Picasa, Google’s free photo-editing software, recently became available for Mac users (running OS X 10.4.9 or above). It has a few nifty features that iPhoto (or iPhoto ’08 at least) doesn’t and is very easy to use. It’s got all the basic editing tools – crop, straighten, remove red eye, convert to black and white, convert to sepia, and so on that you’ll also find in iPhoto. The extras in Picasa include adding a a gauzy glow to your photos, adding a graduated tint (useful for sky portions of photos), and adding focal black and white (allowing you to keep one part of the photo in colour and covert the rest to black and white). Plus something simple I always wished iPhoto would do – allow you to add text to a photo. In Picasa there’s a button right there under “basic fixes” that says “add text” and that’s how easy it is!
You can also create collages (like the one at the top of this post), mosaics, contact sheets, & fun multiple exposure shots with the click of a few buttons (see below). It’s all very easy to use and I think would be a great fit for someone looking to do a bit of easy editing to family photos (you can upload them to Picasa Web Albums with the one click too).
