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Picasa 2 Description |
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A free software download from Google.
Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized.
Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips. And Picasa makes it a snap to share your pictures – you can email, print photos home, make gift CDs, instantly share via Hello, and even post pictures on your own blog.
Find the pictures you forgot you had.
Picasa organizes your entire collection while you watch, scanning the images on your computer and automatically sorting them by date.
Move and re-name pictures from inside Picasa.
Want to clean up messy folders and move pictures around on your computer’s hard drive? Simply drag and drop pictures from one folder in Picasa to another. Picasa will make the change permanent after double-checking with you. Want to change a picture’s filename from 671056398a.jpg to Lisa.jpg? In Picasa, it only takes seconds to re-name one picture or a group of pictures.
Make a label.
Use labels to tag your photos into quick groupings inside Picasa. Viewing and sharing the pictures you grouped under a label is easy – they make great slide shows and movies or you can email them to friends.
Add a star rating.
Give a gold star to any photo you love: it turns your favorites into visual standouts at a glance. Picasa even has a star search that reduces your entire photo collection to the best of the best in less than a second.
Keep one picture in multiple albums.
Picasa creates a new “instance” of each photo you label without taking up more space on your computer, so you can put the same picture into multiple albums.
Password-protect collections.
Have photos you want to keep to yourself? You can add passwords to any of your Picasa collections (this does not affect which pictures you and others can see on your computer’s hard drive).
Basic Fixes are back – and better.
Picasa 2’s Basic Fixes are buttons that make it fast and easy to crop, remove red eye, fix the contrast and color, and enhance your digital pictures.
Amazing effects turn so-so pictures into works of art.
You can see how much Picasa’s 12 new visual effects can improve your photos – and in seconds, not hours. Go sepia. Warmify. Make pictures pop with color or try austere black-and-white. Try easy one-clicks or the more finely tuned sliders for better control where you want it. And of course, you can undo your changes at any step along the way.
Write captions that stay with the picture.
Picasa 2 makes captions the way journalists do – using the IPTC standard. That means your captions are saved within their pictures and stay with them, whether you export as a web page, make a CD presentation, or share them using Hello. Picasa captions are fully editable and searchable, and you choose whether to display them or not.
Zoom. Pan. Tilt. Get the angle you intended.
So you didn’t get the shot? With Picasa, that’s not the end of the story. Go in closer and move the focus slightly to the left. Your camera was slightly crooked? So what? Your picture is perfect anyway.
Know how to use a camera in manual mode?
Photography aficionados can now fine-tune their photos with Picasas EXIF display. This window shows you all the camera data that is stored in a pictures original file - such as camera model, date the photo was taken, even if a flash was used. The EXIF display also has a RGB histogram, a real-time graph that shows the intensity of colors in your picture and how they change when you make edits in Picasa.
Send photos via email that are a joy to receive.
Take the guesswork out of sending photos. Picasa 2 automatically resizes and attaches pictures to email messages at sizes your friends will be able to open. Works with most email programs, including Google’s Gmail.
Hello instant picture chat lets you share pictures back-and-forth in seconds.
Hello is Picasa’s instant-message product – it’s chat with pictures. You can send out hundreds of pictures instantly using the Hello button; it’s a great way to look at pictures with friends and family online. Just point at a picture or website and tell the person who sent it exactly what you think (but when you criticize their artwork, remember – they can do the same).
Hello sends pictures using an encrypted person-to-person connection, so the pictures you share are sent directly to your friend’s computer, and nowhere else online (unless you use Bloggerbot to post pictures to your blog; see below). Picasa shows shared pictures in your From Hello collection, sorted by Hello usernames. And it’s as easy to remove shared pictures as it is to get them. Find a buddy and sign up at hello.com.
Put pictures on your own site, for free.
Picasa’s new Blogger button automatically opens Hello’s Bloggerbot tool, which transfers pictures and text up to your blog. Learn more and get started at blogger.hello.com.
Make beautiful slide shows.
With Picasa, you can turn a group of photos into a presentation with one click, then share your slide show on a CD.
Move to any device or folder.
You can take your photos with you no matter how you like to carry them. Picasa works with all the newest compact flash devices.
Custom and standard sizes are now fit to print at home.
Picasa automatically fits your pictures perfectly onto the expensive paper used by your home printer. It’s finally easy to print wallets, 4×6, 5×7, full pages, more sizes and even (hallelujah!) more than one picture on a page.
Export pictures to popular photo processing websites.
You can pick photos straight out of Picasa and upload them directly to your favorite photo finishers to order prints and other products.
Burn to CD or DVD for archive purposes.
Picasa makes it easy to protect your pictures by archiving them on a CD or DVD. Picasa even displays the pictures that havent been backed up yet to make absolutely sure you dont make mistakes with images that matter.
Give gift CDs with slide shows.
Effortlessly create slide show CDs for friends and family.
Create a network backup of your pictures.
Save to a folder on your computer, plus any device that is an external drive or disk. Moving edited pictures out of Picasa has always been as easy as clicking the Export button. Now you can also control the quality and sizes of your exported pictures. Picasa even will save photos back to any drive, including the newest flash memory cards and sticks.
Turn your photos into a movie.
It’s so easy to play filmmaker with your pictures. Select your best shots, then adjust the delay time, dimensions, and video compression settings. That’s it – Picasa will render a movie, complete with title graphics, that you can play and share.
Make a personalized desktop picture or screensaver.
Your best pictures are now on display. Pick a favorite photo as your desktop picture or add several into your screensaver rotation. What better way to enjoy your photographic genius at your desk?
Create a poster.
Picasa can tile any picture you select, allowing you to print each part and reassemble them at poster size – up to 1,000% larger than the original.
Make picture collages.
Select a group of pictures, choose one of the beautiful templates, and Picasa will create a collage that expands your creative horizons. Picture pile it. Make a multi-exposure image. Create a contact sheet. Done? Simply save your collage to a folder, as a new desktop background or as a screensaver.
View pictures on your TV with TiVo.
Picasa’s automatic photo organizer exports your pictures to any TiVo Series2 DVR connected to a home network. |
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