Google’s Picasa 3 is a free photo software, it helps you instantly find, edit, and share all the pictures on your computer. Although it isn’t released as open source it is free to download and use from Google’s Web site. The new version 3, which is currently in beta, is available for Linux now.Picasa 3 runs on Linux compatible, and won’t delete your pictures or put them online without your permission. Version 3 is still in beta, a preview of the upcoming release of Picasa 3 for Linux with some great new features, including a new retouch tool to remove unsightly blemishes from your photos. If you don’t want to download the beta, the previous stable version is still available.
Underneath the hood, Picasa isn't a native Linux application. It's actually a Windows program running under Wine, an open-source version of the Windows API (application programming interface). No matter, on both computers, the program ran flawlessly. And, better still, it did a flawless job of making my photos presentable.
Picasa includes all the tools you'd expect from an easy-to-use photo editing program. These include cropping, red-eye editing, straighten images, and so on. It also makes all these functions easy to use, including the somewhat fancier ones such as adding tints or turning a color image into black and white or sepia.
It also has features that are somewhat unusual in photo programs. For example, rather than moving your photos to another, self-selected directory it keeps the images in the directory you choose. I can't count the number of times I've had to track down photos from where Adobe has decided to hide them or ended up creating duplicate images. With Picasa, that's not an issue.
Another nice feature, as far as I'm concerned anyway, is that while Picasa saves your edits, it actually doesn't change the original image until you decide to print or export the photo. This way, no matter how ham-handed you are at photo editing, you have ample opportunities to go back and start again until you finally get it right.
The program also gives a great selection of ways to get your photos to friends and family. This includes slideshows, creating a photo collage, creating a gift CD, and uploading the shots of your favorite kids on Christmas morning to your free Google Picasa Web Album.
This really is a great program. Frankly, I would have paid good money for it. Picasa is simply the best, easy-to-use, simple photo editing program around. The fact that this free program runs on Linux is just the cherry on top of the sundae.
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