I have now plunged into the world of online photo albums. I know there are a lot of websites out there that let you post your photos, but I opted for using Google’s Picasa without doing much research on what was available.
But I must say that Picasa is pretty cool. I downloaded the program, but I think you can also just upload your photos online without using the program. The cool thing about having the Picasa program on your computer is that it automatically organizes your pictures in a way that makes them very easy to browse. Also, the program includes some very simple yet effective tools for altering your photos. I have found the red-eye remover easier and more effective than anything I’ve tried in Photoshop.
You can also straighten your pictures, apply different filters like sepia or blurs, and adjust the highlights, shadows, contrast, and color. There is even an “I feel lucky” button that I guess lets the computer decide what adjustments need to be made. Sometimes it works OK, but I’ve found the manual adjustments more effective. It is also worth noting that you can always cancel the changes you’ve made if you don’t like it. Of course, once you save it you cannot undo the changes, as far as I know (though Picasa does show a message saying something about a backup being made…?).
Google only allows you 250 MB of space to store your photos. You can pay a subscription fee to get more space. I’m not really sure how that compares to other sites. I know Flickr has a monthly upload limit, but I don’t think they have an actual storage limit. But one limit they do have is that only your last 200 pictures are viewable. So I’m hoping I will be able to get slightly more than 200 on my Picasa site.
There is one other amazingly cool though possibly pointless feature on Picasa: you can “geotag” photos using Google Earth. I think you can do something like this with other sites like Flickr, though I don’t know if they use Google Earth or not. The way it works with Picasa is you select a photo or multiple photos in the Picasa program, then click on “Geotag with Google Earth” in the Tools menu. Google Earth opens (if not opened already) and you can then find where each picture was taken and “geotag” it. You can tag multiple photos to one place with one click, or tag different photos one at a time to different places. By the way, if you haven’t seen Google Earth, it is really cool.
This turns out to be a very addictive waste of time. The bad part is that I don’t think there is a way for other people to see where your photos are tagged using Google Earth. As far as I can tell, it is just stored in the Google Earth program stored on my computer. It would be nice if they could somehow allow a person to view the geotags from within someone’s Picasa photo albums.
Been listening to this one a lot, pretty much the whole way through.
This novel was published after the Chilean-Mexican author's death, and I'm not even sure if it was entirely finished or not. It is broken up into five parts which, while connected, stand pretty much on there own. I have not yet made it to the grim part about the murders of hundreds of women in Mexico, so I have so far found it enjoyable and even funny despite some dark underpinnings. It's had a ton of critical praise, and I like it much more than my last foray into the violent novel genre: Blood Meridian.
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My sister, Jennifer, uses Flickr and has pointed out that if I used Flickr we could list eachother as contacts. That way we could see when the other uploaded more pictures. She also points out that she can track how many times each picture is viewed.
Looking through the Picasa message boards, I see that I am not the only one who is very dissappointed that you cannot track how many views a photo gets.
Although you can have favorites in Picasa as well as in Flickr, there doesn’t seem to be a way to browse through other people’s random photos on Picasa. And obviously you cannot link between Picasa and Flickr.
There seem to be some really key features missing from Picasa at the moment. They seem like they would be easy fixes for Google to implement, and I keep hoping to hear about a Picasa update, but I have not heard anything yet.
As Jennifer has pointed out, now that I have uploaded many of my photos, I don’t plan on changing. I’m still hoping that Google will release a new version soon to fix some of the complaints that many people are having.
I still like the look of the interface and how it displays pictures online, as well as the Picasa program and its easy integration with the online Picasa albums and Google Earth.
You should just start posting to flickr now. Leave the old ones on picasa. You have both! People have come up with all sorts of “flickr toys” that let you do different kinds of cool stuff, too.
Yes, but unless I pay for Flickr Pro, my account will be very limited:
-3 photo sets
-100 MB per month
-only 200 most recent photos are viewable
-only smaller, resized images are viewable
If I knew I were willing to pay for a service right now, I would start using Flickr, but I’m not there yet. I also like that anybody can download full quality copies of my photos on Picasa (I think this is only possible with Flickr if you get the Pro account).
I guess I could still try out Flickr to see how I like it.
hmm… you mean you can’t download without pro, or you can’t post better quality pictures? (which you do by selecting “all sizes” and then “download full size.”
I’ll buy you an account as a gift if you want.
I was playing with something else today – geotagging my photos. You go under options, then map, then you drag your photos to where they were taken. So when you look at that photo, it will tell you (see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennkr/329525871/in/set-72157594348503910/ )
But also, you can peruse maps, and it will show clusters of photos, and how many, were taken there.
When you look at the link, also notice that it says what kind of camera I used. I like that I can see what cameras people are using, and whether they used photoshop.
Gotta run – having lunch with the Riggs women!