Picasa - 3.0.57.52

I installed this beta version and my folders are no longer accessible since my picture folders are located on a network device. Consequently, if you have network folders containing your pictures, you may wish to reconsider installing this version.

Don Brandt

Pros: Free! Spiffy UI, good perceived performance, basic touch up effects.

Cons: Fragile organization structure, no fine tweaking of photos, actual performance not so great.

Let's be honest here: this is almost surely the best free photo organizer/basic editor available on Windows, but it does have some serious limitations. Since others have mentioned the high points, I will give an honest assessment of its shortcomings. The editing and performance shortcomings (points 2 and 3) are merely annoying; the organizational problem (point 1) is unacceptable. I nevertheless give it three stars simply because it's free, but honestly if it were paid software it would not merit more than two. Hopefully by version 4 or 5 they will have fixed it enough so that it can merit an "honest" 3 stars or more.

Shortcomings:

(1) Organization: Picasa is confused about what it wants to be. It organizes your files in a library type structure, but it doesn't actually move the files into a special directory that the user doesn't touch. This gives the user the ability to organize his files in Explorer. Unfortunately, Picasa also "saves" edits by simply saving a history of what it did to the file (the original file is untouched). This is nice in that it gives you multiple undo levels, but when combined with the directory management detailed above, it is a recipe for disaster. Specifically, when you rename or move a picture into a different directory, Picasa LOSES all of your edits!!!

Yes, you could manually export each file before moving it, etc etc, but that is a lot of work that entirely defeats the point of a photo management app. Picasa either needs to start affecting the files directly (and saving a backup elsewhere), or it needs to move the files its own directory that the user doesn't touch. Until then, it really cannot be considered a good photo organizer app.

(2) Editing capabilities: they're very limited. It has some nice basic effects, but they really need to be consolidated into a single palette. Apparently the Picasa devs think you will only apply one effect to each pic - very silly. I don't expect it to be anything close to Photoshop Elements, but I do expect it to have at least some sense of design. Even more important is to have a quasi-full screen editing mode, something that approximates what the latest version of Apple's iPhoto has. As it is, there is a lot of wasted space with buttons, libraries, etc being displayed in the editing mode.

(3) Performance: Perceived performance is pretty good, but I quickly learned that is because it strenuously avoids showing you the images at high resolutions whenever possible (e.g., see above regarding full screen mode). When I forced it to zoom in a bit so I could actually see detail in the edits, the editing effects slowed down a lot. Likewise, image browsing speed was pedestrian at best when I considered that the highest resolution it would allow me to browse at was not very high.

I envy my parent's mac quite a bit, but I feel a lot better now that I have Picasa. I like it much better than iPhoto (from whate I've seen of it) and it definitely looks better - I love all the smooth special effects!

If ever there was an equivalent of iPhoto for Windows, this is it. And, the Windows crowd get the bonus of it being completely free, rather than only sold as a bundle. There really isn't any excuse not to at least try this out, and I think you'll be very happy with it.