Picasa Web Albums is Google’s Web photo-hosting service. Users get 1GB of free hosting, and images can be uploaded and manipulated using Picasa, Google’s free desktop photo management application. Users who want additional storage can shell out up to $500 a year to bump up the hosted space to 400 times the size of the free hosting service.
Much like everything else Google, Picasa is exceptionally straightforward to use, with a tabbed interface offering three options–My Photos, Favorites, and Explore–the last of which lets you browse the public photo library. Next to the tabs, you’ll find a prominent Upload button for adding photos to your albums, which you can set to various levels of privacy. Within your albums, you have the option to view a slideshow, share via e-mail, make a collage or movie, order prints, and edit various aspects.
We really like the integration between the desktop and Web application. Similar to .Mac and iPhoto, Picasa makes it really simple to take photos from your desktop and publish them online for others to see. We’re also fans of the built-in geotagging that lets you set where photos were taken either by single photo, or by entire albums. It’s a great way to browse photos if you feel like exploring.
When you first run Picasa 3 it offers to scan your whole hard drive (or designated locations) for photos and videos. Scanning is surprisingly quick and when finished you’ll have all your shots neatly organized into folders on a time line basis. Now you can view your shots one at a time, in slideshow or traversing the time line.
The editing features are limited compared to professional image editors yet they provide you with every function amateur photographers need including one click red eye reduction. Similarly adding labels to photos is a cinch while a simple but effective star rating system allows you to flag favorite snaps. Individual folders can also be password protected. Facilities are provided to import your images from your camera in multiple formats including RAW. You can send photos to your choice of web printing services, cut a CD, print to a local printer or share with others via your own blog or instant messaging. It is also worth noting that you can create web albums with free online storage, backup, and automatic resizing when exporting or email etc. Simply sensational.
Rather than physically moving all your photos, you can give them labels. That way, for example, you could label all the photos of your children with their name but still have individual folders for vacations and holidays.
Similarly, you can rate your photos with stars and view only the photos with a certain rating. This makes it easy to tell by thumbnail which photos are in focus or have the best expressions.
You can also geotag photos with the geographic location they were taken. This lets you view the photos geographically in Google Earth.
