One of the best free photo editting editing and manipulation programs out right now is offered by Google. If you can’t afford photoshop, this just may be the program that will save the day. This isn’t a Picasa vs Photoshop article because they both offer great ways to manipulate photos. Picasa adds the photo organizer aspect that Adobe Bridge adds to Photoshop.  Please take a few minutes to view the video overview that I created.  If you want to try out the program you can click on the button that says “Google’s Photo Organizer”.

http://www.vimeo.com/301010

Google’s Picasa Photo Management Overview from mrslick on Vimeo.


If you are just a casual weekend hobbyist photographer, Picasa will work wonders for you.  The simple layout and one touch features have save you hours in the re-touching and resizing of photos. You will ofen times find that you get the perfect results with the click of one button. I was amazed by this program and I find myself using it more than Photoshop.  Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t have half as many features as Photoshop does, but for the casual user without photoshop experience…this is the way to go.

Let’s take a look at some of what this program can do.

Here is the library section where you can have your photos organized.  Picasa will automatically search your computer for photos and organize them for you. You can see that this program also lets you create Screensavers from pictures and export photos to CD or DVD.

Let’s start off with photo from my library and see how Picasa lets up fix it in just a few steps. We can see a picture of Jordan Farmar from the Los Angeles Lakers. The picture is basically pretty good, but I would like to liven up the colors and crop out some of the unwanted background.

Picasa quickly pops up a menu with some basic fixes that I can do.

I really want to crop out some of the unwanted back ground. All I have to do is click on the “crop” button to acheive this. I would like to eventually print this image out to a 4×6 print to I will select that option.

Wow, that looks cool.  I can quickly see what is being cropped out and modify it if necessary. I will be cropping out the parts of the picture that I don’t want included in my print.  When I click apply, the images will be cropped.

Picasa also gives me some more options :

It also gives me the ability to tune the picture. I can adjust the fill light to brighten up the background, adjust the highlights, modify the shadows, and even change the color temperature.

Download now by clicking the button below!

If also gives me the option to add effects to my photos. Below is another photo of a statue of Magic Johnson that can be manipulated to sharpen, add a Sepia tint, turn Black and White, Warmify, and many other cool effects.  These all get processed with the click of one button.

For the final step to our Jordan Farmar picture, I will add the warmify effect.

That’s it !!! In just a few quick steps I have changed this picture into something that works better for me. I didn’t need a three to six hundred dollar program to do it. This program is completely free. It will aslo let you upload your pictures to the web or send your pictures to be printed and mailed to you. I can’t say enough about this program. Photoshop is stronger and more robust, but Picasa will work like a charm for a more casual software user. Even if you don’t plan on modifying your photos, this program works great to organize and back up your photos. The slideshow feature works great in full screen mode.

http://www.vimeo.com/165978

Google’s Picasa Photo Management Overview from mrslick on Vimeo.


This entry was posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 8:40 am and is filed under Photo, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.