[Macworld]

Post your comments for Google Picasa 3.5 here

[mchamberlain]

Picasa is every bit as good as this review says. However, I recently discovered one thing that was disappointing. I bought a new Mighty Mouse, and discovered that attempting to scroll through the individual pictures with the Mighty Mouse is a bit of a disaster. The scroll is WAY too fast, and in some cases doesn't stop. You start scrolling, and the scrolling simply doesn't stop! Either Apple or Google will have to fix this, Picasa is really unuseable with the Mighty Mouse.

[Steve_S]

If you're using an older version of iLife and want a free upgrade to a more modern system, I can see where this would be recommended. However, I fail to see how anyone with iPhoto '09 would find Picasa more compelling.

[Neilap]

I share images online in Picasa. Picasa had an addon that worked in iPhoto, for me that was a match made in heaven. For 09 there is no such animal. Until then, i will stick to picasa. Flickr... not for me.

[Jeter2Fan93]

Steve_S, on 03 November 2009 - 09:10 AM, said:

If you're using an older version of iLife and want a free upgrade to a more modern system, I can see where this would be recommended. However, I fail to see how anyone with iPhoto '09 would find Picasa more compelling.

To each his own. I ditched iPhoto '09 for Picasa and haven't looked back.

[cmosentine]

While I do use iPhoto it gets a big FAIL for networked server support. iPhoto is really meant to only work with local files and therefore will not search for new photos that may be on a networked drive. In order to get new photos into iPhoto you must reimport your entire library each time select to not import duplicates. Picassa handles this task with ease automatically scanning networked drives on startup.

[bobketcham]

Steve_S, on 03 November 2009 - 06:10 AM, said:

If you're using an older version of iLife and want a free upgrade to a more modern system, I can see where this would be recommended. However, I fail to see how anyone with iPhoto '09 would find Picasa more compelling.

I import my photos with Image Capture and organize them by year, event and possibly parts of the event. I want my photo viewing and editing software to simply work with this organization, not demand that I create a parallel organization within it. In spite of improvements (like not requiring a separate copy of the photos for itself and doubling the disk space used), iPhoto '09 still does not present this hierarchy until I move each event into a year folder in iPhoto's albums. I find Picasa more compelling.

[Verboten]

iPhoto urgently needs revisiting by Apple...or ditching. Fast becoming superfluous bloatware (watch out MS as Apple start overtaking you in this department), it has ridiculously few actual image organisational features i.e., No "Sort By Size" How crazy is that? Exact MD5, CRC duplicates whizz right past the duplicates detector on import. Faces doesn't work as neatly or powerfully as Picasa. Once Picasa has decent image manipulation tools it will outperform iPhoto in every single department. It's free.

[Steve_S]

bobketcham, on 03 November 2009 - 07:51 AM, said:

I import my photos with Image Capture and organize them by year, event and possibly parts of the event. I want my photo viewing and editing software to simply work with this organization, not demand that I create a parallel organization within it. In spite of improvements (like not requiring a separate copy of the photos for itself and doubling the disk space used), iPhoto '09 still does not present this hierarchy until I move each event into a year folder in iPhoto's albums. I find Picasa more compelling.

So, basically, you're trying to make the argument that iPhoto is somehow flawed because you have an overly complicated and unnecessary work flow? Really? You can have any arrangement you like in iPhoto using standard conventions like using events or creating smart albums, etc. If you ever need a specific subset to use outside of iPhoto, you can easily export exactly what you need, etc. However, if Picasa better accommodates the inefficient work flow you cling to, then I suppose its better for you. However, once again, I see no compelling advantage in the scenario you described.

[trip1ex]

What if you want to share a photo library on the same computer,
Does Picasa fair better than iPhoto 09?

To make this work in iPhoto you need to create an image file and store your library there. And then you have to manually load it before running iPhoto. (and eject it when you're done.) All so we don't get possible corruption of the database. Works, but would like to eliminate this step.

Also does Picasa allow you to use an external image editor seamlessly? IPhoto is pretty good about this. When you edit a photo and have an external editor selected in iphoto, it will open up that photo in the external editor. When you're done editing your photo, you're brought back to iphoto and your edited photo. btw, You can use Preview for some extra photo manipulation tools (text on a photo for example.)

Also how is Facebook integration? CAn you easily publish to Facebook? Wife has really started using this feature.

Can you easily cut/paste the photo url for sharing on sites like Ebay or craigslist. I see a few things on these sites here and there. LIke my Macs after I purchase a new one. I use FLickr now that it is integrated with iPhoto.

Does Picasa allow mousing over an event (album) photo to see each individual photo inside? That iPhoto feature would be tough to give up. It's pretty slick.

Also how well does Picasa work with other apps in OS/X? Does it integrate as nicely with Mail? iMovie? And iTunes for loading photos onto on iPod?

This post has been edited by trip1ex: 03 November 2009 - 11:25 AM

[trip1ex]

To answer my own questions:

Sharing photos on same computer isn't any better than on iPhoto.

No seamless external editor option.

No Facebook integration.

Not sure if you can cut/paste urls for photos for use on external websites.

No mousing over groups. Picasa gets blown out of the water here. Iphoto has a much better interface for organizing your events (albums.) It's a gen or two ahead.

There is support for using Mail. I don't think iMovie or iTunes is in the cards.

There's a few little bugs in Picasa too. There's a slider at the top that I guess that you view a certain percentage of your library. Well slide it back and forth once or twice and the wording is unreadable.

Another annoying feature is make an album and then scroll through your albums and suddenly you are scrolling through your folders too. Can't I just scroll through albums and not suddenly go into folders?

MY guess is Picasa wins for online hosting because it is free, but other than that I don't see an advantage so far. I will play with it some more.

It did recognize my iphoto library and I can imagine using Picasa just to host photos online. I am worried that Picasa might edit my photos in iPhoto and try to save them back in the iphoto folde structure which would be a no-no. I hope that's not the case. Corruption. The article seems to say this isn't the case, but .... not sure.

[Jeter2Fan93]

Whoa, there is Facebook integration, but it's not built in. Much like previous versions of iPhoto before '09, you have to download a plug-in.

http://apps.facebook...picasauploader/

[anamika]

This one's a negative for me "Requires Intel CPU." I'm on PPC and iPhoto 09 works for me.

Once I make the Intel switch, I may consider Picassa (I've used it on Windows and am familiar with it), but I have 15,000+ photos organized in iPhoto starting with v1 and don't like the idea of losing my albums and events etc. and doing them over in a new app.

[Jeter2Fan93]

anamika, on 03 November 2009 - 03:45 PM, said:

This one's a negative for me "Requires Intel CPU." I'm on PPC and iPhoto 09 works for me.

Once I make the Intel switch, I may consider Picassa (I've used it on Windows and am familiar with it), but I have 15,000+ photos organized in iPhoto starting with v1 and don't like the idea of losing my albums and events etc. and doing them over in a new app.

Picasa reads the iPhoto library and therefore, your albums will carry over. I believe the events do as well, but I don't have any to test.