Picasa: The Free Photo Editing Software from Google

Google has been a leader in innovation. It keeps on coming with unique ideas to be ahead of all its rivals. And all the ideas turn out to be an instant success. And that's no surprise. The simple reason for this is that they come up with the stuff that has potential to become immediately popular, and has mass appeal. And to ensure mass appeal, they ensure that their stuff is free. This seems like the perfect recipe for their success. And they have done this yet again, with Picasa.

Google understands that digital cameras are becoming more and more popular. And with that, the need to edit and organize images is increasing. There are lots of software out there which provide good image editing capabilities, and lot of software which provide good image organization capabilities. However, there are multiple problems with both: they are technically difficult to use, most of them are paid, and they happen to be two separate entities. Google addressed all this stuff with Picasa.

Google is marketing Picasa as an image editing, organizing, and sharing software. You can edit your images, then organize them, and upload them to web, all using Picasa. In this article, I will tread on just image editing part. We will talk about image uploading and sharing part in the next article.

As I already mentioned, there are lots of image editing software out there. However, they are kind of complicated, in the sense that they provide lots of advanced/technical functionalities. And it makes them difficult to use. And to top that, the good ones come at a hefty price. And this ensure disenchantment with these software. Google seems to have got it all correct with Picasa. The software is really simple to use. It provides all the basic functionalities that normal users need. And it is free!! Could you have asked for more?

You start by selecting the photo you want to edit. Picasa shows all the functions in form of three tabs: Basic Fixes, Tuning, and Effects.