Google has released Picasa 3.5, a new version of its free desktop photo editing software. The latest version of Picasa adds the ability to group photos by faces -- a feature already found in Picasa Web Albums -- and much better geotagging support.
Picasa 3.5 is available for Mac, Windows and Linux as a free download from Google.
Picasa is a very popular way to manage photos on Windows, which lacks a robust consumer-level photo editor out of the box. On the Mac, iPhoto still has a stronger foothold among Mac OS X users. Apple's desktop photo manager can do almost everything Picasa 3.5 can do, but lacks the simple, free, online gallery component you'll find in Picasa Web Albums.
However, iPhoto '09 has a few features Picasa was, until Tuesday's update, missing, namely the facial recognition tools. Picasa Web Albums have had facial recognition for some time, but the desktop software, oddly, did not. Luckily, Picasa 3.5 brings the same tools to the desktop.
The new faces features works almost exactly like the similar feature in iPhoto, scanning through all your images and grouping photos by the people it finds. Once that's done, you'll find a new album called "Unnamed People" where you can add name tags to each group of faces. As you'd expect, if you're signed into a Google account, Picasa will auto-complete names from your Google contacts.
Once you've gone through and added names to all your images with people, you'll have an easy way to sort images and or create albums, collages, movies and more based on who is in your photos.
As with the Picasa Web Albums' facial recognition tools, the desktop version isn't perfect. In fact, it can be funny at times when people so obviously different are paired together. However, once you start labeling a few faces, Picasa's ability to recognize your friends by name improves dramatically.
While the facial recognition component alone makes Picasa 3.5 a worthwhile upgrade for existing users, there are some other cool new features as well, including improved geotagging support for placing your photos on a map.
With Picasa 3.5, you no longer need Google Earth to geotag your images -- everything happens directly within Picasa in the Places panel, which loads a Google Map for easy drag-and-drop geotagging. If you prefer, the old Google Earth method still works, as well.
To get started with the new geotagging, just select pictures the images you want to use and then, click the Places panel and drop a pin in the right place on the map. Once you've added geotags to your images, it's easy to search and locate photos according to where they were taken.
Picasa 3.5 also features a revamped importing tool, with a new option to simultaneously import and upload images from your camera directly to Picasa Web Albums for sharing. There's an option to upload all your photos, or you can simply star the photos you'd like to push into Picasa Web Albums.
While photo pros and serious hobbyists are generally willing to shell out some cash for more powerful options like Adobe Lightroom or Apple's Aperture, for casual photographers looking for an easy way to organize, edit and share their image, Picasa is hard to beat.
We'd definitely recommend Picasa 3.5 to existing users, particular those on Windows. For Mac users already fans of iPhoto there isn't too much in Picasa 3.5 that might tempt you to switch. But if you're unhappy with iPhoto, Picasa does offer comparable capabilities without the price tag of an iPhoto upgrade.
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