. Since this is a cross-industry standard, other applications that support this standard should be able to work with the metadata. However, you cannot use WLPG to create GPS coordinates for an image. Perhaps in the next version?
As you can see, this gives rise to problems in handling long tag sequences: the Quick Tags buttons can only display the beginning of a tag sequence, rather than displaying the last term in the sequence.
Both the current versions of Picasa and WLPG provide face recognition technology, so that you can easily tag people with their names. However, while WLPG used XMP to store the people tag metadata in the image files, version 3.8 of Picasa stored the tag information locally on the PC. This meant that it was very difficult to share tag information across multiple machines, since the tags did not travel with the file. I notice that in version 3.9 of Picasa, there is now an option to store the name tags in the image files themselves. Unfortunately, at the moment, there is no real information available from Google as to what this actually means. Are they using XMP? If so, is the schema documented? Microsoft have documented what they do for people tags, but so far I have not seen anything similar from Google.
Update 3, 19 December 2011: I think the comments made by Ben below are worth including here in the main entry (for the benefit of people who read the entry, but not the comments). He has found a few more people tagging behaviours worth noting:
3) WLPG allows you to tag a person without specifying the area they are in. If you tag someone in WLPG without drawing a box to indicate where they are, they will not show up in Picasa. As you already pointed out, people tagged in WLPG that DO indicate where they are in the photo will show up in Picasa as expected.
Incredible, Geoff! Your usual stellar approach to a review. Looks like WLPG and Picasa both have a ways to go to hit my comfort zone. I just carry on with GeoSetter and Photo Mechanic and ignore them.
Ok, thanks for the reply, it seems that is a major problem of Picasa 3.9, not only limited to certain cameras. As a conclusion neither Microsoft nor Google is able to keep the Maker Notes untouched. I think I will have to use WLPG (Build 14.0.8117.416) for another year.
Hi Geoff,
thanks for your very useful comparison. Due to the various limitations I end up using Picasa, WLPG, and Geosetter depending on what I want to do. I have some comments/questions. Have you thought about fixing the makernotes issue in Geosetter. I was one of the first to come across this problem in WLPG about 2 years ago and since then have fixed it by making sure that Geosetter is the last to make a modification, usually by doing my geotagging there. For the files I discover with corrupt makernotes, I just give them a single star rating in Geosetter, write back the files, then undo the star rating, write back the files. My assumption here is that Geosetter (actually Exiftool) fixes it and does not hide it. On this basis I do all of my people tagging, captioning, descriptive tags in WLPG.
I am experimenting with the writing back of people tags in Picasa now to see who it interacts with WLPG. Although tags created by Picasa seem not to be recognised by WLPG, the reset faces function in Picasa does seem to clear the tags written by WLPG. I think you were wanting to do this,
Basically my preferred tool is WLPG based on functionality you did not mention in your comparison. WLPG inherited its library display mode from Microsoft Digital Image and is able to display photos in date order across the directory hierarchy. I store my photos in a meaningful directory hierarchy not unlike a descriptive tag hierarchy. For example under My Pictures I have a directory called Germany and under that Goldhausen (where I live) and under that several directories called Garden, Visitors, Snow, Views, Walks, etc. Then if I click on Garden I can see all photos of the garden in date order, which is no different to Picasa. However, if I now click on Goldhausen I can see ALL photos in Goldhausen and its subdirectories in date order. Then if I click on Germany, ALL photos in Germany in date order, etc. Finally if I click on My Photos I can see all of my pics in date order regardless of where I have filed them. Picasa cannot do this and I find it incredibly useful for browsing and finding photos. This is the key capability which makes me stick with WLPG. Others were embedding of people tags in the files, hierarchical descriptive tags, captioning of multiple files, date taken correction of multiple pics.
GeoffP