Google has released Picasa 2. I loved the first Picasa (it’s like iPhoto for a PC) but it had some issues. I ran into a couple of bugs trying to move pictures about (they’d show up in different albums than where I dropped them) and it also lacked the ability to add comments to pictures. Picasa 2 adds some new features:
- Labels: Tag your pictures with labels for quick search and locate.
- Multiples: Pictures can be in more than one album.
- Fixes: Basic fixes to images has been beefed up.
- Captions: The biggie for me. I hated having to edit captions in other apps when I should have been able to do this in Picasa all along.
- Manual Mode: Exposes the RGB histogram and EXIF header information, allowing you to tweak many aspects of the image previously off limits in Picasa.
- Integration: Supports Gmail, Blogger and Hello integrations.
- Printing: Picasa was already pretty good at printing, allowing you to print 2 5×7’s easily on a single sheet of paper. Picasa 2 has even better support including printing 2 different pictures on a single sheet.
- Photo Processor Integration: Integrations with many popular photo printing/processing companies.
- CD/DVD: Backup your pictures to CD or DVD. Create slideshows on CDs.
- Backups: Save to a local folder or to any attached storage (including flash storage).
- Creative: Make picture collages or posters out of your photos.
As soon as I get back home to my picture collections I’ll play a bit with the new Picasa 2 and post a review.