Picasa is so much better than iPhoto

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
OK, OK so it's an opinion but its one based on several hours of use with both applications. I am forced to use a PC at work as I have mentioned before and as a result I need to find applications that ease this travisty.



I downloaded Google's Picasa about 3 or 4 months ago and have spent more and more time with it over the last 2 months. I have been using its basic resizing functions to export many of my pictures into another application that has jpeg restrictions. As a result of this increased usage I find that this application which is in its beta stage eats iPhotos lunch. The ease of use and sorting options work seamlessly and the general coolness factor is way up there.



It's pretty unusual for me to find something on the PC side that I like much more than on the Mac end but this is an exception to that rule and I wanted to share this little Gem with those of you who may not have heard of it yet. Picassa is a free application from Google and although there is not currently a Mac version it states on Googles site that one is in the works.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 150
    kishankishan Posts: 732member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Playmaker

    OK, OK so it's an opinion but its one based on several hours of use with both applications. I am forced to use a PC at work as I have mentioned before and as a result I need to find applications that ease this travisty.



    I downloaded Google's Picasa about 3 or 4 months ago and have spent more and more time with it over the last 2 months. I have been using its basic resizing functions to export many of my pictures into another application that has jpeg restrictions. As a result of this increased usage I find that this application which is in its beta stage eats iPhotos lunch. The ease of use and sorting options work seamlessly and the general coolness factor is way up there.



    It's pretty unusual for me to find something on the PC side that I like much more than on the Mac end but this is an exception to that rule and I wanted to share this little Gem with those of you who may not have heard of it yet. Picassa is a free application from Google and although there is not currently a Mac version it states on Googles site that one is in the works.




    Agreed. I switched only about a month ago and while generally thrilled with my iBook, I wish that Google made a version of Picasa for the Mac.
  • Reply 2 of 150
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Picasa is indeed nice.



    Maybe iPhoto 2006 will compete a bit better.
  • Reply 3 of 150
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but my findings is that Picasa is not color aware? That is, it does not understand color profiles like AdobeRGB and assumes everything is sRGB? I use to whole heartedly recommend Picasa to Windows users, but since I found out about this, I've got my reservations now...
  • Reply 4 of 150
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    Picasa is soooooooooooooooooooooo much better than iPhoto. I really hope they release a Mac version, because I've decided Apple has no interest in making a photo program that doesn't have such a ridiculous backend.



    I decided that two words best sum up pretty much every version of iPhoto: (1) slow (2) fragile
  • Reply 5 of 150
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    I stopped using iPhoto for anything else than import from camera the second I switched computers and found Apple provides no way of moving iPhoto library (or - a subset of moving - to back up the library). It just isn't an app that can be taken seriously. I'm not even an amateur photographer, just a snapshot taker, but not being able to backup is unacceptable.
  • Reply 6 of 150
    Well I agree a use Picasa at work and I really would like to see a Mac version but if Aperture is any indication of where were headed iPhoto 06 should at least interesting.



    Core Image color corection ajustments would be nice, I don't think the current version has this(someone correct me if i'm wrong).



    Versioning like Aperture would be cool too, since most people use JPEG's it would not be that bad performance wise. If your camputer can't handle Core Image it could just fall back and do things like it does now.
  • Reply 7 of 150
    I sort of expected to catcha lot of flack about my original comments, but it's interesting how many people tend to agree who have tried both aplications. I wanted to post the portion about how there is a Mac version in the works but I cant seem to find it anywhere...might have been Google Earth. Let me know if anyone comes across that statement.
  • Reply 8 of 150
    curmicurmi Posts: 70member
    Not having a Windows machine, can someone fill me in on what makes Picasso better than iPhoto? What are the missing features? Is there anything that iPhoto does better?
  • Reply 9 of 150
    I'm with curmi and drumstick...I'd like to know what Picassa does better.



    I had tried it out a year ago and didn't find it compelling.



    A few things I want to know, like drumstick, is how Picassa handles the color profiling...also, can it handle RAW yet?
  • Reply 10 of 150
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    the way iPhoto stores pictures is STUPID. iApps should be able to handle multiple libraries without 3rd party apps, and back up, etc etc. Yeah it's fragil and slow. I love it but it reeeally needs help in this department.
  • Reply 11 of 150
    curmicurmi Posts: 70member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    the way iPhoto stores pictures is STUPID. iApps should be able to handle multiple libraries without 3rd party apps, and back up, etc etc. Yeah it's fragil and slow. I love it but it reeeally needs help in this department.



    So is that something Picasso does? Is that why it is better? Is that the only thing?



    Can someone structure a reply on this? From the above I take it that Picasso can:



    + Handle multiple libraries (what is this exactly)

    + Can back up (in what way? iPhoto can back up in some way. What is different)

    + It has better storage (file system layout? Why is it better?)



    My understanding of iPhoto is that the file system storage is more a database not fit for human visibility. Spotlight doesn't seem to find stuff in it. You can only search in the app. However, you can drag and drop stuff from it. Is it the work flow people don't like?



    So could be get some constructive criticism. Positive and negative. Six thinking hats style maybe. red = what do you feel, white = what is the data, black = what are the bad points, yellow = what are the good, and maybe then green = what can be made better in iPhoto.
  • Reply 12 of 150
    Apple could turn iPhoto into something amazing if people allowed it to up the requirements to 10.4+.



    CoreData and full CoreImage support would be nice additions but nobody will allow it...people with 10.2 and 10.3 will complain and cry about Apple dumping support.



    I too would like to see iPhoto take care of versioning and organizing *without* touching or caring where photos are on the hard drive...but this thing is part of a consumer suite, it needs to run on as many Macs as possible.



    Same with iTunes...it could be 10 times better, but alas, it's being held back by that fact that it has to run on Windows...so no CoreData, no Spotlight, no CoreAudio effects for yuo. The iTunes team has been unwilling to split the codebase and with iTunes 5 and now 6 that whizzed by, it's highly unlikely we're gonna see something done about this for at least another year...
  • Reply 13 of 150
    From what I can remember, Picasa (not Picasso) allows photos to be anywhere. It searches for pictures automatically. There is no notion of a library. Any watched folder is input automatically. It really is quite good in this aspect. Downloaded some files onto the Desktop? No problem, appears in Picasa two seconds later. Downloaded new photos from camera into folder xyz? No problem, appears in Picasa two seconds later, provided xyz is a subfolder of a watched folder at least. You only have to specify which folders are watched. You can move folders and rename from within Picasa, but any changes made external are auto updated from within Picasa as well. This is the program's strongest selling point.



    The worst (for me) is that I don't think it handles color profiles. Everything is assumed to be sRGB. Not sure about RAW support, last I checked, it didn't support, but newer versions might.
  • Reply 14 of 150
    curmicurmi Posts: 70member
    Given spotlight, iPhoto could (potentially) be able to find all your images on your hard drive, and they just appear in iphoto almost instantly. So I would think an iPhoto for Tiger could work even better in this way.



    It sounds like Picasa works better when used with a file system. Given that there is a trend away from that from Apple (and Microsoft) to this spotlight type thing, what does that mean?
  • Reply 15 of 150
    Quote:

    Originally posted by curmi

    Given spotlight, iPhoto could (potentially) be able to find all your images on your hard drive, and they just appear in iphoto almost instantly. So I would think an iPhoto for Tiger could work even better in this way.



    It sounds like Picasa works better when used with a file system. Given that there is a trend away from that from Apple (and Microsoft) to this spotlight type thing, what does that mean?




    Yes, Picasa functions like iPhoto+Spotlight. The program must install something into the OS to auto index new or changed files.



    Your "file system" notion is somewhat confusing to me. The trend you speak of is to manage files by meta-data instead of filenames and folders. Adobe's XMP is also another strong motivator.



    Most of us understand meta-data as information like date, location, event, etc... But try thinking of filenames and folder names as meta-data as well, only that it's static and inflexible. When you rename a file or put it into a folder, you are actually adding "meta-data". The file itself, afterall, is just a bunch of bits. Opening folders is like performing "searches", except that it is static and always returns the same result. So you see, filenames and folders are simply [an obsolete form of] "meta-data".



    Spotlight searches meta-data, including filenames and folders. So, Spotlight is nothing special when you think about it... Picasa does what Spotlight does, in addition to iPhoto functionality.
  • Reply 16 of 150
    Ok. So "yellow hat". What is good about iPhoto?



    You mention:



    + colour profiles

    + RAW support



    What else?



    I'm trying to get a balanced view, and then we can think more about what iPhoto should try to be. What good points can it take from Picasa? What god points does it have? What could it do that neither can?
  • Reply 17 of 150
    nofeernofeer Posts: 2,427member
    what i don't like about iphoto, is it doesn't give me an option to NOT store orginals after changes, it bloats the . library. it may say you have 2500 photos but you may up to 10-12 thousand, since every change is changeable and needs to be kept. on my pc, it's in my pictures, a can burn a disc for backup bingo, not for iphoto i need 2-3 disks that's why my next purchase will be a large backup hardrive to keep backups.
  • Reply 18 of 150
    curmicurmi Posts: 70member
    So does anyone have anything positive to say about iPhoto?



    Does the interface suck compared to Picasa? Does it have poor editing features (red eye etc)? Does the zoom feature suck?
  • Reply 19 of 150
    I would like to know how to back-up iPhoto efficiently. I was copying the whole iPhoto folder to an external HD on a weekly basis. When my Internal HD died and was replaced, I thought simply copying the last backup folder back would work.



    It didn't. There are definitely folders on the external HD that never made it back to the new HD, and most photos ended up being duplicated or triplicated. Any photo that I rotated, for example, came back as the non-rotated image plus the rotated image.



    As a result, my iPhoto library has more than twice the pictures it should have. Since it has over 4000 images it is going to take me a long time to clean it up.



    This is the first Mac prgram that I cannot stand, but only from the back up perspective. All the rest is fine for me. Red-eye works better than PS (IMHO), cropping is beautiful (I use the constraints a lot), and the limited editing is fine.



    David
  • Reply 20 of 150
    kishankishan Posts: 732member
    I like Picasa for the following reasons:



    1. Preservation of the file structure keeps me in control of where the photos are. This is a bigger deal for me for my photos because I often email my photos and...



    2. Picasa has Gmail integration. It will automatically resize the selected photos and open a mail compose window. To email anything from iPhoto I need to first find and resize each photo individually. This is a problem because...



    3. iPhoto does not automatically monitor my computer and create albums from photos I add. With thousands of photos that have no preexisting metdata and still have their original camera file names, Spotlight is useless for me. I don't have the time to relabel or caption each of my old photos. Finding old photos in Picasa is easy because...



    4. Picasa creates albums automatically in chronological order. I wish that I could create albums in iPhoto under calendar year headings. This is exactly how Picasa organizes it albums.



    Ultimately I have no idea about the nuts and bolts of either piece of software. I know nothing about RGB. What I do know is that the Picasa experience was easier for me. I am a guy who shoots snapshots on a regular basis, emails photos on a regular basis and likes to go down memory lane on a regular basis. Picasa has been perfect for me in this regard and I feel a little let down by iPhoto.
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