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Posted on Jan 07, 2009 - 2:22am by John P. in Computing, Google Tools, Reviews
Yesterday was the day I’ve been waiting on for months. Google finally released the popular, and FREE, Picasa image management software for the Mac!
Let me explain. You see, a while back I was forcibly converted to the Mac at work. At first I complained. A lot. But later it grew on me. Now, even though I hate to admit it, I have to say I actually prefer the Mac for most computing operations. One of the things that I did not enjoy, however, was the pathetic iPhoto software which was pretty much the only game in town for Mac users… until today.
So, Picasa, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
First of all, I hate any sort of application that unnecessarily forces it’s users into a proprietary closed platform. And right off the bat, iPhoto does this (just like freakin iTunes!). You see, when you import photos into an iPhoto library it basically takes all of your individual pictures and lumps them into a giant ball, from which the average users can no longer extract them without great pain!
Clearly they do this for the sole purpose of excluding the use of any other image editing software once they’ve got their grubby hands on your photos, because once they are imported you are going to have one heck of a time getting them OUT of iPhoto without making a huge mess. (You can opt out of this default behavior, but most people don’t know that.)
If we take a look at Picasa on the other hand, this image management tool simply organizes your photos into directories on your hard drive which it efficiently scans and catalogs – without moving things around or messing stuff up!
It also means that if you wanted to make a copy of your entire photo library, or a portion of it, for a friend or relative all you need to do is copy those folders onto portable media and hand it over. Can’t do that with iPhoto without a messy Export session! Oh, and while we’re on this topic, the folks behind Picasa were nice enough to include an “Import from iPhoto…” function to help you free those images from their bonds.
But again, Picasa makes this as simple as copying your photo directories to the other computer, and voila! It catalogs the images automatically. And you can still even gain access to those images with another piece of image editing or management software since the photos are just sitting there in directories, just like normal.
By comparison, the Picasa image editor screen places your image in a window on the right, and clearly displays all the tools on the left, and even some more options on the bottom of the screen. Absolutely anyone can figure out how to edit their images using this method. Even my dad. (Love ya Pop!)
Picasa deals with this quite elegantly. It displays all of the directories on the left and they can be expanded as usual, then on the right side it displays a chrolological stream of the image thumbnails. While doing so it also manages to nicely integrate the ability to do other things such as sync the directory to the Web, burn a CD, change the directory name, and much more.
If you also check that image above again, you’ll see that Picasa is constantly showing you all sorts of vital details about the image you’re viewing like the resolution, size on disk, etc. This detail is all buried in the iPhoto interface for no good reason whatsoever.
Meanwhile, Picasa has a wonderful print wizard which basically lets you choose the size of the image, how many you want, and make adjustments to the print settings while you’re at it.
Believe me, I could go on for hours about how much better Picasa is, but I’m bored with all this documentation, and frankly if you aren’t sold on giving it a try yet, nothing is going to work. But to sum things up, you can also watch this little Google video that explains some of the features in more detail:
I hope that all of you Mac users out there give Picasa a serious try. You’ve got nothing to lose since, unlike iPhoto, it won’t lock you in or make irreversible changes to your photo library.
Enjoy!
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@John
I wonder why you didn’t respond to @iLarynx’s detailed response to your subjective comparison points. Did you even bother trying anything that @iLarynx or the others said?
Good for you that you’re more of an expert on Picasa than on iPhoto since you use Picasa. But have a look at what others have to say and at least acknowledge that you might be wrong. You seem to be very strong headed in your opinions and don’t seem to listen to/understand what others say.
Well, the fact that iLarynx left the comments like 6 months after my original post is enough reason not to respond. And the fact that you are leaving this almost exactly one year after my post is even more ridiculous. Hell, new versions of both of these apps have been released multiple times now!!!
There are literally 1,600 posts on this blog. I can not be expected to respond to every single comment left on every post even years after they were written.
The way I look at it is this:
I did YOU a favor by making my comparison between these two pieces of software. If nothing else, I gave you a good head start as to what things to look out for. iLarynx came along with some different opinions, which I happily let stand when I could have deleted them. So what the hell do YOU exactly want from me? I’m not a trained monkey, and I don’t see you offering me anything in exchange for my time other than criticism.
Besides all of that, you have the nerve to call me out by name, and then leave an anonymous critique? That is just plain bad form. If you are going to call someone out, have the decency to stand up for your comments. Otherwise, if you are too ashamed to be counted for what you have to say… don’t say it!
Love,
John P.
John,
You are absolutely right!!! I have spent 1 week trying to import my 17,000 pictures from my NAS drive. Iphoto imports them one every 20-30 second! No, I did not have it copy the photos-this would take longer. The software is slow as a dog. It was the same on my son’s macbook pro. I love my mac for surfing the web but Iphoto is just crapware. I downloaded picasa and it found and organized all those same photos in 10 minutes!
Sorry mac fanboys. I have used both macs and pc. Picasa is much better than Iphoto.
Thanks for your effort John! I hate the way iTunes and iPhotos copies and reorganises everything into something that no other software can read and no one can extract them out without using Apple softwares/ Mac. It leaves no flexibility for the future and it is so difficult to share information with others, not the way to go.
iPhoto does have a good interface and edits photos easily. It’s Flickr and facebook sharing functions are great, and it integrates well with other Mac softwares that some processes are automated and that is very cool. But if you don’t want to be forced to stuck with Apple forever, and able to share your files with your friends easily, DO NOT USE iPhoto! I do not want to use iTunes for the same reason, but have to use it for my iPhone and iPod!
Same as the author: I also prefer the Mac for most computing operations. Having said that; for years and years I used ACDSee Pro for Windows; but after Apple introduced face recognition and after I moved to a Mac just over two years ago, I wanted/liked the features of iPhoto but disliked very much, same as the author; to have my files locked in some obscure database.
But I learned minutes after of getting my fist Mac up and running; that image files do not necessarily have to be imported into iPhoto (or Aperture, since it works in similar fashion when importing files) and so the files can be left as a “Referenced library”. I have over 13,000 images that were imported in less than 20 minutes. I just had to make sure to remove the default option for “Copy items to the iPhoto library” under Preferences> Advanced in the iPhoto menu.
Nevertheless, thank you for the comparison and review. I will try the new version of Picasa as soon as I get a chance this week end. It does seem to have become more powerful and easier to use than iPhoto and it seems to handle folders and directories the same way as ACDSee Pro does and being $200 cheaper, one can’t go wrong! Although I understand Apple tried to make things as simple as possible and this usually means that experienced users feel limited.
Maybe moving up to Aperture is the answer, but at times overkill too.
By the way, iTunes can do the same; I let iTunes organize the music and movies I’ve bought in its \iTunes Media folder, but I keep my other music files neatly organized my genre and artist on a separate directory. It has worked very well for me for years, even before moving to a Mac.
It’s a shame iPhoto has to be picky with it’s file organisation… i really enjoy the slideshow features, which is great for showing off photos to others with the transitions and music. I also like the way it’ll put all your photo’s on a map, and a bunch of other small things.
Personally i haven’t run into much issue with the way the files are organised, i guess i’ve learnt to adapt to it. But having to choose ‘export’ or drag and drop a bunch of photo’s on the desktop just to get at them is a bit annoying.
Apple like things that ‘Just work’ and their hardware is great for this. I think however that having things ‘Just work’ software wise involves dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator, and they never like to make things tooo complicated in case things ‘Don’t work’.
Anthony,
Image files do not necessarily have to be imported into iPhoto. The files can be left as a “Referenced library”. Just make sure to remove the default option for “Copy items to the iPhoto library” under Preferences> Advanced in the iPhoto menu. Only images that are edited or changed in any way will stay within the library file but all your original files will stay in their original location.
Nice blog post! I just installed Windows 7 on my pal’s iMac 24 inch and I’m looking for a good photo management app. I agree with you on the Picasa thingy. I’m gonna install it now. Thanks for the report.
I assume there’s a iPhoto import on the latest Windows Picasa version?
- Max “The IT pro”
“Events” are just a different way of displaying the whole of the photo library, you can also use “Faces” which names people in your pictures, “Places” which organizes pictures on a map or you could organize photos in albums or specify criteria for smart albums. I have to admit though, Iphoto is the buggiest program on my computer and one of the few I ever need to force quit.