Anyone use Picasa?

Hi I have Just downloaded the latest version of Picasa and I am still trying to way It up as a FREE pp software, I have the latest version of Fastone aswel but I would be Intersted to hear from others who use Picasa and get good results from It, at this stage I do not want to purchase the established best pp software Lightroom etc, as If It free I will go that route If possible...

P.

I use it all the time along with lightroom. It's great for quick processing along as the it's a good photo to begin with.

Pagman wrote in post #15925556
Hi I have Just downloaded the latest version of Picasa and I am still trying to way It up as a FREE pp software, I have the latest version of Fastone aswel but I would be Intersted to hear from others who use Picasa and get good results from It, at this stage I do not want to purchase the established best pp software Lightroom etc, as If It free I will go that route If possible...

P.

...if you have a JPEG only workflow its fantastic. If you use RAW it will struggle to do anything usefully. It is good as an automated "visual catalog" of your images: you basically tell it to watch a hard drive and it will update whenever images are added. It can convert RAW files: but it doesn't do a great job of it. I found (and still do find) that Picasa works best as a catalog tool than anything else it can do.

If you want free: use Digital Photo Professional if you shoot Canon...it comes on the disks that are supplied with your camera. Mixing up DPP for editing and Picasa to keep track of your images can work very well.

As far as free software goes it's decent at organization (about as effective as zoombrowser, which is available for download at canon's site), and it's filters and adjustments, etc. are easy ways to get decent results. However it's very general results as far as controls go and most of the filters produce what I think are pretty cheesy looks. GIMP in my experience, provided better quality results, but required far more effort, so when I stayed with free programs I did tend to use Picasa, since going to LR4 the ONLY thing I go back to Picasa for is full screen screenshots in windows.

Yep! I use DPP for my pp of my Raw, but I have found after doing this work and before saving to another site(fastone) that my altered work Is brilliant sharp and very well corrected, but after saving as Tiff and opening In Fastone all my detail and sharpness of the worked on Raw files, has gone almost like going from 3D to 2D -flat and lifeless, they would then require alot of work In Fastone to try to get that IQ back that was In the Raw Images In DPP, that why I considered changing my Fastone for a better hosting/displaying site that I could use to view the same level of IQ as my Raw DPP files, and convert and save to display on here very good quality jpeg Images that are not flat and lack lustre like the ones that I have been showing due to Fastone no dout.
I have also uptil now had to use Fastone as my download off card reader host site, as I dont think DPP can do this strait off the reader? or can It?

P.

I use Picasa mainly as a viewer/organizer. I also have Picasa web albums, where I store some images I want to display, for example from the sports club's activities. Others that are involved in that usually like to see them, and the interface from Picasa to that web album (now semi-linked with Google+) is simple and easy to use. But you can use Google's web album without using Picasa.

However, for finetuning and processing of images prior to print, for example, I use DPP. It works fine for the amount of work I need to do, and I've already paid for it, when I got the camera.

By "fastone", are you guys referring to FastStone?

Its a good little piece of software, decent organisation but I would not really use it to process images.

It is "dummy" software. Does not let you do your own thing and forces you the Picasa way... Not for me, thank you very much. If you really want to control things use Lightroom or Photoshop.

One must understand that Picasa is much more a photo organizer than an editor.

banquetbear wrote in post #15925633
...if you have a JPEG only workflow its fantastic. If you use RAW it will struggle to do anything usefully. It is good as an automated "visual catalog" of your images: you basically tell it to watch a hard drive and it will update whenever images are added. It can convert RAW files: but it doesn't do a great job of it. I found (and still do find) that Picasa works best as a catalog tool than anything else it can do.

If you want free: use Digital Photo Professional if you shoot Canon...it comes on the disks that are supplied with your camera. Mixing up DPP for editing and Picasa to keep track of your images can work very well.

this.

i switched to lightroom because it will easily convert RAW files, and it has a lot better noise reduction and white balance tools. not to mention the spot removal tools and the custom brushes. it's really just a far superior editing suite. i used and loved picasa before i could justify the lightroom purchase however, it was great, and i still use it with finished photo's from lightroom to add text and borders, two things which for some reason are not easy, and limited in lightroom.

I prefer Fastone also....as an organizer and sometimes as a fine tuner but it doesn't replace Photoshop or Lightroom....it does surprising well.

The problem and hence a question - after raw processing In DPP and save and convert to Fastone 4.8 as a Tiff, my Images are a lot less punchy and vibrant compared to the Raw files In DPP, Is this normal? and If not why might this be? I have done all the corrections and Improved them to the best of there ability, and despite them looking very sharp as a worked Raw, they Just dont hold onto this IQ In Fastone as Tiff file, even when looking at these files that have been worked on again In Fastone after DPP and then viewed In DPP as the Tiff files even look poor, Its as Iff Fastone Is limiting or removing some of the IQ from my Images, this Is very noticable when posting on here, as many have commented that my pictures are lacking that bite.....

P.

Picasa is good for auto conversion from RAW to JPEG1 and auto adjustments.
Very good.

It is not good for more heavily processing of JPEG1 files, because it will noticeably degrade IQ from original JPEG1 file. But, I think, any PP sw will do the same with JPEG1 files.

Also it struggles with large (by pictures quantity) folders.

I switched to DPP once I was doing it in RAW and now I'm using LR.

I use Picasa to manage/sort/print my JPEGs only. I use DPP for RAW, batch to JPEG. Have Picasa auto scan the folders containing the JPEGs (and exclude RAW files types). I rarely use Picasa for edits, but it is easy to find a photo in Picasa, right click, and edit with any of my editing programs.

Picasa is great for exporting a set of files to web-size for upload, too.