Topics: Google

'Say Cheese!' Google Updates Picasa And Web Albums To Version 3.0

Posted by Eric Zeman, Sep 3, 2008 09:39 AM

It's the morning after, and I am over Chrome. For now. Google did make some other announcements yesterday. One of them included a big one about the hugely updated picture-sharing service, Picasa. New features include facial recognition capabilities.

There are two pieces to this picture. The revised desktop software, Picasa 3.0, and the online photo-sharing service, Picasa Web Albums. Google has updated both.

Google is calling Picasa 3.0 (beta) the next-generation of photo-editing software. Picasa 3.0 is the desktop software part of the puzzle (available for Windows only) that helps you organize, print, and edit your photos. Picasa 3.0 gives users a retouching tool to wipe out scratches and blemishes; a slide show movie maker that uploads to YouTube with a click; automatic red-eye removal; smart auto-cropping that guides you on how to zoom in on your subject; and drag-and-drop capabilities for creating and manipulating photos slide shows. The desktop software, naturally, integrates with Google's online software.

Along with making it easier to manipulate and edit photos, Google is hoping to speed up the often laborious task of tagging photos. According to Google, "Instead of requiring you to painstakingly label your photos one-by-one, the 'name tags' feature in Picasa Web Albums uses advanced clustering technology to quickly group together pictures of the same person." This means you can assemble the dozen or so shots you took of your kids doing cute stuff over the Labor Day holiday weekend and automatically assign name tags to them all at once.

Google says this tagging software can also be used to sort through photos and create custom slide shows of specific people or groups of people, which you can then share with those people.

The new software is also offering a one-click feature called Web sync, which "uploads an album and keeps it updated on the Web when you make changes on your PC."

The updates to both the desktop software and online software make for a powerful combination.

« RFID At The Olympics | Main | Data Theft »

This is a public forum. United Business Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. United Business Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers.

Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of United Business Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in United Business Media's Terms of Service.

Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.