An analogue of the picasa program. How to Install, Set Up, and Use Google's Picasa

A fast and compact image viewer/converter that is easy for beginners and efficient for professionals. Supports many file formats and functions. Features include: multi-language support, thumbnail support, drawing, slideshows, toolbar skins, quick directory browsing, batch conversion/editing, multi-page editing, align (rotate) individual PDF pages around a small angle (e.g. 2°), scan to pdf files, OCR_KADMOS plugin, file search, color depth change, scanning, cut/trim, IPTC editing, capture, lossless JPG operations, effects, ICC support, EXE/SCR creation, many hotkeys, command line options and plugins

Windows PortableApps.com

XnView

XnView is a utility for viewing and converting graphics files. XnView is provided as FREEWARE for private, non-commercial or educational use(including non-profit organization).

Free (for personal use) Windows PortableApps.com

FastStone Image Viewer

FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly graphical browser, converter and editor. It has many features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, email, resizing, cropping, and color adjustment. Its innovative yet intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF ​​information, thumbnail browser, and core functions via hidden toolbars that appear when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen

Free (for personal use) Windows

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC

Create incredible photos anywhere with the all-new Lightroom CC and 1TB of cloud storage. Get powerful editing features on any device in a new, easy-to-use interface.

Paid Mac Windows Internet Android iPhone iPad

digiKam

digiKam is a modern digital photo management application for Linux/KDE that makes importing and organizing digital photos a snap. Photos are organized into albums, which can be sorted chronologically, by folder arrangement, or into individual collections.

Free Open source Mac Windows Linux BSD KDE Qt

Google Photos

Google Photos is Google's photo and video sharing and storage service. It includes unlimited photo and video storage, and apps for Android, iOS, and browser. Unlimited storage supports images up to 16 megapixels and videos up to 1080p resolution.

Free Mac Windows Internet Android iPhone Chrome OS Android Tablet iPad

TagSpaces

TagSpaces is an open source personal data manager.
It helps you organize and view files on each platform.

Free (with restrictions) Open source Mac Windows Linux Android iPhone Android Tablet Self-Hosted Chrome Firefox

Corel PaintShop Pro

Enter a world of endless creativity with PaintShop Pro X8's comprehensive photo editing and graphic design capabilities. Speed ​​up your photo editing with improved layers, more precise selection tools, faster brushes, and enhanced performance enhancements. Bring ideas to life with the most versatile photo editing software anywhere

Paid Windows

nomacs

nomacs is a free image viewer for windows, linux and mac systems, which is licensed under the GNU Public License v3. nomacs is small, fast, and capable of handling most common image formats, including RAW images. In addition, you can synchronize multiple viewers. Synchronization of viewers working on the same computer or via LAN is possible

About eight months ago Google released a photo and video sharing and storing service. It quickly gained popularity and was hailed as one of the best services of its kind. Since its initial release, Google Photos has been closely compared to Google's pre-existing photo editing and storage service, Google Picasa. Questions were raised ab out the future of Picasa since Google photos offered a very similar service and rumors kept floating about the reign of Picasa coming to an end. Surely enough on Friday, 12th February 2016 Google released an official statement that made it very clear that Picasa would soon be retired to focus entirely on Google Photos

Support for the Picasa desktop app will be stopped on March 15th, and the rest of the changes will be rolled out on May 1st. While some had seen this coming, there will now be many looking for an alternative to move on to from Picasa. But before we get into anything else, let us first tell you a little about Google Photos since it is the default alternative provided by Google.

Google photos is a cloud storage service very similar to Picasa. It offers you with an unlimited storage space for photos and videos at high quality and also functions as a decent photo editor. You can also download the app version of the service on your desktop or smartphone which will allow you to. The backing up part is simple, all you need is a Google account for it. With the desktop app, you can assign specific perimeters to allow automatic backup from specified devices and folders.

As for those looking for something other than Google Photos, here we are going to list a few alternatives to sufficiently quench your Picasa thirst.

1.Windows Photo Gallery

Conclusion

Hopefully, by now you must have found yourself a worthy Picasa alternative. Windows Photo Gallery, Photoscape, and FastStone for your editing needs and Flickr and Amazon Prime Photos for your storage needs. You can use them as you like. Of course, if you are looking for a more advanced photo editing software you can always try out the likes of Adobe Photoshop and CorelDraw.

Even though Google Picasa was once one of a kind and offered a unique experience, it will soon be taken over by its successors after its inevitable retirement. Here’s hoping that the void left by Picasa is filled by these alternatives with ease.

The beginning of autumn is the time to sort through summer photographs, and at the same time organize your family photo archive. For years, millions of users have used the free Picasa program to do this. But this year you may have to reconsider your habits - as of May 1, Picasa will no longer be downloadable. The popular program suffered the same fate as Google Reader and is now no longer supported. You can only work with Picasa if you have downloaded it previously, but please note that no further updates will be released for it.

It would seem like nothing, but there are enough programs for organizing photos on the market, both paid and free. But despite the huge selection of applications for working with images, finding a full-fledged replacement for Picasa is not so easy. Mainly because, for all its simplicity, this program was multifunctional: with its help you could organize photos into albums, select pictures according to various criteria, perform basic editing operations, and quickly upload albums to the cloud.

Let's not forget that Picasa was a free solution, which means commercial programs should not be considered as an alternative. We also intentionally do not include in this review programs whose main function is to view images. Our goal is to find solutions that allow you to organize large collections of images and upload photos to the Internet.

⇡ Google Photos is the successor to Picasa

To create a backup copy of a photo archive in the cloud, you can hardly find The best decision than Picasa's successor, Google Photos.

Firstly, all web albums uploaded using Picasa are automatically transferred to the new service from Google. Secondly, as in the case of Picasa, users of the new service receive unlimited storage space for photos whose size does not exceed 16 megapixels. For most people who use their smartphones for photography, this means being able to download their entire photo archive for free, since the number of smartphones with higher-quality cameras is not so large (even the iPhone 6s has a 12-megapixel camera, and the Samsung Galaxy S6 has a 16-megapixel camera).

To upload photos to the cloud from your computer, you need to use the Google Photo Backup application. Like Picasa, it allows you to automatically download all photos from memory cards, from the desktop and from standard Windows folders for storing pictures. In addition, you can add any number of additional folders in which photos are stored.

When automatically copying photos to the cloud from memory cards, you can also choose a folder in which to save a local copy of the images. Google Photos Backup can download images at their original resolution or automatically compress them. RAW files are supported, but loading is disabled by default (this can be changed in the settings).

If everything is more or less clear with uploading images online, then many other Picasa functions have not migrated to Google Photos. The online service has rather modest image editing capabilities (and, frankly, the editor interface leaves much to be desired); there are no tags, captions, or comments on photographs that are familiar to Picasa users. So if you've been using Picasa not only as a tool for uploading photos online, but also as a cataloger and editor, it's worth looking for a desktop application with the functionality you need in addition to Google Photos.

⇡ BonAView 1.9.0

• Developer: High Motion Software
• Operating system: Windows
• Distribution: free
• Russian interface: yes

BonAView is not the most famous program for working with photo archives, but it is undeservedly ignored. In terms of functionality, it is close to Picasa, and in some ways it even surpasses the recently closed program.

Viewing images is possible by catalogs, by albums, or in the Timeline mode so beloved by Picasa users, when photos are automatically organized by the program by time they were taken.

You can use ratings to sort images and create custom albums. BonAView is suitable for working with photo collections of any size, as it supports an unlimited number of albums (including any number of subalbums). The number of photos in each album is also not limited.

You can use filters to sort images. They help to display only photos related to a particular album that have specific name or a given rating.

Viewing photos is possible in two modes: in the form of thumbnails, the size of which can be easily controlled using a special slider, and in 3D view. The second mode allows you to work with a “carousel” of images, rotating and even editing them as you view them.

By the way, about editing. There are many functions for improving photos in BonAView. There are options for adjusting color rendering, level correction and red-eye removal, tools for automatic adjustments, tools for sharpening and blurring, about a dozen effects (sepia, negative, shadow, etc.), a good set of frames for different cases. It is interesting that, as in “large” photo editors, it is possible to apply editing tools not to the entire image, but to part of it, having previously selected the required fragment.

It's also worth paying attention to an interesting feature for creating visual annotations. Using it, you can add various graphic elements and text to the picture.

Let's also mention the excellent built-in search engine. BonAView can search for photos by specified folders, by user albums, by certain properties (size, resolution or file type, date last change, rating).

To quickly select photos stored in different folders and albums, it is convenient to use the ImageBoard tool (analogous to Photo Tray in Picasa). Once photos are placed in ImageBoard, you can add them to albums and perform other operations as a group. But there are no full-fledged tools for batch processing in BonAView - for this, the same developer offers a separate program ImBatch.

Unfortunately, BonAView does not include any means for sharing photos with other people. This may be due to the fact that the latest version of the program dates back to 2013, when social functions were not as in demand as they are now. However, BonAView can be used in conjunction with Google Photo Backup.

⇡ JetPhoto Studio 4.15

• Developer: Atomix Technologies Limited
• Operating system: Windows/Mac
• Distribution: free for non-commercial use (Pro version available)
• Russian interface: no

JetPhoto Studio combines the capabilities of a cataloger, viewer, graphic editor, and also contains tools for publishing photo albums on the Internet.

To start working with the program, you need to create an album. Then photos from different sources are added to the album (from a memory card, from local folders, from a webcam, etc.). When sorting images in an album, the user can mark them with a star, add keywords and notes (that is, a text description of the photo). It is also possible to edit information in EXIF. All this data can be used when searching for the desired images. And pictures marked with a star can be quickly selected. It is convenient to use a calendar to search for photos. Simply click on the desired date and only photos taken on that day will be shown.

In addition to the usual thumbnail mode for such applications, JetPhoto Studio offers interesting opportunity displaying images on the map. The program perfectly understands geotags and makes it possible to assign them either manually or based on the downloaded GPS track. There is also integration with Google Earth, creation of KML and KMZ files. If information about where the photo was taken is not automatically available, you can easily add it by simply pointing to the location on the map. This can also be done for a group of photographs by first selecting them.

JetPhoto Studio offers many different ways to easily view your images. For example, based on selected photos, you can create wallpaper, flash gallery, screen saver, slide show, web gallery in one of several formats.

But the image editing capabilities are more than modest. There are only a couple of very simple effects, tools for basic image correction and cropping.

Like Picasa, this program allows you not only to work with photos locally, but also to publish them on the Internet. There are two main ways to do this: using the Flickr service and the JetPhoto Server. The second method involves creating your own website with web albums based on the proposed templates. The user needs to purchase hosting, deploy JetPhoto Server on it, and then upload web albums from the program to the site. Agree that for most this is too complicated and expensive (especially since we are looking for an alternative to Picasa, which means free solutions).

But integration with Flickr is very interesting, because on this photo hosting you can store photos with a total volume of up to 1 terabyte. To be able to upload your photos to Flickr, you must authorize JetPhoto Studio to access your account. After this, you can upload both entire albums and selected photos. In this case, you can upload originals or compress images to a specified size, manage privacy settings, and add geotags. Keywords and notes added to photos in JetPhoto Studio will also be transferred to Flickr. For the convenience of users, the amount of available free space is shown before each download.

Among the disadvantages of JetPhoto Studio, it is worth noting that the interface is not very responsive. The program often freezes when performing certain operations, and importing photos with default settings generally paralyzes the computer. However, if you switch to import in the background, you can work with other applications. In an age when even many web applications can simultaneously load data and perfectly respond to any user actions, this looks like an archaism. However, JetPhoto Studio is in a sense a relic of the past, because the latest version of the program dates back to 2013.

⇡ WindowsPhotoGallery ("Photo Album") 2012

• Developer: Microsoft
• Operating system: Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1
• Distribution: free
• Russian interface: yes

Some may consider Microsoft's application not the best alternative to Google's product, but Windows Photo Gallery is very close in functionality to Picasa. The application can be downloaded for free as part of the Windows Essentials package. In addition to the component we are interested in, the package also includes a blog editor, an email application, OneDrive and a program for working with video files. During installation, you can select only those applications that should be installed.

Immediately after launch, Photo Gallery picks up all the photos stored in the image library (by default, these are the My Pictures and Public Pictures folders). To add other images, you just need to show the program where they are stored by changing the library settings.

If you need to copy photos from a memory card, just connect the drive - the program will immediately offer to import pictures.

In the Photo Gallery window, photos are sorted by the time they were taken. In this case, as in Picasa, there may be photos stored in different folders nearby. Their location on the disks does not matter. If you wish, you can choose one of many other sorting options: by folders, by ratings, by drive types, by people depicted in photographs, by title, by geotags. Appearance work area applications are flexibly configured: you can enable display additional information about the file, rating, signatures, quickly change the sort order, etc.

To organize your images, we offer the most different means: rating, flags, signatures, text tags, geotags, information about the people present in the photographs. To add tags different types Convenient to use sidebar. As the user works in the program, he compiles a database of tags, and later he can quickly find photos tagged with a certain keyword, or those that contain necessary people. Interestingly, Photo Gallery can help with identifying people: the program itself finds the heroes of photographs and offers to indicate who they are.

All photo information added to the Photo Gallery can later be used in searches. For example, you can search for pictures taken in certain months and tagged with one tag or another. The AND and OR operators are used to define search criteria. The search criteria can also be the type of file (video, photo, Raw file) and whether it was published on the Internet.

Photo Gallery allows you to send photos and video files by mail, as well as upload them to various online services: Flickr, OneDrive, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo. Images can be compressed to the desired size before downloading. In addition to sending them to the Internet, photos can be used to create panoramas, collages, and videos (in the Movie Maker application).

Photo Gallery also offers some image editing tools. There are several filters with a convenient preview function, tools for color correction and noise removal, exposure settings and photo alignment. In addition, directly from the program you can rename files, change resolution, and edit information about the shooting date. Conveniently, all changes made can be canceled by pressing one button.

Unfortunately, Photo Gallery support for Windows 7 will be discontinued soon. This is because Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 have a built-in Photos app for viewing, organizing, and sharing photos online. This application allows you to view photos in different modes: by album, by folder or by date. Photos is integrated with OneDrive, and all photos a user works with in the app can be uploaded to the cloud. Albums are created automatically based on the best images or manually by the user. However, in terms of functionality, Photos is inferior to Photo Gallery (just as Google Photos is inferior to Picasa - simplification is in vogue these days).

⇡ Zoner Photo Studio Free 18

• Developer: Zoner, Inc.
• Operating system: Windows
• Distribution: free
• Russian interface: yes

We deliberately placed Zoner Photo Studio at the end of the review, leaving this application for dessert. Despite the fact that the program is the younger brother of the professional version of Zoner Photo Studio, it has all the modern important functions for organizing your photo archive, as well as free uploading to your own photo hosting site. It differs from the paid version of Zoner Photo Studio Free in that it does not have advanced image editing tools: masks, filters, gradients, selection tools, noise removal tools, adding frames, perspective correction, working with HDR, as well as screen capture tools , batch processing, video slideshow creation. However, the list of what the program has is much longer than the list of missing options.

Zoner Photo Studio Free can work both as a simple tool for viewing photos stored on disk or on any media, and as a cataloguer. In order to create a database of photographs, you need to import them into the program from any folder, from a memory card, etc. Photos stored in the database can be displayed in the form of a calendar, by folders or by keywords. There are a lot of viewing modes: from one in which the main part of the window is occupied by one image, to “tiles” (with the ability to flexibly adjust the size of thumbnails). You can also display multiple photos side by side and view geotagged photos on a map.

Image sorting is also great: photos can be sorted by title, rating, date created or last modified. There are also a huge number of advanced criteria that involve all EXIF ​​data. In addition, the program can separately show RAW and JPEG images, giving preference to either the first or the second.

To the right of the viewing area there is an information panel where you can easily edit all the data about the photo. So, it is possible to set a color label, add a rating, title, description, keywords, and change EXIF ​​information.

Zoner Photo Studio Free does not work with third-party cloud services, but it offers unlimited space for storing photos on its own photo hosting Zonerama. After creating an account and gallery, a Zonerama item appears in the navigation bar with two folders: “Public Albums” and “Hidden Albums.” It's easy to guess that all photos sent to the first folder become publicly available, and pictures uploaded to the second folder can only be viewed by the owner. To upload photos, simply select them and drag them to the desired album with the mouse.

Although the editing capabilities are limited compared to the professional version of Zoner Photo Studio, the range of editing options is quite impressive for a free program. You can not only change the image resolution and canvas size, but also add text, place one image on top of another, add some effects, perform color correction, improve sharpness, work with shutter speed and white balance.

⇡ Conclusion

In general, as our little research has shown, most free programs that can be considered as a worthy alternative to Picasa have one common drawback: they are quite old. Therefore, you still need to think about whether it’s worth switching to an unfamiliar solution or staying with the abandoned, but still working Picasa for some time. The only program that stands out from the rest in that it is actively developing and looks modern is Zoner Photo Studio Free. Apparently, it can be recommended as the best replacement for Picasa.

My respect, dear friends!

Each of us has moments in life that we want to return to again and again, be it: a carefree “lazing” on the seashore, a trip to an exotic country, or just pleasant gatherings with a loved one - whatever. To relive/remember these pleasant moments again, it is not at all necessary to once again buy a ticket to some country or blow the trumpet general fee for friends - just find photos of your cool pastime on your PC and indulge in sweet memories!

However, what should you do if there is complete “bedlam” going on on your computer and you not only cannot find your “vacation” digital album, but you also assume that the photographs have long been “too-too”, i.e. rest somewhere along with unnecessary garbage outside of your system (and, most likely, they ended up there completely by accident).

How can you document to your friends that “Kisa and Osya were here?” Don’t go to the same place again just to “click” photos for show in front of your friends :).

So, to prevent this from happening, and in general, to bring your digital album/images on your PC into proper (well-groomed) form, we will consider a powerful combine (for processing all kinds of digital videos/pictures), whose name is - Picasa.

Make yourself comfortable, because a lot of interesting things await you, namely: we will tell you about the most interesting features of the program, its exotic functions, in general, about everything that you didn’t know and were afraid to ask :-)

Picasa program: how it is and why it exists

I want to say right away that I generally love the company’s products (or maybe I don’t, it’s just self-hypnosis). I use their main service - Internet search, I’m just blown away by the possibilities GMail, long ago abandoned ICQ in favor of GTalk, I regret that when I taught geography at school, there was no electronic globe - Google Earth, all my tasks/plans/friends’ birthdays are stored again in their calendars. And there are many other little things and Google amenities that make my life much easier. virtual life and bring convenience and comfort to it.

So, today I decided to tell you about another very useful tool (all from the same notorious “good corporation”) for working with digital data - photo/video organizer Picasa.

Why exactly Picasa?

• Firstly, it is a powerful free manager for searching, viewing, editing, printing, organizing, sharing (and all sorts of other miscellaneous) photos. With its help, you can easily transform ordinary photo cards into a movie or collage, or make a slide show (and that's just the beginning).
• Secondly, with Picasa Anyone can figure it out, even the most “Soviet teapot” (even with a whistle :)), because the program does a huge job for the user - it finds all the photos on the computer, even those that you have long forgotten, distributes and sorts them into albums indicating dates and much more useful things.

At the initial stage, you will only need patience (because the program needs to scan all the media content), but then you will get pure pleasure from it, because work with Picasa will be similar to working with regular albums, but with much greater capabilities.

Let's get acquainted with the program's arsenal:

• Uploading photos to your computer from your scanner and camera
• Automatic indexing of photos on your PC hard drive
• View photos in normal and full screen modes, including as a slideshow
• Applying various effects to photos (red-eye correction, retouching, etc.)
• Assigning labels and keywords to photos, adding tags
• Printout
• Creation of collages and photo albums, Internet galleries (with the possibility of posting online)
• Sending full-size photos via e-mail and publishing them on blogs, social networks Google+
• Create photo-based screensavers and photo slideshow CDs
• Editing photos in comparison mode
• For avid photographers, it is possible to modify photos using data exif. The window shows all the information from the camera that is saved in the source file
• Integration of the program with photo hosting Picasa Web Albums, and Blogger, Gmail, YouTube And Google Earth.
• Screensaver from local images
• Batch resizing photos, adding text and watermarks
• Create web galleries, posters, screenshots
• Batch renaming/editing files
• Find duplicates
• Identifying people by faces
• Search filter by color
• Adding geotags. With their help, you can specify the location where any photo was taken using Google Earth And Google maps (a useful function for those who have already traveled half the world and want to experience these sensations again)
• Synchronization function with online storage. The ability to transfer all changes made in a local album to an album posted on the Internet.

The list of features is truly amazing, as if this is not just an image editing program, but a functional design studio on wheels.

Hello.. Picasso! Beginning of work

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So, getting to know this miracle of programming and design thought, as always, begins with downloading it, which can be done as follows by clicking on “ Download Picasa» (size of downloadable installer program file for Windows- order 15 MB).

Note:
It is worth noting that one of those rare developments that is available in versions for Windows, Linux (Wine) And Mac OS X 10.4.

We launch the installer and, upon completion of the installation wizard, configure the primary launch items (by checking/unchecking the appropriate boxes).

Immediately after launch, the program automatically goes to the website of the update and user support center and reports about new features of the installed version of the program Picasa 3.9. Be careful when installing Picasa the main “family trait” of all products immediately appears Google- excessive curiosity :).

The program reports that it is ready to search for photos on the PC and all that remains is to help it with this by selecting the option to scan image files: only in folders " My Documents" (My documents) and " My Pictures"(My drawings) on " Desktop"or on the entire hard drive.

In my humble opinion, you should prefer the first option, because this way the program will find all the images, even those that you never knew about, and only then fine-tune the search in specific folders. By the way, everything is done quite quickly (however, it all depends on the size of the hard drive and the degree of chaos on it), and the results of the process are displayed on a small gray ruler on the right side of the screen.

The last question to answer concerns the function " Photo Viewer" (it replaces the Image and Fax Viewer utility Windows, installed by default).

"Photo Viewer"is quite a convenient thing, and it also works many times faster than its counterparts. However, if you have your own “favorite brainchild” of viewing images, then you can refuse its services (by selecting the “ Don't use the program"), otherwise you can opt for it (by selecting " Use as default", see image).

Advantages of the viewing utility Picasa- convenient access to editing functions, transferring images to the server and playing slide shows. An interesting approach to displaying pictures: they are located in the center of the screen without a frame, and the rest of the screen is shaded and becomes translucent.

After completing all the preparatory steps, the program will immediately begin scanning the system for images and will automatically distribute them according to the time they were taken or appeared on the hard drive (which is very convenient, you don’t have to look for photos that you have forgotten about forever).

Note:
The search process and the percentage of media content processed is displayed on the left side of the panel, next to the user icon (see image above).

After searching, the main program window will look something like this:

And your words will be something like: “Wow! Picasa Found all my photos! Yes, that’s right, and all folders with photos and videos will be located on the left side of the page ( 1 ), and in a large window in the center of the screen ( 2 ) there will be a list of photos in the folder.

Before proceeding to a more detailed review, I’ll immediately make a reservation - it seems to me that the developers Picasa We tried to integrate into our brainchild all the tools that an ordinary user can imagine, and we would gladly talk about them all, but I’m afraid that it would turn out to be a good volume (or even two) “ War and Peace" Therefore, we will analyze only the standard required “gentleman’s set” plus the most exotic functions and capabilities of this product. Don't blame me, the rest is up to you!

Below the photo there is a service line ( 1 ), where you can create a text caption and a description of the image. Nearby is the image display scale control ( 2 ), as well as buttons for quickly switching to the original size and snapping to the viewing area ( 3 ). At the top of the working window there is a line with compact thumbnails of images ( 4 ), with which you can quickly flip through photos within one album or folder. Also next to the thumbnails, there is a line with a choice of photo placement options ( 5 ) relative to each other.

Note:
There is a very funny function " Magnifier", which allows you to view a larger image of the thumbnail. To do this, just use the thumbnail mode (default mode when loading the program) " grab hold of» for the magnifying glass icon and move it to the thumbnail (see image).

In the ribbon (6), there are panels such as:

• User panel (used to identify a person by photo)
• Places panel (adding geotags to a location)
• Tag panel (for quick access to photos)
• Properties panel (viewing detailed information about the file)

For those who want to quickly get rid of the photo card (:)), there is a panel ( 7 ), which allows you to: print, export (with adding a watermark), send by mail, as well as upload and publish photos on a social network Google+(although to use the last two functions, you will need a valid account with email Gmail).

The second photo viewing mode is called up using the " Play Slideshow" (similar to the icon Play). In this case, the pictures are displayed in full screen and you can set various transition effects from slide to slide.

So, we come to the third (very exotic) photo viewing mode, which is called up using the key combination (“Ctrl+5”) and is called “Chronology”. Its peculiarity is that information is displayed on the screen through, as happens in many computer games.

When you navigate to it, small image icons are arranged in a three-dimensional orbit according to the date of creation. By clicking the mouse on the icons, you thereby rotate the virtual orbit, and the “round dance” of the drawings rotates. Thus, moving through a stack of sketches, it is as if you are traveling in a “time machine” from the past to the present and back; in essence, this is a video/photo chronology of your life. Made very conveniently and beautifully.

Using the button bar ( 1 ) you can select a photo in the usual way, button ( 2 ) – returns to the library, and using the slider ( 3 ) you can navigate through all found pictures and video files. Please note that this mode is a unique feature. Picasa.

So, we've figured out the viewing modes, let's move on.

Image processing
Photo editing tools Picasa designed so that their use is reduced to a couple of mouse clicks. Correcting defects in pictures or decorating them artistically is so simple here that you don’t have to spend any significant effort on it (even when processing an entire folder of files).

To start working with the editor, you just need to click on the photo and the following window will appear in front of you.

Note:
Photos processed in the program are not subject to changes. The program only records the processing commands that need to be performed with the file, and executes these commands every time this photo is accessed. Thus, the changes made are available for viewing only in Picasa until you decide to export or save them, i.e. the original photographs remain safe and sound and are available at any time.

There are more than enough image processing tools even for a professional photographer. These will help to qualitatively improve the overall appearance of the photo and apply a whole mountain of “quick” effective filters to it.

So, the editor window consists of " Image correction toolbars" (1 ) and a set of elements/filters ( 2 ), which can change any image beyond recognition.

A set of frequently used tools " Basic Operations» ( 1 ), placed on the main panel.

1. Cropping.
   The "Crop" button allows you to crop unnecessary parts of the photo. For example, you can cut out your ex-girlfriend from your vacation photos :). In addition to the automatic crop sizes offered by the program Picasa, some others are available
2. Alignment.
   Photos taken with a poorly adjusted camera can be straightened out. Use the slider to align the photo relative to the grid
3. Red eyes.
   This tool automatically corrects red eye, which Picasa detects photos of any supported type
4. I'll be lucky!
   Can be interpreted as “do it beautifully.” This button allows you to change your photo with one click. Google Photolab adjusts the color and contrast of the image to make it perfect
5. Automatic contrast correction.
   Automatically sets optimal brightness and contrast levels while maintaining vibrant colors
6. Auto color correction.
   Automatically corrects color deviations and restores color balance while maintaining contrast and brightness settings
7. Retouching.
   Using this tool, you can remove defects and improve the quality of your photos. You can even retouch old photos with stains, water marks and scratches
8. Text.
   Easily and quickly add text over images. You can change the style, size, and angle of the text, and drag it to any area of ​​the photo
9. Leveling lightening.
   Sometimes photos with a bright background make the main subject appear dark or unclear. Use the slider to add light to the foreground of your photo and make your photo more balanced.
10. Change to Picnik(not chocolate :)) - online photo editor.

Allows you to control the color and adjust the lighting of a photo, which improves the appearance of the image. Select tool " Magic wand" to lighten or change color to allow Picasa automatically adjust the photo, or use the sliders to manually adjust the lightening and color settings of the photo.

1. Leveling highlight/fill color.
   Similar action (described above)
2. Lightening.
   Increase the lightness level to bring out the highlights in the photo more. This will highlight the shades of white in your composition.
3. Shadows.
   Darken the shadows in a photo to increase depth or contrast. Use this feature in combination with the Dodge slider to increase the contrast of a faded photo.
4. Colorful temperature.
   Add warm tones to your photo by moving the slider to the right. This will brighten the colors and bring the composition to life.
5. Neutral color.
   Specify Picasa, which parts of the photo should be considered gray or white.

Consider the following tab " Image Processing Tools».

It contains 12 effects that can be applied to any photo.

1. Increase clarity.
   Makes the outlines of objects sharper and less blurry
2. Sepia.
   Create a retro effect by changing the colors of the image to reddish-brown shades
3. Black and white.
   Convert any color photo to black and white
4. Warmer tones.
   Adds warmth to cool-toned photos, enhancing skin tones. Additional manual control helps implement the Color Temperature slider » on the "Editing" tab »
5. Grain.
   Adding grain to a photo to improve its appearance when printed
6. A different shade.
   Removes color from a photo and applies the selected tint over the resulting image. The "Preserve Color" slider allows you to add the original colors of the photo under the added tint
7. Saturation.
   This slider allows you to adjust the color saturation. Move the slider all the way to the left to make the photo black and white. Move the slider all the way to the right so that the image becomes “radioactive”
8. Soft focus.
   Create a blurred area around a selected point
9. Shine.
   Increasing the brightness of white areas of photos to achieve a hazy effect
10. Black and white filter.
    Creates the effect of taking a black and white photograph with a color filter. A filter blocks or enhances certain colors in a photo
11. Black and white focus.
    Makes the photo black and white, leaving one circular area in color. You can set the size and sharpness of the color spot
12. Tone selection.
    Apply a graduated filter based on the selected color. This allows you to turn a gray sky blue.

The next two tabs of the Toolbar " Other filters and effects».

I will give a couple of examples of using some filters.

In general, experiment, use your imagination and you will succeed!

It is worth saying that in Picasa it became possible to compare two images before and after processing (called by clicking on the double letter “AA”, next to the image thumbnail selection panel), for which special thanks to the developers.

Phew, done with editing :-)

Certainly Picasa Not Photoshop, but adjust the photo, adjust the brightness, contrast, get rid of red eyes, apply beautiful effects, create a collage and a good cart various functions, In stock. In addition, all this can be done efficiently, very quickly and, moreover, without being “seven spans in the forehead”, as if we resorted to help Photoshop.

Let's move on to the interesting functions of the program, i.e. what you can quickly do with your own hands from handy materials (photo/video).

You can create collages from a group of photographs. To do this, you just need to decide on a set of photos that will participate in the composition and click on the “ Create a collage» ( 1 ).

We immediately go to the “ Collage"and we see that from the selected photos a whole picture is formed, worthy of the Louvre :-). Collages in Picasa quite effective, especially if used in them a large number of pictures.

Here everything depends on how much you creative person. This is what happened to me.

There are several modes for creating collages: a stack of randomly scattered photographs with and without stylish frames, two types of mosaics, a grid, an index print and multiple exposure (when images are superimposed on one another).

You can easily change not only the position of photos (the " Move photo"), but also their sizes (just move the mouse pointer to any picture and turn the wheel). In addition, by clicking on the photo you can call up a pie chart to change the angle and scale of the photo (see image).

You can also change the page format ( 1 ), composition orientation ( 2 ), make wallpaper and " Desktop"and everything is so different.

Note:
Folder " Clips"When creating a collage, it is used to upload additional images (for example, if you spontaneously decided to add a photo of a completely different topic from other ones).

Creating a slideshow from a group of photographs will no longer surprise a sophisticated user, but in functionality Picasa There is such a spectacular feature as creating a presentation film with various transition effects.

To do this, you just need to click on the “ Create a presentation film"(next to the button to create a collage from photos) and you will immediately go to the tab " Movie Maker» ( 1 ), where you can actually start creating your video masterpiece in best traditions Hollywood :).

The editor is intuitive, simple and clear.

In addition to adding the main working material - photographs from the photo album (tab " Clips – Extras"), you can also add your own text slides. To do this, just click on the icon (in the form of a text frame, at the bottom of the toolbar) " Add a new text slide" and the last one will be added to the composition.

Also, in order to somehow enliven your video and give it expressiveness, you can add an audio track (the "" button). Well, of course, there is the ability to select the output video resolution, transition style and other adjustment effects.

Very useful addition is the preview mode (the button in the form of an icon Play), which allows you (without editing the final video file) to look at all the mess that you have done.

So, all the preparatory work has been completed and all that remains is to create your film presentation by clicking on the “ Create"(the rendering process will start ( 1 ) and upon completion you will receive the finished composition).

Video Toolkit Picasa allows you to create a fairly creative presentation video in just a couple of mouse clicks. However, that's not all!

Note:
All created files (collages, videos, etc.) are created by default in the folder " Picasa» located at the address in OS Windows 7(“From:/Users/Username/Images”).

Edited and voiced footage can be exported to compressed WMV-format and add watermarks showing copyright information or URL-address of the “creator-creator”.

In addition to creating a video, you can also post it on the portal YouTube(after having obtained Gmail-account) so that not only you, but the entire Internet community can admire it.

Our current creation is located below:

Access to photos
So, now we will return to photographs again and talk about the “social” part of the program for working with them (i.e. access, sending, publishing, etc.).

The button bar at the bottom of the library window allows you to:

1. "Select selected items".
   Using this button, you can mark photos (from various folders and albums) as selected and then work with the latest necessary actions(moving, editing, etc.)
2. "Deselect".
   The button deselects selected items
3. "Add selected items".
   Add photos to a new or existing album. "Add to" button » allows you to add all selected photos from the "Selected Photos" area directly to the album of your choice
4. Tagging photos as favorites.
   Add notes to photos in Picasa to mark them as Favorites. The star filter (star shaped) at the top of the library allows you to see only your favorite photos
5. Rotate photos.
   Rotate the photo to 90 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise
6. Tagging photos.
   Tags are like keywords. Tags Picasa, consisting of one or more words, make it easy to find photos in the collection (to save time, use the keyboard shortcut " Ctrl+T").

IN Picasa There is a “social” panel that allows you to:

Note
If your “social” panel does not shine with functionality, then you can always add buttons through the main menu “ Tools - Customize Buttons - Add».

So, we have finished looking at another block of functions, but, as always, the most interesting for the most patient readers is yet to come, or rather already :-)

Other useful features or Top unique features of the program

So we come to consider the most unusual features of the program, which are unique to it and qualitatively distinguish it from standard image “viewers”. Let's go through the list.

Backup Photos
Backup is a reliable way to keep your photos safe and sound. WITH Picasa it's very simple - open the menu " Tools", select " Back up photos» and configure the settings.

You can also save photos to DVD- disk. Even if your hard drive fails or is damaged due to a power surge, you can always restore all your photos and the changes made to them.

Name tags
Another fun feature is the face analyzer. The program automatically scans the uploaded photos and tries to identify people's faces in them, i.e. recognizes the latter, as they say, “by their faces” :)

Picasa offers to confirm the correct operation of the algorithm by indicating, among the displayed thumbnails, images of one person. You can also set a “name tag” for each person, which not only allows you to search through the photo archive, but also links the tagged photos with an entry in the address book Google.

Tagging acquaintances in photographs occurs as follows: if, when specifying the directory in which the images should be scanned, the “ With face recognition», Picasa will detect all faces in these photographs and in the “ Users» ( 1 ) will prompt you to add names.

Once you tag a person one or more times, the program will automatically tag him in other photos. If the program is sure that the user is identified correctly, this will happen without additional notifications. The quality of recognition depends on how clearly the face is visible in the photograph and whether it is turned sideways. If the program has doubts, it will ask you to confirm or reject the assumption, and it can mix up “silently” only if the people are very similar. Gradually, as data accumulates, the program learns itself and can independently recognize who is shown in the picture. What an intellectual she must be :).

User Manager
To manage contacts in Picasa present" User Manager" (« Tools-User Manager"). If you log into the program using an account Google, then you can synchronize them with " Google Contacts", and each contact will be assigned the photo used in the thumbnail. Such a link will allow you to create a complete database of contacts of all the people you have ever known, and this is not possible with any social service.

Moreover, with the advent of the service Google Plus contacts from " Kroogov» integrated with contacts Google, and if the user you want to add is present in your " Circles", then you won’t have to create a separate contact for it.

Web Albums and Photo Sync
The most interesting, Picasa integrated with the service " Google - Picasa Web Albums". And if you have a fast Internet, then all your local digital photo albums will migrate to the Internet. This is very convenient! Now you can give a friend access to this or that album and there will no longer be a need to send one photo at a time by mail. You will be complete ( or thin) the owner of his web albums, which can only be viewed by those to whom you allow it. The user receives free 1 GB storage, expandable up to 10 GB, however, it is no longer free, but for a small “bribe” in the form of American rubles.

It is also worth noting that Google offers its own service for photo sharing. In order to use its services, you must have an account Google(it is universal and applicable, first of all, to mailbox), with its help you can also log in to the photo sharing service. It is enough to log in once, and then the program will automatically log into the service, allowing you to upload photos to it, manage them, and change descriptions. To upload photos, you must enable constant synchronization with the Internet (the button in the form of circular arrows, on the right in the image viewing panel) for certain albums. This will allow you to edit photos in the folder, add new ones there or delete existing ones on your computer, and all changes will be instantly made to web albums, and vice versa, if you add a photo via the web interface, it will be saved on your computer. By the way, disabling the synchronization mode does not lead to the deletion of downloaded pictures on Google Plus.

Phew, now we’re done with that, but that’s not all, there’s also a small cart of “useful and necessary” tools from the program’s arsenal (I want you to know about Picasa as much as possible:-)).

Additional toolsPicasa. Everything or almost everything that remains behind the scenes.
Here is a list of “small” but no less useful tools that you can safely use at any time. Actually, here they are:

• Search for duplicates.
  There are likely to be duplicate files in your image collection. It will help to find such matches special function a program that finds duplicates in just a few seconds even in the largest collection
• Creating a poster.
  If you want to turn an image into a large poster, this feature is for you. It allows you to divide a photo into several parts and print each of them separately. Then you can connect the resulting fragments together and make one large-scale canvas from the original photograph
• Creation of web galleries.
  By using Picasa It's very easy to prepare photos for display on your website in the form of a web gallery. To do this, you need to select the required files, and then select “Export as HTML page” (in the “Folder” menu). Next, indicate in the dialog box that appears the title, the size of the pictures, select a template, and in just a few minutes the finished gallery will be saved to your hard drive
• Filter by color.
  There are many types of photo sorting: by time of photo, event, size, characters, geographic location. Program Picasa in addition to such an extensive list, it offers another type of filtering - by color. As a result, all images from your collection that have the corresponding color scheme will be displayed
• Screensaver from local images.
  When installing Picasa A special screensaver is also installed, which allows you to view a slide show of local or downloaded images from the network in moments of idle time.
• Passport photo.
  Allows you to print the desired passport photo format.

Note:
For users of the “fire little animal”, there is a convenient plugin that allows you to add images online Web Album. You just need to install it, restart the browser and select pictures in the context menu (called with the right mouse button) " Add to Picasa Web Albums».

So, it seems like you haven’t forgotten anything, well, even if you forgot something, you know where to look - in the program’s rich toolkit, of course!

Afterword

In conclusion, I would like to say that everyone will find in Picasa something of its own: “newbie amateur” - a convenient, fast and understandable means of “care” for photos and videos; "experienced specialist" is an effective and functional tool for creating an online photo archive.

Only one thing is definitely worth noting, they say that: “A person is greeted by his clothes, but seen off by his mind,” as applied to Picasa we can say that with “clothes” (read appearance) and “mind” (read the filling) the program is in perfect order.

In general, that's all! Put the brush in your hands and feel free to conquer this useful software, making confident strokes (:-)).

With this, let me take my leave. Do not forget about the comments on this article, they are patiently waiting for your questions, additions, thanks and other differences.

PS: Thanks to team member 25 KADR for the existence of this article

Good day to all!

With the program " Picasa" I met her a few years ago and she has been my go-to editor ever since.

Picasa is an application from Google. It is freely available, you can download it for free, and absolutely legally, without violating anyone’s rights.

The appearance of the program is attractive, very convenient and well thought out. The program has simple and varied functionality that is very easy to use. Everything is so simple that no special skills or training are required for the job.

To begin with, I note that it is not only a photo editor, but also a wonderful organizer for all photos, pictures, videos located on the computer. When installed on a PC, Picasa first scans your hard drive for images, organizes them, and then displays them in a convenient folder structure.

Viewing is simple and convenient, because... All images can only be viewed using the scroll wheel on the mouse.

Picasa program

By the way, for many, the contents will probably come as a surprise - for example, I found photos that I had long forgotten about, as well as pictures that came from nowhere on the hard drive of my PC.

Picasa program

While viewing you can use filters, for example, the program can filter photos and show only images with faces, or with geotags, markings, or only video files. Agree, this is quite convenient.

In "Rikasa" there is an opportunity viewing images through a magnifying glass, you can add your favorite photos to favorites, add tags, geotags, marks, titles.

You can view photos at normal and full screen modes , including V as a slide show.

🌷 Editing.

Picasa allows edit pictures, burn photos to CD, create posters, collages, slideshows. It allows you to improve any photo and fix the most common problems in a few clicks of the mouse.

What’s especially pleasing is that if you didn’t like something, you can always cancel the selected action, take a step back, return to the original photo, even if the changes were saved.

When editing You can view the selected image in two versions(original and already modified, using any effects and filters). In addition, you can view 2 at once different photos- the selected one and the one following it.

The editing panel is located on the left side of the window and includes 5 tabs. I'll tell you about each one separately.

The basic and most frequently used tools are in the first tab: cropping, straightening, adjusting color and light, retouching, red-eye removal.

When cropping(i.e. cropping a photo) you can select the desired size, the choice is quite large, or you can set these parameters manually, arbitrarily moving the edges.

Alignment allows you to correct the tilt of the photo, for example, align it with the horizon.

Retouching for me one of important functions. It allows you to correct various defects in the photo that I did not pay attention to when shooting.

Retouching - "Before" and "After"

Adjusting Light and Color- for me the most rarely used functions, because... they are practically useless.

And here is the function "I'll be lucky" sometimes it turns out to be quite successful:

"I'm Feeling Lucky" Feature - "Before" and "After"

In the same tab there is an opportunity adding text. In this case, you can select the font, its size, color, direction, highlight, underline, etc.

For example, on this photo collage all the inscriptions are made using Picasso:

2. Lighting and color correction

Using the slider here you can adjust the level of lightening, darkening, tonality, and color temperature of the image.

Lighting and color correction - "Before" and "After"

The photo shows that even minor changes in lighting and color change the photo, making it brighter.

3-5. Filters and effects

As a photo editor, Picasa also offers a variety of filters and effects that can be applied to a particular photo, thereby improving it and giving it originality.

The choice is large, and it is slightly inferior to Avatan, but these effects are enough for me.

You can sharpen or reduce the sharpness of the photo, apply sepia, make the photo black and white, add grain, shine, change hue, saturation. The intensity of all these effects can be adjusted using the slider.

Here is the original photo and preliminary versions of the filters (left):

And here is this photo with some filters:

"Tint" - allows you to change the tint of the photo:

“B&W focus” - allows you to highlight only part of the photo with color, and make the rest black and white:

“Sepia” - with its help you can color a photo in sepia tones:

"B&W filter" - imitation of a black and white photo taken with a color filter:

Another interesting effect - "tone selection." Choose the shade you like and change the photo:

And here is the effect “warmer tones” (increasing the saturation of warm shades) in the photo from another review:

"Warmer Tone" Effect - "Before" and "After"

For those who are not the proud owner of a DSLR, there is such a function as " soft focus." That is, part of the photo can be selected, leaving it clear, and the rest blurred.

Soft Focus Effect - Before and After

On the next tab you can apply infrared film, apply Lomography, Holda style effect, HDR effect, Orton effect, Cinemascope, etc. The intensity of all parameters can also be adjusted.

This is the original photo and preliminary versions of applying filters:

Some of the effects:

"Cinemascope" - an imitation of an old movie:

"Duplex" - makes the photo two-color:

"Duplex"

And here is the effect "lomography" (imitation of shooting with a Lomo camera) in the photo from a review of the mixer:

Lomography effect - "Before" and "After"

The last tab contains several more effects, of which I only use changing color saturation, increasing contrast, and vignetting. Many people will probably like the ability to create a black frame, the effect of drawing with a pencil, imitation of a Polaroid photo, comic book stylization, and adding shadows.

This is the original photo and preliminary versions of the effects:

(you can darken or lighten the edges of the photo) :

"Pencil" - the effect of drawing with a pencil:

Simulating a Polaroid photo:

🌷 Additional features Picasa photo editor.

Another useful feature is copying effects. Those. all effects applied to one photo can be immediately applied to other photos located in the same folder. This can be done in “Edit - Copy all effects”.

Via the "Creation" tab or via the icon on the toolbar You can make a film presentation, burn photographs to CD, create posters, collages.

Again, everything is simple, easy, there are tips.

🌷 Collage.

I’ll tell you separately about collages, as one of the current issues when editing (at least for me).

You can create it by clicking the corresponding icon:

Or through the "Creation" tab

A collage can be created from individual photographs or from all those in the folder.

By clicking on any of the images, you can delete it, set it as a background, rotate it and resize it using this navigator:

In the “Settings” tab, you can select the view, background settings, page format and grid step of the collage. As a background you can use a photo or a solid tone of any shade