Download Picasa 3.8 for Mac Updated

April 20, 2022 Post a Comment

Download Picasa 3.8 for Mac

A Picnik interface now is built into Google's Picasa application for photo editing and cataloging. Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

Google issued Picasa 3.8 on Tuesday, hybridizing the desktop software past building in elements of its deject-calculating service for photo editing.

Picasa, used for editing, cataloging, and uploading photos to the Picasa Web Albums site, at present incorporates all the editing abilities of Google's Picnik online photo-editing site, according to the weblog post on the Google Photos blog. The update to the software is available for Windows and Mac.

In addition, the new version has a slick motion picture mode that uses face recognition to agree a field of study's face steady equally the rest of the photos change. It's quite clever--bank check the video below to evidence how it works.

There are some awkward facets to the Picnik integration, though. For 1, it takes some time to launch the Picnik module and to upload the photograph. And its interface is dissimilar from Picasa's while at the same time duplicating the same features--white rest and exposure, for example. And when the application says "Salvage to Picasa," I wondered whether that meant to my Web anthology or to my reckoner. (The latter, information technology turned out.)

For another, Picnik can handle images only up to sixteen megapixels in size, which should be fine for most folks, but it isn't a limit on Picasa. I got a alarm with a 21-megapixel file first that Picasa would relieve my file as a downscaled version--76 percent the size of the original. And later, it suggested downsizing it even more to speed up processing. Of course, most folks who are serious enough to accept files bigger than xvi megapixels volition be using something besides Picasa, just the limits are illustrative of the awkward marriage of cloud computing and native applications.

Picnik is a Flash application, too, and using information technology pegged both my cores on the MacBook Pro on which I tested information technology. Peradventure Google volition exist able to move this to Native Client someday for more efficient processing.

As well, as you might expect from an embedded Web application, it doesn't piece of work fully when offline. I was able to edit a photo I'd opened, just saving it produced an mistake message. One time I restored the connection, all was well.

Overall, I found the Picnik abilities awkwardly grafted onto Picasa. But I similar the idea overall--a native application that dovetails with a Web application. Picasa already has synchronization abilities, but Picnik adds a new level. I found myself wondering about future development: will the editing engine of Picasa move to put Picnik at the middle? Certainly, it's changed very petty over the years, until this update, and Google likes its Web applications.

Picasa's Picnik module doesn't care for very high-resolution photos. — Picasa's Picnik module doesn't intendance for very high-resolution photos. Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

Indeed, Google doesn't have many native applications. Google Earth's abilities are gradually being congenital into Google Maps. Google Talk has been sidelined for years while Gmail Conversation continues to advance. The only native application that seems to get much love at Google is Chrome, and that's chiefly considering it'southward a window on Web apps.

Here'due south the native app from Google I'd beloved to come across: something slick that would let me apply Google Docs offline. As long equally Google has such a tight brotherhood with Adobe Systems , it could use AIR for the purpose, and it wouldn't even have to expose any APIs.

I don't come across it as likely, though. Even with Gears permanently broken on Mac Os X 10.half-dozen and therefore no offline admission for me when I'one thousand working on a Mac, I suspect that Google would rather channel its energies into improving the Web-based version of Google Docs. And if we're lucky, IndexedDB or related offline browser storage technology will mature enough to see this weakness of Google Docs addressed.