Posted on: Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Google improves photo software
By Jefferson Graham
USA Today
About 70 million people visit Google every month. Most go to look up a Web site. A smaller — and arguably savvier — group visits Google to use or download its free tools, such as Blogger, Google Toolbar or Google Desktop Search.
Where to download: www.picasa.com Key features • Organizes digital photos on your hard drive using thumbnail-size visual images, instead of file names. • E-mail and print photos • Basic editing tools, such as cropping, rotation, fixing red eye. • Advanced editing tools to adjust lighting, apply black-and-white filter effects, straighten images and collage them. Picasa is free, but is it a bargain?
Danny Sullivan, editor of online newsletter SearchEngineWatch, says Google's strategy of giving away free tools is in line with its evolution as a kind of "Internet operating system" that strives to keep users spending most of their time at Google.
"If you get locked into doing all your photo editing and organization with Picasa, odds are good Google can start running ads to you down the line," Sullivan says.
Initially, Picasa was primarily aimed at compiling photos. Picasa 2 adds editing tools. It can convert photos to black and white and add filtering effects — such as turning a light sky into an Ansel Adams-like black hue.
You can also use Picasa to burn images to a CD, something rarely seen on other free photo-management tools, such as Adobe's "light" version of Photoshop Album.
The newly added CD-burning functionality was inspired by Apple's popular iTunes software, which offers one-click CDs, says Lars Perkins, Picasa general manager.
Still, Picasa is missing certain standard tools serious photo editors love in Adobe's $90 Photoshop Elements, such as being able to wipe away wrinkles or morph someone's head onto another body.
"Some of the new features, especially the black-and-white filters, are pretty rare for a program like this," says Philip Ryan, associate editor of Popular Photography & Imaging magazine. "But for the serious and semi-serious editor, they should stick with Elements."
Google is hoping that more of the folks who search its site also will take a look at its other tools. To help make that happen, Google is making perhaps its boldest move yet with version 2 of Picasa, a free digital photography program that rivals Adobe's Photoshop Elements and Microsoft's Digital Image Suite, which both sell for about $100.
Google's new version of Picasa lets users do such things as adjust color and contrast and add special effects to images. Buttons along the bottom let you export photos to e-mail, CD and the Web.
ABOUT PICASA
