The days of storing hundreds of photos in tattered albums and dusty shoe boxes are long gone. Applications like iPhoto and Picasa give you an online space for uploading, editing, managing and sharing your snapshots. Although iPhoto and Picasa have similar purposes and functionality, you may find that one suits your needs a little better than the other.
Availability and Price
- Apple's iPhoto program is available as a single download for $14.99 through the Mac App Store or as part of the iLife software bundle for $49 or $79. No matter how you choose to install iPhoto, you will only be able to use it on a Macintosh-based computer. Comparatively, Google's Picasa program is free to download and runs on Macintosh, Windows and Linux-based computers. Picasa provides you with one gigabyte of storage space on Google's servers so you are using none of your own.
Uploading and Editing Photos
- iPhoto and Picasa have many of the same features for making the most of your photos. You can upload images to iPhoto directly from your camera or use Apple's cloud based storage system to transfer them wirelessly from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to your computer. Picasa also uploads photos from your computer, camera or smartphone. Both programs have a good variety of entry-level photo editing features like red-eye reduction and retouching. For optimal editing, iPhoto allows you to view your photos in full screen mode. Picasa does the same for Windows users, but lacks this feature for Macintosh. However, according to a December 2010 article in "PC Magazine," Picasa is much quicker at rendering images and has more advanced zooming and dragging capabilities.
Sharing Photos
- The iPhoto program has a slick Facebook integration function that allows you to change your profile picture, share and tag photos without ever leaving the application. You can also share your iPhotos via email or Flickr and print them as books, cards and calendars. Picasa's Facebook integration requires an additional plugin, but with Google's program you can also share photos through email, post them to Blogger, order prints, and send friends and family a direct Web link to view your albums. If you are inclined, you can make your albums public so that anyone surfing the Web can see your work.
Other Features
- Both iPhoto and Picasa allow you to tag people and enable geo-tagging. Only iPhoto includes quick thumbnail viewing and has more extensive features for creating slideshows with themes and music. However, Picasa has some unique features of its own. You can use Picasa to upload and share video, and can add photos with a simple right click of the mouse. Search is also more powerful through Picasa, thanks to its Google affiliation.
