Edit and Organize Your Photos for Free With Picasa - jamescancer71

A couple of weeks ago, I discussed cinque reasons why you should consider using Windows Live Photo Gallery. It's my popular free photo editor in chief and organizer; I really like the overall excogitation of the program, which makes it easy to organize and find photos quickly. And Photo Gallery's extras–like Photograph Fuse and panoramic sewing–are superior. Just several readers asked me how Pic Gallery stacks astir against another popular free photo arranger/editor in chief: Google's Picasa. So this week, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba's take a expect at the modish version of that program.

A Window Into Your Exposure Folders

Equivalent Windows Survive Exposure Gallery, Picasa doesn't actually impress or copy your photos; it only provides a convenient way to see the photos that you have on your PC. If you tend to entertain organizing your photos in terms of folders, you'll like Picasa, because piece the program does put up tags, it feels alike a folder-centric program. You'll see all the photo folders on the left side of the computer programme window, arranged by twelvemonth.

That said, you can as wel turn on the right-side tag pane (Pick out View, Tags from the menu) and enter tags in the field at the top of the cover. As you character, Picasa suggests extant tags to make the subcontract easier. You pot likewise configure decade prompt-tag buttons that let you set apart your near common tags to photos with a single click. Unlike Windows Live Photo Gallery, though, you put up't easily choose tags from a list to cypher in on photos–you have to know the dog and type its name into the search boxful.

Zero-Risk Editing

These days, there is no shortfall of brilliant editing tools acquirable for free. Web-based exposure editors similar FotoFlexer, Splashup, and Picnik can very nearly take the place of Adobe Photoshop for most people, as a matter of fact. Even by those standards, Picasa has a good collection of editing tools. You can crop, straighten, remove flushed eye, tweak color and exposure, and fiddle with color cast and white balance. You can also add special effects like Venetian red and piano direction. And unlike Windows Live Photo Veranda, you potty add text to your photo, which is handy for adding a caption or indicating the appointment the exposure was taken.

Like Windows Live Photo Picture gallery, all of these edits are completely nondestructive to the original photo. That's great, but the way Picasa protects your photos is quite opposite, and the distinction is worth noting.

In Windows Dwell Photo Gallery, any fourth dimension you make a change to a photo, those changes are visible both in Photo Art gallery and in Windows itself, and so whatsoever program can trespass of your edits powerful away. The original exposure is tucked away in a obscure location, so you can revert to the untouched original whatever time.

Picasa, however, doesn't modification your photo: Your edits are available only from within the "walled garden" of Picasa. If you want to work with a photo outside of Picasa, you need to manually save those changes via an extra step. When you do that, Picasa saves the photo as a new file, putt the original in a backup folder.

In person, I choose the way Windows Live Photo Gallery handles nondestructive redaction, but some methods do full protect your photos.

Identify Your Faces

You've got a lot of photos with people in them, and Picasa is hither to help you sort them all out. Care Windows Live Photograph Gallery, Picasa does a good job of identifying the presence of faces, and, once you severalize IT World Health Organization a few of them are, it automatically groups them for your approval. The more masses you identify, the more accurate it gets.

Final Thoughts

Picasa has a lot to recommend it. I corresponding the wad redaction feature that lets you work on a radical of photos at once, for instance. And there's a poster mode that can print your photo across a grid of pages to do an oversized image, eligible for hanging in a dormitory. The collage creator makes an attractive scramble of photos, as if you shuffled photos on a tabletop.

But I have pain getting noncurrent or s of Picasa's annoyances. The program doesn't support the mouse's coil rack, for example, so you can't zoom operating room scroll around victimization the sneak in the same right smart that I'm accustomed in former photo editors. And be thrifty when you prototypal configure the platform, because by default, it scans all the folders in your user profile, including your Documents folder. Sure, you can work that off, but if you missy that whole tone, you end up with every flyspeck image you ever ill-used in a business document in Picasa's photo library.

That aforesaid, Picasa is a solid organizer and editor. But since programs like Picasa and Windows Live Photo Gallery essentially duplicate each strange–and offer features like face identification that take a draw of deed to set up–you really do need to choose incomparable operating room the other. Happening the plus side of meat, you can try both and uninstall the loser–they're both free.

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get renowned! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and proficiency.

Hither's how to enter: Ship us your photograph in JPEG format, at a firmness no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will atomic number 4 immediately ineligible. If necessary, use an simulacrum redaction program to reduce the file size of your image before e-posting it to us. Admit the title of your photo on with a squabby verbal description you said it you photographed it. Don't blank out to institutionalise your name, e-mail address, and communicating accost. Before entering, delight read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This week's Blistering Pic: "Get Ready" by Christopher Lucka, New House of York

Saint Christopher says: "I took this photo of a teenager playing baseball in the South Bronx victimization my FujiFilm FinePix S9100."

This week's Caranx crysos-upward: "Arizona Winter First light" by Robert O'Donnell, Mesa, Arizona Robert used a Song Alpha A350 to take this photograph of the sun through a grape leaf in his backyard.

To see last month's winners, visit the July Hot Pics slide show. Shoot the breeze the Hot Pics Flickr gallery to browse past winners.

Have a digital photo question? E-postal service me your comments, questions, and suggestions about the newsletter itself. And be sure to sign up to have Digital Focus e-mailed to you for each one week.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/508468/digital_focus-14.html

Posted by: jamescancer71.blogspot.com

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