Picasa 3.6, now with collaborative albums - Build 95.18

You can now download Picasa 3.6, the latest release of Picasa photo management software, at picasa.google.com.

Key updates in Picasa 3.6:

• Added support for Collaborative Albums. Now you can upload to a friend's album right from Picasa. You can also invite collaborators to your own albums when you're uploading photos or sharing with friends.
• Added option to share with groups during upload process.
• Added name tag recommendations when viewing albums or folder in the People Panel.
• Improved control over name tags: you can remove certain folders from being scanned for faces by toggling face detection for any folder.
• Added the ability to create and save custom crop sizes.
• Added an option to preserve original JPG compression quality when uploading to Picasa Web Albums. This will take up more online storage space, but upgrade prices are now much more affordable.
• Added option to import photos by date taken, today's date, or a custom folder name. If "date taken" is selected, photos will be automatically organized and saved to separate folders by date.

For more information, check out the Picasa 3.6 launch post on the Google Photos blog. Feedback and questions are also welcome in our forums.

This ReadMe page appears when a new version of Picasa software is available, and tells you what changes and improvements are in each release.

Picasa 3.5, now with name tags - Build 79.67

We're happy to announce the launch of Picasa 3.5, the latest release of Picasa photo management software. If you don't want to wait until we autoupdate everyone to Picasa 3.5, you can download it at picasa.google.com.

This ReadMe page appears when a new version of Picasa software is available, and tells you what changes and improvements are in each release.

Picasa 3.5 is a significant upgrade from Picasa 3.1. For an in-depth overview of what's new, you can play the video below, read our launch post on the Google Photos blog, or consult the "Picasa 3 New Features" support document. Feedback and questions are also welcome in our user forums.



A brief summary of changes in this release, versus Picasa 3.1:

Name tags

• Name tags help you organize your photos by what matters most: the people in them.
  
• Picasa identifies similar faces in your photos and puts these into the "Unnamed people" album. To add a name tag, just click "Add a name" and type the person's name.
  
• After you've tagged some pictures, you can do creative things with your name tags, like finding all the photos with the same two people in them or creating a face collage with just one click.
  
• Name tags in Picasa use the same technology that has powered name tags in Picasa Web Albums since last fall.

Geotags with integrated Google Maps

• Integrated Google Maps make adding geotags to your photos even easier.

Improved import room

• Totally re-designed import process allows you to import photos from your camera or memory card, and upload selected photos to Picasa Web Albums in one step.

Improved tags

• Picasa 3.5 has a brand new tags panel.
  
• 'Quick Tag' functionality allows you to access your most commonly used tags, and tag counts show the number of photos to which a tag has been applied.

Picasa update available - Build 71.43

Changes since our last autoupdate:

• Updated RAW Support for new cameras.
• Added support for color profiles.
• Integrated user stats reporting. You can opt-out on the Tools > Options > General tab.
• Increased the video size upload limit to Picasa Web Albums to 1GB.
• Improved Sharpen, Glow, and Film Grain filters so the previews match the saved file better.
• Added a new beta feature: right-to-left UI for Hebrew and Arabic.
• Various bug fixes to address user issues with database corruption, loading pictures, email, uploading to Picasa Web Albums, and video rendering.

We'll be rolling out this update gradually over the next couple of weeks, and you'll be prompted automatically to download it. If you don't want to wait, you can install it manually from picasa.google.com.

Picasa for Mac (beta 1) -- Build 3.0.0.310

Initial Google Labs beta of Picasa for Mac OS X

(These notes apply to the Mac version only, please see posts below for Windows changelog.)

We're excited to announce that Picasa software is coming to the Mac!  Thank you for helping us test this beta software.

Picasa for Mac looks and works very much like Picasa 3 on other platforms.  For a quick overview of Picasa for Mac, you can consult this support document, or watch the video below.  

A few minor features are not yet functional in this initial public beta, including webcam capture, geotagging, online print ordering, and export to HTML.  In addition, the Photo Viewer software that accompanies Picasa 3 on Windows is not included on the Mac.

Picasa for Mac requires an Intel-based Mac and Mac OS X 10.4+.

We'd like to hear your feedback on this beta -- please visit our support forum and let us know how Picasa works for you, and how we can make it better.