Updated: 6/24/16
Google made it official with an announcement on February 12, 2016: Moving on from Picasa. They are retiring Picasa and devoting all their efforts to one photo product: Google Photos. This affects both the desktop software, Picasa3, and the web service, Picasa Web Albums. If you use either the desktop software, or the website, this announcement affects you.
How the announcement affects you – short answer:
- Picasa3 Desktop: you can still use the desktop software but we recommend saving your edits now,
- Picasa Web Albums: you’ll need to switch to Google Photos instead of Picasa Web Albums, no transfer of pictures necessary.
For the long answer, keep reading.
We hosted a Live Panel Discussion on the Picasa Announcement on our weekly web show, What Does This Button Do?
- Live webcast with discussion of the Picasa announcement
- Sunday February 21, 2016
- Watch the YouTube recording at this link.
Picasa3 – the Desktop Software
Keep using it! Long Live Picasa! Although this product will not receive further updates, either bug fixes or enhancements, it is software that you download to your computer’s hard drive. If you have it, you can keep using it. Nothing will change. It will not self destruct. Your pictures will still be right where you put them, on your hard drive.
If you get a new computer, you will need the Picasa software setup file. Picasa3 is software that used to be freely downloaded from the web page Picasa.Google.com. That was removed on March 15. After that, you can download the Picasa installation files from Filehippo.com, or, here is our Picasa Download for Geeks on Tour Members. Further information is available on the Picasa Resources page maintained by the Google Picasa Forum Top Contributors.
Google Photos replacing Picasa3? No – Google Photos will not, nay, CAN NOT replace Picasa3 Desktop software. Google Photos is not an option for working with pictures on your hard drive. The pictures must be uploaded to the Web (Photos.Google.com) before you can do anything with them using Google Photos. If you have a good Internet connection, you may find that you enjoy working with them on the web and you can stop keeping copies on your computer (except for archival purposes.) When that day comes for you, Google Photos can replace Picasa, but not before.
Using Outdated software? Most of us have outdated software that we still use. I use Photo Story 3 even though it is a software product that has not been officially supported since Windows XP! It still does what I want it to do, so why not? I would not continue to use the operating system of Windows XP because that is a security and computer performance issue, nor do I advise using the outdated navigation system of Streets and Trips because updates are important when roads change. PIcasa3 is software that is meant to do a job with pictures on your computer hard drive. It will continue to do that job even after it is “retired”, so you can continue to use it.
Parts of Picasa will be affected. There are parts of the program that interact with the web:
- Upload to Google Photos
- Synchronize with Web Albums
- Upload videos to YouTube
As long as these features are working for you, you can use them. I expect that they will develop problems over time because the Web side of the equation will change, and Google will not fix those problems on this retired software. You will need to perform those tasks with other methods. For example, to upload to Google Photos you would use Google Photos; to Email pictures you would use your email program. I have also been hearing of some problems with importing pictures using Picasa’s tools. I recommend importing with standard Windows or Mac tools.
Save Your Edits! Using those alternate ways of sending pictures to the web means that you will be interacting with your pictures outside of Picasa, you will be uploading the picture as it is found on your hard drive rather than the one you see in Picasa that shows your edits. See this article if you don’t understand what I mean: Original vs Edited Photo in Picasa
You now need to get accustomed to saving your edits so the picture found on the hard drive is the same one you’re seeing with Picasa. For an individual picture you use File->Save. For a folder of pictures, you can save them all at once by clicking on the disk icon:
Picasa Web Albums
After May 1, 2016 you will need to switch to using Google Photos. Picasa Web Albums is going away. After May 1 you will not be able to create a new Picasa Web Album (update: it is now June 1 and PWA is still here – but it is still expected to go away sometime.) All of your existing Web Albums will be (are now) accessible via Google Photos. All links to your photos in places like Blogs will still work. They will also be accessible at a new “Archive” site that Google is creating. This is necessary because Picasa Web Albums included some data that Google Photos does not – such as comments. In order to see comments that were left on your photos using Picasa Web Albums, you will need to visit the new Archive site. There are quite a few features that the Google Photos website lacks in comparison to Picasa Web Albums:
- Sorting Album lists by Date or Album Title(Google Photos is only by date, descending in the library, ascending in Albums)
- Sorting Photos within Album: by Date-Oldest First or Newest First, or By Filename (Google Photos is only by Date-Oldest First) Update 6/1: you can now Edit Album and drag photos into new order
- Show all photos from an Album in place on a map
- Order Prints
- Viewing Captions with the photos
- Playing Slideshow (only available on Android version) Update 6/17/16 slideshow now available on Web version.
- Setting Album Visibility: 1:Public, 2:Limited: Anyone with Link, 3:Limited: Listed People, 4:Just You (Google Photos is 1:Just You or 2:Anyone with Link)
- Display all public albums with one URL web address – there is no “Public” designation anymore, therefore no way to view all Public albums.
- Keep track of updates on Google+
I Wish …
I wish that Google had decided to keep Picasa3 Desktop software in a maintenance mode. They haven’t updated it in any significant way for the past 4 years, why not keep it going for another 1 or 2 years? In that time Google Photos would become more mature, and people would be more accustomed to working with their pictures on the web rather than on their computer.
I wish that Google had decided to maintain the Picasa Web Albums website for another year while they added some of the missing features to the Google Photos interface. Google Photos is still so new. People need more time to accept change, and they will be more willing when Google Photos has more features.
Guess what? Google didn’t ask me before they did this! And, I’m sure that there are a lot more factors that Google has to consider. The underlying technology is changing all the time, and Google stays on top of that. In fact, Google is often inventing the new technology, and they can’t move as fast as they need to when they are shackled by maintaining legacy connections. Google also has plenty of business considerations. They recently reorganized the whole company under the Alphabet name. I’m sure that has a lot of repercussions.
If you also wish that they would not retire Picasa now, you can add your voice by visiting Photos.Google.com, clicking on the 3-bar menu and then Send Feedback. Who knows, enough voices can make a difference! At least add a vote for your important features to be added to Google Photos. Mine are 1: captions that stay with pictures when downloaded, 2:watermarks on shared photos 3:Display all public albums with one URL web address.
I’m Going with Google
I intend to embrace Google Photos completely. I love how it effortlessly it collects ALL the photos of my life, and gives me fun ways to display and share them. I trust Google with my pictures. I have nearly 50,000 pictures stored online in my Google Account and there is no charge for that (I’m fine with the less-than-original file size required.) Google Photos offers unlimited storage for free. I started uploading my pictures to Google around 2005 with Picasa Web Albums, and, as far as I can tell, they are all still there. But, for local backup, I have also used the Google Takeout service to download a copy of all my Google Photos to an external hard drive for safe keeping.
I will also continue to use Picasa3 on my computer as long as I have pictures on my hard drive. The more I use Google Photos however, the less I am keeping photos on my hard drive. I am downloading just specific ones, when there is something I want that only Picasa3 can do, like add Watermarks, other text on pictures, real captions, or fancy collages.
This website, PicasaGeeks.com, will continue to teach Picasa. There are currently over 250 articles, mostly on features of the Picasa3 desktop software. Those will remain, and I will still write more in response to your questions. But, I will also be writing about Google Photos. I’ve started a brand new site to focus on Google Photos: LearnGooglePhotos.com
Alternatives
Desktop: If for some reason, you don’t want to continue using Picasa3 Desktop software, here are some suggested alternatives:
- Windows Photo Gallery: This is probably the software that most closely resembles Picasa3 desktop software. It is free from Microsoft. It works with the photos on your computer’s hard drive. It can upload photos and share them on OneDrive, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube. Downside: this software hasn’t been upgraded since 2012 – it could also get ‘retired.’ It has some great photo features like Photo Fuse, but it is missing two important ones: Text on photos, Collages.
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 14: This is not a free program. The cost is $99, currently on sale for $69. The latest version is 14. This is desktop software. It can share with Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Twitter. Expect a relatively steep learning curve, but you will be rewarded with powerful features.
- Windows 10 Photos: This is the photo management program that comes with Windows 10. It has basic editing, and it shares online automatically using Microsoft OneDrive. It can also share with Facebook and Twitter. 15 GB of free storage, 50GB for $1.99/mo or 1TB free with Office 365.
- Apple Photos: Desktop software for Macs and App for iPhone/iPad. Shares with iCloud Photo Library. 5GB of free storage space, then plans up to 1TB.
Web: If Google Photos does not offer the features you need for Web Storage and Photo Sharing, here are some alternatives:
- Dropbox.com: Not a photo program, it is Cloud storage that could take the place of Picasa Web Albums. It can combine nicely with Picasa3 on the Desktop to provide web storage and sharing of photos with a smooth integration with the desktop. Just point Picasa’s File Manager to your Dropbox folder on your hard drive and you have synchronization! 2GB of free storage space, then $9.99/mo for 1TB.
- Flickr.com: Owned by Yahoo. The granddaddy of Photo Sharing websites. No desktop software, but powerful web storage and sharing. 1TB of free storage space.
- Amazon Prime Photos: Using Amazon Cloud Drive, Prime members get unlimited photos storage for free.
- Facebook Photos: We use Facebook so much, we forget that it is storing our photos!
- Microsoft OneDrive: As mentioned above the Windows Photos app uses OneDrive for storing photos online. You can use it directly without the Photos app as well. The online interface has nice photo management features like tags, albums, and slideshows, but no editing.
- Apple’s iCloud Photo Library will store your photos, but only for Apple devices.
For more information, please watch our video above with the panel of experts.
Also, the Top Contributors for the Picasa User Forum have put together a very detailed page of information about the Picasa Retirement and what it means to you.
What questions do you have? Please leave a comment below.
50 Responses to “Picasa is Dead. Long Live Picasa!”
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One more alternative to Picasa on Windows – Phototheca(). It has a lot of Picasa’s features, except of editing images.
Picassa Restore no longer works on my Mac. Help?
I have 10 years of photos in Picassa, with lots of edits and albums. I changed to a new Mac, and used the backup feature of Picassa and planned to do a “restore” on the new machine. BUT the Picassa Restore file created with my backup set doesn’t work. It just hangs up. I’m really hoping to find another way to download a fresh version of that utility so I can try again.
Has anyone had this same problem, and do you know where to find a fresh Picassa Restore program? Any other hints on how to restore files into the right place without the utility?
My long term plan is to move to Google Photos, but I need restore to Picassa first and then save all my edits.
[…] Picasa Web Albums – the desktop software – Picasa – was retired on March 15. See this article for more […]
Husband & I feeling very Chicken Little at loss of Picasa Web Albums and weakness of Google Photos — no captions?? no sorting?? For years now we have created narrative, research captions on web albums of our travels to China, Tibet, Sicily, Turkey, Cambodia… let alone family events and vacations. Shared with friends and family and much enjoyed. So glad I finally went beyond the bland, uninformative Google announcement and click on the link that led to Picasa Geeks. Thank you soooo much for the full and supportive info. We will be now looking into the posted suggested alternatives.
I want to combine Picasa 3 and Dropbox as you suggest, in order to keep my captions… but I don’t understand your explanation.
You say “Just point Picasa’s File Manager to your Dropbox folder on your hard drive…”
but what I want is to copy my Picasa Albums on Dropbox, and not the opposite.
Thanks for your answer… and sorry for my bad English !
If you install Dropbox on your computer, then you have a folder on your computer called dropbox. I’m saying to store your pictures there and tell Picasa that’s where they are using Folder Manager. Then the pictures are automatically synchronized between your computer and dropbox – AND, they are the same pictures that are viewed using Picasa.
I’ve been using Picasa for almost a decade and a half. I’m sorry to see it go into cold storage. Having an inkling that Picasa would be turned off. Every year for at least the past 5 years or so I’ve surveyed the software world for what to change to, both for at home and at work. Adobe Lightroom etc. is not a complete alternative. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good program and there are reasons to use it in it’s own right, but it’s not a wholesale replacement for Picasa.
I see and understand the Google has good business reasons for focusing on a single product line that covers the majority of their users, and thus their income, and that Picasa is no longer part of that vision. I just wish that rather than simply closing the door on Picasa that they would divest themselves of it. Sell it, open source it, something. Something other than locking it away, closing the door on further development and improvement. Something other than leaving us dedicated users orphans with no clear migration path (and a bitter taste for the big “G”).
I am migrating away from Picasa Web Albums, pushed by the changes. i am going because I simply do not like the current look and limited functions of Google Photos but no doubt many will be happy there. I am definitely old enough to be album, not date (and then collection) focused and having grown up with inflicting 35mm slide shows on long suffering friends and family, I can’t live without that being digitally possible 🙂 But I do believe in modernising though. I am now building my own photo gallery website on the SmugMug platform and it looks stunning, I will be adding blog pages within my new site to give an introduction to my travel images and will be able to send links to inflict full screen slide shows via TV, computer, tablet or phone on long suffering friends and family – there is no escape 🙂 Richard
I look forward to seeing your slide shows Richard!
Nothing beats the facial recognition of Picasa Desktop. What’s a replacement with those tools? Hopefully, Google will open source Picasa and let someone republish, I’d pay for it.
I have listened to your program. I have always used Picasa 3 and have uploaded to google web photos.
Now, I can not get to the google web photos nor can I see any of my pictures from Picasa 3 on google photos. Google photos is dead. Nothing is on there. What can I do?
You say Picasa 3 … that is software on your computer. Unless you Uploaded to Web Albums, I would not expect to see any Picasa 3 pictures on Google Photos. They should still be on your computer.
Thanks. In the past I had loaded quite a bit of my Picasa albums on to Picasa web albums.
I easily was able to browse them. Now, they have disappeared and there is only the
Google Photos. The program is empty and doesn’t pick up anything. Is there something
locked that I need to attend to?
I really loved Picasa. I switched from the Kodak product years ago. Now this one is biting the dust too. Nothing is consistent it seems. Maybe I should start using Photoshop elements. I own a copy of it, but just liked the organizational and editing features of Picasa better.
Google Photos just doesn’t seem to have the features of Picasa. I like creating albums, tracking faces, and editing options. Oh Well.
This business of moving everything to the CLOUD is CRAZY nonsense for those of us who depend on a monthly quota for our internet connection. Syncing will drive up the usage and it will be impossible to control, not to speak of the risks inherent in having our information in someone else’s server. When will this end?
I will most miss the captions which gave info about my picture almost like a diary and which allowed me to find any photo I wanted within seconds using the search bar. I would like to keep these captions but it sounds like I can’t!
I will miss my captions that give info about the picture and allow me to find the picture within seconds using the search function. I guess Lightroom does this but I found Lightroom really ahrd to learn and Picasa met my needs.
I have been using blogspot.com since 2005. The pictures I embed in my blog get stored in a Picasa album. (Actually several albums because when one gets too many pictures, they create a new album).
What will happen to those blog pictures? Will they move to Google +? Will the links in the old blog posts get changed to point to the new location?
I also want to bulk download all my Picasa albums (more than 300 of them), but I’m not having luck finding out how.
I have no reason to trust Google or anything that they do. “Do no evil” Ha! They just trample anywhere and everywhere with little or no concern.
[…] https://picasageeks.com/2016/02/picasa-is-dead-long-live-picasa/ In this post, Chris Guld explains what the retirement of Picasa will affect you if you use either the Picasa3 desktop software, or Picasa Web Albums, so you can be prepared. Also, there will be a live webcast with discussion of the Picasa announcement Sunday February 21, 2016 at 2PM Eastern on the What Does This Button Do? Hangout On Air #71 – Picasa is Retiring. Should I Switch to Google Photos?, or the YouTube recording at https://youtu.be/RNMayP-t5u8. […]
I suspected that Picasa Web Albums was going away when I started this project, but proceeded with it anyway. No free lunch. I’ve spent the last year creating a website for my RV group on blogspot, and for each month’s really I’ve uploaded a considerable amount of pictures (not only mine but those of other members) to Picasa Web Albums, and created a link to each album on the group’s blogspot website. In addition, I went back and created picture albums for the years back to 2011. How can I keep these pictures from getting lost? Should I begin to transfer them to an alternate site? I don’t see how Google Photos can take over considering captions are lost, and the pictures are not in the same order, as well as the albums are in random order.
Carol, I’m pretty sure that, since you created a link for each album – your viewers should still see all the pictures in the places you put them. The captions should be there too. Sort order may be an issue. I’ll check it out.
Sorry to see Picasa go 🙁 . The closest have found to replace it is Adobe Lightroom. It is a great program but has a bit of a learning curve. For Picasa users the database thinking is totally relevant in lightroom – it works very much the same as Picasa. It is a very powerful program & is the standard for many photographers. Thank you for all your information on Picasa & Picasaweb and its replacements – I have enjoyed your tips & tricks for a long time. Good luck with the future
Am I correct in assuming that at some point Picasa will no real longer run correctly? For example if Apple keeps updating their products at some point Picasa will no longer run. Is that a correct assumption? Common sense also tells me to use the photo program that is built into my computer. For example apple photos would probably continue to support the photo program as they update their operating system
Many questions … well a few :
1. Collages – don’t seem to be possible
2. Seem to have triplicates of photos – hideous to delete
3. Ability to make a video
4.Slideshows…..
5. I pay for extra storage at full res. – am I getting this????
6. Hate the fact that I won’t be able to create new collections when Picasa goes completely.
7.Auto uploads aren’t edited – does this then all duplicate when I edit in Picasa and does it then upload again??????What goes where – I’m getting very confused…
Hi everyone…
I still won’t be generally saving my edits in Picasa.
I LOVE that I ALWAYS have access to the original photo with Picasa.
And I don’t generally save edits because that forces Picasa to keep the original plus the saved “edits applied” version on disk. Saving edits will take more disk space.
I do just about all my organizing and editing in Picasa. And if I need to use a photo (or a set of photos) somewhere else or in another program, I select those photos in Picasa and export new all-edits-applied copies of those photos to a separate folder… I use that newly-exported folder (e.g., upload them to Costco to get printed or whatever), and then I delete that exported folder. The originals stay where they are – without their edits saved.
Just another way of doing stuff… neither way is wrong. I just don’t want to save edits.
I’ll keep using Picasa as long as it continues to work, I suspect.
And yeah, unless some other program decides to handle all of Picasa’s “unsaved edit info” (generally in the ini files), I know some year I’ll probably have to save my edits. But as long as Picasa keeps working…
And yeah, the editing in Elements is a lot more… sophisticated… Not sure if it’s got the photo organizing stuff like Picasa (having albums on top of folders is a wonderful way to organize on your computer)
Don
I just have to ask – are you the Don Lind that volunteers on the Picasa help forum. If you are you gave me so much help over the years – thank you so very much.
If not well, thanks for this post. I enjoy learning about others thoughts on the Picasa retiring topic.
Yes, Evelyn that is the Don Lind! And … he will be one of our panelists this Sunday on our show. I agree – he was THE BEST for answering people’s questions on the Picasa Help Forum. He was my go to guru!
I am so upset I don’t even know where to begin. I have used Picasa to organize my pics to albums to choose the one I want to edit. As of this morning, It won’t even allow me to put a pic in album to upload to Google photos. I have Thousands of albums.
I am not even sure where to begin.
Jennifer Fails Photography
Long-time user of Picasa desktop software – very happy with the features and functions for organizing and uploading photos to Picasa Web Albums and now Google Photos. I’ve been thinking about this transition for some months knowing it was only a matter of time that Picasa software would come to an end.
I will end my use of Picasa even though it will still be functional on my PC – the reason is in my opinion any software without security fixes is treading on dangerous grounds.
My needs are different than many people:
– I don’t take photos for sharing or display with my smartphone – so Google Photos is not designed for people like me. Its designed for those that upload perhaps thousands of photos.
– I make albums with lots of comments that more or less tell a story.Example, photos of birds are useless without a comment that identifies the bird and perhaps additional information about the species and/or where it was observed.
– If I take the time to edit a photo I want to display it.
I’m slowly getting out of the thinking mode that Picasa and Google Photos is “free.” When you think about it – the Google products are not free at all – It’s simply a case of us users paying with a currency other than money. We pay with our information, and Google has used that information to become the most valuable company in the world. The unwritten contract has been set. We allow Google to access our information in exchange for tools and functionality that does not cost us money. When Google starts to draw back on that promise, their products and services become less attractive. Once you buy into the Google ecosystem its a challenge to get out.
All that said I’m considering the photo sharing service – SmugMug. For $3.30 a month photos beautifully displayed, far nicer than Google Photos, full resolution photos, no ads, unlimited storage, guest photos a nice sharing feature, looks easy to work with, good privacy and security from a well established company who I’m pretty confident won’t disappear.
For photo organization and management I’ve been working with the desktop software FastStone image viewer – capabilities far exceed anything I’d want to do – http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm
It is blazing fast and I seemed to be getting the hang of it quickly.
Its free – they ask for a donation. There are many Youtube videos that will allow you to see it in action. They also provide 95 page pdf tutorial.
What I can’t seem to figure out and really need to know –
Is there a way to upload the Picasa Web Albums with captions on the photos to a photo sharing service easily?
The transition to a new way of managing photos is challenging, but I suppose bit by bit. I am so appreciative of the effort you put into this explanation Chris – its very helpful and an excellent reference.
Evelyn.
Evelyn, I have spent the last couple of weeks since the dreaded Google announcements looking around the web for a new online photo sharing option and like you have settled on SmugMug, especially as the author of an Android app I have used extensively to view slideshows from Picasa Web via Chromecast to my TV has written the very similar SmugMug Android app so what I am used to is maintained. the basic SmugMug service is $40 per annum but I will go for the $60 next level up as that allows me to make a smart website featuring my albums under one web address as in Picasa Web but not in Google Photos. The other huge benefit to me of SmugMug is that a slideshow on a PC, tablet or phone in any browser, always goes to full screen, making the photos look as good as possible, uncluttered by browser menu bars etc.
I have tried very hard to find a way to export from Picasa Web and maintain the Captions. If you have previously created the captions in Picasa Desktop or downloaded from Picasa Web, the Captions are included in the photo metadata and come into SmugMug perfectly. But now you can’t download from Picasa Web, only Google Photos where the Captions are not included – that seems particularly mean Mr Google! I will bring some albums into SmugMug currently but hope from May 1 that Google’s ‘special place’ will allow export of image and all associated Picasa Web data.
For editing, I already use the same Faststone ‘Image Viewer’ – the name gives the impression that it is not an editor but it is an excellent one, lacking only a ‘Transform’ function to correct perspective, leaning buildings etc. For that I use Adobe Photoshop Elements but I can now also make such Transforms using the amazing Snapseed (from Google!) editor on an Android or iOS device. Faststone and Snapseed are free, Photoshop Elements is not free although Adobe software is a trusted way of maintaining your image quality.
I can’t quite understand why so many are buying Lightroom, yes it can create Web Galleries but you need a website to put them on or a subscription to Adobe’s hosting.
Thanks to all who contribute here.
Richard
Hi there to Evelyn and I also hope this will be of interest to Chris regarding saving Captions with your downloaded photos currently in Picasa Web or Google Photos .
I made a real discovery today and it is Picasa Desktop that saved the day!! On my main computer I had just one of my web albums downloaded back into Picasa Desktop and knew that if I right-clicked to ‘locate on desktop’, my downloaded photos contained my captions written into the Title: field of the image metadata. To see this, find the downloaded images and right-click on one you know to have a caption, now chose Properties from the list and look for the Title field which should contain your caption 🙂
My problem was that on my main computer, ‘Import from Google Photos’ into Picasa Desktop failed to work but there was a message that photos wouldn’t be downloaded if they existed on my computer. I wanted to download to see if the captions were preserved as above. Then I remembered I had another test computer with no photos at all on it so I installed Picasa Desktop on that and found that Import from Google Photos worked really well for the first album, then slowed to a crawl. Noticing that the program had selected 480 faces, I suspected this was a problem and turned off face recognition in Tools and Options. After that the Import ran quickly. I then checked on disk as above and found to my great delight that all the captions had been added into my pictures while being imported. 10/10 to Picasa Desktop…..
Many of course like Chris will be happy with and stay with Google Photos but for those who chose to move to a different photo hosting site, most will show your captions if you upload to your new platform those exact image files from their location on disk that you imported into Picasa Desktop. In SmugMug at least the captions display perfectly on the bottom of the photos in a slide show.
Lastly, several Picasa Desktop fans have asked Google to allow them to upload their images from Picasa Desktop into Google Photos at the original size, you can do this should you wish by changing a setting to allow that in the Tools and Options menu!
Hope this helps someone!
Richard
Good stuff Richard! Thanks!
As you know, I too am distressed at the lack of captions in Google Photos, but hope springs eternal! I believe that we will get captions and I am willing to wait. If there is some time that Google definitively tells us we will NOT get captions, then I may reconsider. I know people who have been with SmugMug for many years and love it.
Just one thing to add to your last paragraph – you can upload from Picasa Desktop at Original Size – that will use up your storage allotment. Later, you can use the Google Photos command to Recover Storage – and it will apply the “High Quality” compression to all photos in your library, giving you the unlimited free storage.
You specifically state no more web albums. You alluded to emailing from picasa. Is that going away also? How about order prints from Walgreens ,or wherever? And blogging. Your save your edits now warning kind of indicates that these features that automatically used the edited version of a photo will not necessarily be available. Any info on that?
And I would guess if I were to get a new computer in April, I would not be able to get picasa transferred from old computer to new? Or can that be done. What a shame to lose something that works so well and so easily.
I just loved using Picasa and am so use to it. Where can I find a program that is similar and not too complicated to work with my photos and just have fun with them. I am so sad about this.
For those who wish to download/preserve a copy of the Picasa program, I suggest keeping a copy of it in the cloud (e.g. on Google Drive) so you can always get to it should you need to re-install it.
The ideal solution would have been if they sold it to someone who sold it for retail prices.. It’s such a great program I’d be glad to pay for it at a reasonable price.
In the meantime I’l jut keep using it until it becomes unusable for some reason.
Bob
Is there another program that creates video collages? It’s fun to watch kids grow using the Picasa video creator.
I think you’re talking about the Face Movie feature. It is cool. No, I haven’t seen that anywhere else, but I haven’t really looked. Try go ogling for face movie and let us know if you find anything.
Thanks for a nice balanced post and not the “Chicken Little” approach others take. I’m surprised that Google kept it as long as they did as they have no interest at all in having us operate anywhere but online. Adobe Elements is reasonably priced and if you’re going to put the effort into learning another desktop program it might as well be the de facto standard. Adding Premier Elements for another $30 is worth considering for videos. You could provide a good service by sharing where you’d go to lean how to use Elements or any other program. Linda, YouTube, or someplace else? I know where I go, but you have your ears to the ground more than I do. Thanks again for this and all you’re doing for the folks who are lucky enough to have been exposed to you.
Thanks Hugh!
I just ordered Adobe Photoshop Elements, I agree completely with your statement that if you’re going to put the effort into learning another desktop program it might as well be the de facto standard! And some of the new automatic features of version 14 look pretty cool.
What’s the “Chicken Little” approach?
I’ve never heard of that.
I think he’s just referring to the scare tactics of saying, “The Sky is Falling!”
Hi,
I didn’t realise that Picasa is being retired until I read your newsletter just now.
I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve still got xp on PC, but I’ve been finding that Picasa is really slow just lately. In fact it has completely crashed a few times.
I think I might start using windows pictures gallery a bit more & also google photos.
I’ll still use Picasa – or try to – as I want to add captions under my pix & need to see the whole picture so that I can do this.
I also put pix in Facebook. I’m very fussy about sharing my pix with others, so is there a way I can keep them
private until I decide to share them?
Sorry for all the questions:)
i use Picasa on a Mac
and I upload to Google Photos from there by pressing the upload button. Will I still be able to upload them to Google photos from Picasa?
I use the Pixite app which takes my iPhone photos and uploads/ makes ready to picasa web albums . What app do I use now to do same to google photos from iPhone?
Thanks
So very sad to learn Picasa will no longer exist for updates… I just now am beginning to feel comfortable with it!! Why do “they” do that… never taking into account what THE PEOPLE want??!!??!!
What is the best way to link photos in Google photos to my blogspot blog?
The feature of Picasa Web Albums that I will miss the most is ability to get an URL for a picture which:
1 Is guaranteed to keep working, and
2 Can be used on forums and similar places (many of which cannot handle the Sharing-link provided by Google photos) as well as inside HTML statements, and
3 Includes meaningful keywords (ie the file-name that I gave to the picture when I uploaded it).
Have to agree with Mary, I’ll also miss the ability to embed a slide-show on Blogger