Google’s free photo software is back and ready to burn.
Google’s mastery of viral marketing reaches new heights with this second version of Picasa. The program remains unique in appearance and solid in features, but what’s most interesting is the way it hooks into related services and attempts to spread itself. For instance, Picasa’s new disc-burning features can use a CD or DVD for backup and CDs for making
“gifts”. Gift CDs are designed to be given away and include a selection of pictures, a movie slideshow and (surprise!) a copy of Picasa 2. The slideshow and self-copying features can be switched off.
As with the previous version, Picasa 2 allows photographs to be shared over the Hello (www.hello.com) network. Hello also uploads pictures to Blogger (www.blogger.com), taking some of the pain out of photo publishing. The Google integration doesn’t end there, either: Froogle searches for cheap printer ink and accessories (from US suppliers, mostly), and photos can be sent via Gmail as well as regular email.
Picasa arranges pictures into folders that loosely mirror their on-disk location and can also make collections of photo shortcuts called Labels. Keywords can be used to tag images, although captions are now the preferred method of description. Keywords and captions are both searchable and embedded for portability.
Once pictures are in the Picasa database, a variety of editing tools can be used to correct red-eye, straighten wonky camera work, fix colour and so on, while an “I’m Feeling Lucky” button does a one-click fix. Tuning controls and 12 effects further enhance images — all with instant preview. Picasa 2’s ability to print a variety of layouts and weed out low-res images is also impressive.
Picasa 2 does have some problems. The Ul has inconsistencies — drag-and-drop works in some places but not others, and grouped functions often work in totally different ways. The program struggles to shoehorn folder hierarchies into its flat list of collections, and during testing it was occasionally difficult to get new images recognised.
That said, Picasa 2 is a creative powerhouse. It’s free too — always a bonus — but be prepared to get sucked into Google’s ever-expanding universe.

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