You have no idea… Picasa for the Mac!
Announced today: Picasa is finally available for the Mac. Not that iPhoto wasn’t sort of slick, and made my first introduction to owning a Mac a really fun learning experience… but it’s just that Picasa is world’s better than iPhoto (or any other more expensive option like Lightroom).
Fully owning the fact that I’m all sorts of choked-up geek about this. One of the main reasons I wanted a laptop was the ability to take my photos with my everywhere – home to see my family, on trpis to upload stuff while on the road, etc. And I’ve always found iPhoto a little counfounding and a little too behind-the-scenes. Not any more with Picasa!
For one thing, after installing it, Picasa does the cool “let’s scan all your junk” thing, and find all those pics you had squirreled away in random folders. Don’t want ‘em? Right click the folder and choose to remove them from Picasa. Simple as that. In the future, you can just go into Tools -> Folder Management and select examctly which folders you’d like to have Picasa monitor – by default it was placing all my junk in date-sorted folders.
But the kick in the nuts for Apple? The import from iPhoto feature. I took all the photos I had in Apple’s little database (20+gig) and pulled them back out into folders that normal human beings can understand. I have always hated the iPhoto database. One hint: I imported all my iPhoto pics to Picasa, then removed it from Picasa using the Folder Management piece of Picasa. Then? Re-added it. This allowed me to rename the default “Imported from iPhoto” folder that Picasa created for me – and that I couldn’t easily figure out how to rename.
On first blush? Picasa has killed iPhoto. It’s hella faster, it’s prettier, it’s organization of your photos makes sense (folders, anyone?) and if you don’t care about being able to create Apple-pre-defined calendars and books right from the interface, you’ve definitely got on of the next top ten apps for your Mac. Thank you, Google!
More reading about Picasa for the Mac:
Hands-on with Picasa for the Mac
Official Google Blog: Introducing Picasa for Mac (at Macworld!)
Picasa for Mac Beta Released, First Look
After an Agonizing Wait, Picasa for Mac Finally Arrives
Categorised as: GeekTech
Awesome news!!