Picasa Image Viewer.

Picasa Logo

Introduction to Picasa Image Viewer.

What do you know about Picasa? Many of us still do not know about Picasa or heard of it. Some of us may have heard of it but have not seen it in use or may have but do not understand it at all. Some do not know is an image viewer. Some have it installed on the Personnel Computer all because they saw it in other peoples Computer and so also, it may be installed in their computer by their engineer to act as their substitute image viewer. These people may not even remember it Picasa is residing in their computer or may not know their engineer may have installed it in their PC till someone else decide to load it on or look for another image viewer in the PC. Some engineers may set it as the default image viewer for the PC owners to eventually use Picasa and the may not know it but they will surely notice it beauty as the use it and its difference from the previous or default image viewer and they still do not know that Picasa is owned by Google.

Microsoft Image viewer has come a long way since Windows XP days and it’s still the default to so many users. Microsoft Image viewer has really evolved from the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer in Windows XP and Windows Photo Gallery in Windows Vista, While on Windows 7, it is Windows Photo Viewer and also for Windows 8 but still have the Windows Universal App Photo and on Windows 10 it is the same Windows Universal App but this time, it is far more advance but poor photo organization and its experiencing much in update.

So many Users believer the best application to be used as default it is the app that came with the PC or made by the manufacturer of that PC or OS. But, I have to tell you that is not true. OS is designed so for the liberty of the user to use or install whatever program they choose. All Programs have their own UI and the flexibility and added operational task they offer is what makes them different from the other as some user will say, “Is it not the same thing they do?”

Imaging Microsoft Word and WordPad. They are both Word Processor and these packages are from Microsoft. Why not use the one that came with the PC alone instead of getting the CD of the other?

Enough of the wander. Now let us go to the Topic Picasa.

About Picasa

Picasa is a free image viewer and image organizer. It is designed to aid the organization of photo for easy search of your photo. This program is owned by Google and it runs on major Operating Systems like the Mac OSx, Linus and your favourite Windows OS.

With Picasa, one can easily do some quick photo editing like red eye reduction, colour balancing quick fix, cropping etc. If you expect to do a real photo editing then you need a professional photo editor, please look elsewhere because, your will surely not find it with Picasa.

Features of Picasa.

Just as I have stated earlier, Picasa provides a good red­-eye removal tool, with some very smooth quick fixes and effects, and even allows online sharing. Doing editing in Picasa, there will be a .picasa.ini file stored in that location or directory which is normally hidden which is a backup for the original image. It makes edited photos reversible without having multiple image saves.

Picasa also offers incredible facial recognition as well as a wonderful search capability from Geotagging to captions, folder names, and other metadata.

Picasa Window

When Picasa is opened for the first time in your computer, it will scans your entire drives for pictures and organize them into categories which are based on albums, people, folders and others and Picasa will continue to Update itself once a new Photo is added to the computer if you created the photo or saved it from the internet or from a network drive. Whenever an external device like USB cameras, scanners, memory card readers, and CD drives is plug-in or inserted to your computer, Supports RAW files, Picasa will automatically scan and import from them.

Conclusion

Picasa is one of a complete image viewing application that has almost all that is required for Basic photo editing and a very beautiful image view window.

The most recent version is Picasa v3.9.140 for the month of September as it still on beta phase and could be downloaded for free from the Picasa official site.