Comments on David Alison's Blog: First Impressions: Picasa for Mac

@TJ: I haven't heard of or played with Picaboo or ...

2010-02-02T09:04:12.980-05:00

@TJ: I haven't heard of or played with Picaboo or Mpix. I've given in and pretty much use iPhoto exclusively now; for basic editing (red-eye, retouches, lighting) it's fine for my uses. I still struggle with the model it uses for storing the pictures but I've learned to get over that. I have Picasa installed but I really can't get past the completely non-standard interface and as a result never use it.

great blog. Have you tried picaboo or Mpix? I'm ...

2010-02-01T00:48:50.490-05:00

great blog. Have you tried picaboo or Mpix? I'm new to the Mac world and I'm trying to figure out if I should use iPhoto, picaboo (which many of my friends use), Mpix or go back to Picasa, which I used a few years ago.

Thanks,
TJ

Great blog. I'm a Mac user (iPhoto 6.0.6 on my OSX...

2010-01-18T20:21:58.247-05:00

Great blog. I'm a Mac user (iPhoto 6.0.6 on my OSX intel), but just discovered Picasa on the PC at work. Love the organization and easy edits. I have some 20K pics, mostly of nature and my kids... can I use Picasa to organize and edit, but leave my library (where I upload pics from my cards) for fun slideshows and Mac products (the yearly calendar for the grandparents)? Or is it best to devote time, energy and pics to one or the other?

Not to forget the I am feeling Lucky button and th...

2009-12-29T14:49:45.734-05:00

Not to forget the I am feeling Lucky button and the ability to write the captions for the pics in Picasa.

I think I am really selling Picasa, am I not? :)

Okay, I really like the discussion here. iPhoto Vs...

2009-12-29T14:31:15.304-05:00

Okay, I really like the discussion here. iPhoto Vs Picasa has been a big debate personally. I am a UI Designer myself, and I really like Mac's consistency model. But, Picasa wins for me (so far) because:

1. Excellent online sync capabilities to Picasaweb. You can not only upload but also download entire albums of your friends or family right into Picasa.

2. Sharing capabilities like allowing friends or family to contribute to an album. Fetching emails from Gmail etc.

3. Tools like Collages, contact sheets etc., adding text, making a quick video (no ken burns is a bummer though).

4. Buttons for uploading to Walgreens, shutterfly etc. for getting prints or other social networks like facebook or flickr.

For me, Picasa wins hands down. Agreed its a little buggy and the UI is inconsistent with Mac standards - but I dont mind it for its excellent utility (and usability).

Some of the things I miss in Picasa:
1. Syncing my Picasa albums to my iPhone and iPods (you have to export all the albums everytime you update them :()

2. Ken burns effect on slideshows

3. iPhoto's excellent print services for cards and calendars (no one can beat Apple at that!)

My biggest problem now:
We have an iMac and two Pros and an online Picasaweb account through which we share our pics with friends and family. While the online and offline version on my iMac are synced, the pros are not since the file structure is on my iMac. I want the flexibility to edit these photos anywhere and update it in the master library. I know somebody talked about Windows Live Sync or Dropbox, but I am not sure if an online hard-drive is the solution for this. Any ideas?

I love the "I'm feeling lucky" from picasa. I wish...

2009-08-23T15:45:31.821-04:00

I love the "I'm feeling lucky" from picasa. I wish I had that in Aperture.

First stumbled across this blog - very interesting...

2009-07-24T19:38:59.877-04:00

First stumbled across this blog - very interesting.

Been a long-time Picasa user on the PC, but have switched to Mac, particularly for Aperture.

However, for 90% of my photos which only need "quick and dirty" tweaks, not in-depth stuff, Picasa works beautifully. However I do have one problem:

I've always used the one-click sharpen button in Picasa on the PC, as the last thing after all other edits, and it adds just enough sharpening to spark up the pics. Almost all digital pics need a tiny bit of sharpening.

However, Picasa has gone and tried to make its sharpening more sophisticated, and is now NOT a simple one-click solution with immediately visible results.

But - iPhoto has no equivalent function either.!!! So I'm stuck between Picasa that DID have it and has now made sharpening more of an adjustment than a single click, and iPhoto which has always had sharpening as an adjustment.

I want my single-click mild sharpening back....waaaghhhhh!!! :(

On the Google forums for Picasa, this change to Picasa is causing a lot of angst - it's not just me.

If some careful, precision sharpening really IS needed for a photo, then I use Aperture. But for quickly processing and tweaking a few hundred pics in the hotel room after a day out and about, Picasa was the way to go. Often it was just the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, followed by the one-click Sharpen button - all done.

Now neither Picasa or iPhoto will do it.

They're trying to make both iPhoto and Picasa TOO sophisticated. Keep them quick and simple - for more intricate work we have Lightroom (cross-platform), Aperture, Photoshop, and a bazillion others.

With regards to the_0ne's comment i totally agree....

2009-07-03T15:37:09.836-04:00

With regards to the_0ne's comment i totally agree. I was migrating to Picasa for Mac from iPhoto 09 but with both apps running on my MBP 2.6ghz with 4gb ram it is really eating away at the CPU. it was constantly on 40-ish % for me. Looks like i'm gonna hold back on the migration,

If you enter full screen mode in iPhoto (the third...

2009-04-18T14:39:50.485-04:00

If you enter full screen mode in iPhoto (the third button on the bottom left side of the window), you can zoom in all you want.

@David: There doesn't seem to be a perfect solutio...

2009-01-19T20:45:05.014-05:00

@David: There doesn't seem to be a perfect solution, does there?

However, I am going to be sticking with Picasa for now, as I like how it leaves my directories in place. Very convenient for sharing across my network to my other Linux and Windows machines.

One other thing I love about this is that I can use Windows Live Sync*, which also works on Macs, to sync the library on my home network to my laptop from any location. It even keeps an up to date copy of the picasa.ini file. Now when I edit something on my laptop when I'm away from the house the changes are relfected on the home server and all the machines running Picasa (on any platform) show the current edits. Same in reverse, so my laptop will reflect changes made at home. Very useful when outside of your home network!

*Of course, there are other apps you could use, such as Live Mesh, Drop Box, etc...

@Anon: On Twitter I have compared it to a velvet E...

2009-01-09T08:35:38.323-05:00

@Anon: On Twitter I have compared it to a velvet Elvis painting sitting in my home. (No, I don't have a velvet Elvis painting).

Here I have this really nice UI for OS X, most of my non-Apple apps stick with the theme and then I pull up Picasa and it looks... well, you get the idea.

The UI is atrocious! Yuck...

2009-01-08T22:14:31.291-05:00

The UI is atrocious! Yuck...

@Pecos Bill: Though my cross platform needs are be...

2009-01-08T15:21:10.393-05:00

@Pecos Bill: Though my cross platform needs are becoming smaller I don't like that I have to have iPhoto running and serving up the photos in order to provide sharing.

I've actually considered writing a blog post just on this topic because one of the trends I would like to see happen is for tools and utilities to get smaller and more connected to one another. Each of us uses our computers in vastly different ways for very different tasks; the smaller and more granular the tools are the more flexible they become in addressing people's needs. Rather than having a comprehensive file management, photo editing, slide show, online photo service doo-hickey, I'd like to see each of these as relatively atomic functions that could work on their own. Apple could then create an iPhoto "shell" that looks much like it does today but actually just taps into the underlying code that powers these tools.

</soapbox>

@David: I know a solution for you has woefully bee...

2009-01-08T03:08:46.578-05:00

@David: I know a solution for you has woefully been lacking forever. I didn't know you still needed cross-platform. I can only think Adobe's Lightroom has a chance though I've not used it. It's one of the few apps that is light on the baggage that so many Adobe apps suffer. Alas, with the new features in iPhoto 09, I can't imagine using anything else (it's on my wish list).

I'm sorry, but I don't recall if you have tried Lightroom and a search didn't show anything. FYI, I've not.

I see your point on a portable library. If you are unable to find the perfect solution that isn't iPhoto, the only thought I had is you could remerge the library it creates using code should the need arise. (Lightroom isn't available on Ubuntu, AFAIK.)

My AppleScript skills are a tad weak but you could also use that to create folders named by keywords of aliases or symlinks that point to all the photos. Not sure if Samba translates symlinks but I doubt it does for aliases. Not sure about other metadata. Hopefully they've expanded the AppleScript portion in iPhoto 09.

Dave, same process as you, except I use iPhoto to ...

2009-01-07T22:15:06.115-05:00

Dave, same process as you, except I use iPhoto to pull them off the card.But as soon as I have I tend to be too busy then to tag them.

I know that doesn't make any sense at all coz I'm saying I would tag them if I could before I import them. But that's the brain I gotta live with. If anyone wants to trade... :)

@Chris: Do you move your pictures directly from yo...

2009-01-07T20:30:29.738-05:00

@Chris: Do you move your pictures directly from your camera to your Mac or do you pull out the memory card and then transfer it from that? I use the latter method and as a result I'm used to simply moving files into the proper folder and that would be the time I would apply any attributes to the images and do my adjustments for lighting, red eye, etc.

I really want to take a look at Adobe Lightroom - hopefully it not insist on managing the files for me and just focus on mass adjustments, etc.

My ideal photo organizing app would let me tag, na...

2009-01-07T20:11:28.726-05:00

My ideal photo organizing app would let me tag, name, categorize, group and delete photos before I imported them from my camera. I find this is the time I am most likely to do that sort of necessary management. Whereas the moment they're imported the "I'll do it later" brain takes over.

Picasa was released for Windows just after I switc...

2009-01-07T18:10:14.116-05:00

Picasa was released for Windows just after I switched and it made me almost want to switch back!

But five years on the Mac version has been a major disappointment. It seems terribly buggy which is not normally the case in Google beta apps.

The first time it ran it was showing photos but then when I turned off some drives, everything disappeared.

Then I couldn't find any way of redoing a full scan. Eventually I discovered if you added a file, it would scan that folder and all the folders below it.

I then found adding a folder also worked but not on a drive itself, so I'd have to add every folder manually.

When I rescanned my iPhoto library, it skipped nearly all my photos, only adding AVIs and some jpegs. Only 500 of some 7000

And now I feel like I'm really going nuts because all iPhoto stuff that had come in was showing a moment ago but now they've disappeared! Aaargh!

And regards the Google forums, I posted a question about my initial problems 2 days ago and haven't had a response.

Add to all that it does have the feel of a Windows app, that unpolished feel, and I am way over Picasa.

So, like you Dave, I'm still looking for the perfect photo organizing app.

@sgmorr: The only other photo management applicati...

2009-01-07T14:42:30.954-05:00

@sgmorr: The only other photo management application I've looked at on Mac is Aperture (I have the trial). I love the mass-editing capabilities but I haven't dug in to it thoroughly enough to understand how it maintains the files.

David: I basically agree with what you are looking...

2009-01-07T12:31:23.468-05:00

David: I basically agree with what you are looking for in a photo management app. Which ones have you found that have even gotten close to what you are looking for? I'd like to take a look.

@Pecos Bill: The challenge for me continues to be ...

2009-01-07T08:45:08.665-05:00

@Pecos Bill: The challenge for me continues to be finding a photo management solution that doesn't require importing my photos into it's own library in order to be effective. Just like I would no sooner use a word processing application or text editor that insisted I place those files into their unique libraries in order to work with them, I like the distributed nature of a file based OS that allows me more flexibility in the way I work with the tools.

This is really important in a distributed environment where not everyone is running the same OS. We already have outstanding/cross platform sharing capabilities; I don't want to toss that out for the one thing I share on my network the most.

The more I play with Picasa the less I like it though. I accept that it's beta software and as a result will have some rough edges. My problem is that since switching to Mac and walking away from Windows I've come to love the UI consistency in Mac applications. One of the reasons I began to dislike Windows was the complete breakdown of UI consistency everywhere, especially from Microsoft itself. Google made almost no attempt to make Picasa a true Mac specific application, instead choosing to define a Google specific look for all platforms. I believe that is a major mistake.

My search for photo management solutions continues...

@all: Google appears to have "ported" Picasa Windo...

2009-01-07T02:03:53.877-05:00

@all: Google appears to have "ported" Picasa Windows via WINE (though that may just be for a viewer placed on shared CDs) which is why it's Intel only and looks and behaves like a Windows App. If so, you won't see a PPC version for that reason (and that Apple is biding its time to end PPC support).

@the_0ne: it might be building thumbnail databases in the background.

I've used it on Windows and it's great for a free app but iPhoto wins hands down for me. (I've not tried to run with a shared photo repository though. It would seem that sharing the library over the network (Prefs) might work best though that would require that the host be on. That would give a metadata advantage.)

When Picasa "fetches" iPhoto is it leaving the fil...

2009-01-06T18:57:50.760-05:00

When Picasa "fetches" iPhoto is it leaving the files in the iPhoto "big file" and appending to it as one edits a photo? I ask because I like Picasa better for organization and even editing, but I may want to use iPhoto for slideshows and incorporating into other iLife applications. Is there a marriage that works without duplicating a bunch of files???

@APF: One thing to keep in mind with Picasa; it us...

2009-01-06T15:23:15.281-05:00

@APF: One thing to keep in mind with Picasa; it uses the date/time stamp in the picture, not the date/time stamp of the file. I had a situation where my wife took a rather large number of pictures with a camera who's battery had died and she never reset the date/time in it. As a result the meta data in the digital pics was set completely wrong. I didn't know this when I placed them in the folders I was using but Picasa organized them based on the date/time stamped in the meta data. At some point I'll do a bulk edit of those photos to fix them but I just haven't gotten around to it. That may be why your pics are appearing in different folders though.

My problem arose with the way iPhoto organizes. Or...

2009-01-06T15:19:28.419-05:00

My problem arose with the way iPhoto organizes. Originally I copied 7 large folders (1 year each) of photos from my Windows box to the Mac to iPhoto. Then I downloaded Picasa for Mac and said, "Yep, go ahead, fetch iPhoto". I ended up with a weird tree structure of folders and subfolders with some parts of one year misplaced into another year... and like that. Picasa done me wrong. So until I can fix its organizing tendencies, I guess I'm stuck with iPhoto. (I don't particularly want to "Export" from iPhoto to yet another copy of the copied folders.)