An official blog post last week advised that Google will be “killing” their Picasa Photo product over the coming months. Of course that’s not the words they used, but I’m rather upset so am being a little overdramatic. This has been one of my favourite programmes on both my Mac and PC over the last five or six years to organise, edit and share my photos.
I did notice recently that it was crashing regularly and now this announcement confirms that there will be no future updates. Those with the desktop application will be able to continue to use it, but I suspect that the performance will continue to decline to the point where it’s no longer useful.
It’s actually a surprise that it’s been kept running this long as Google has focussed on their G+ and Google Photo offerings. I really WANT to like them. I do. The power and potential of Google is huge. But none of the major changes to Google Photos have won me over. If they had, I would mind a little less about losing Picasa. The blog post hints that better things are to come…but what are they waiting for?
Last night, I spent a few hours trying to get to know Google Photos better. From my point of view, it has very limited functionality and isn’t very intuitive. Sure, I shouldn’t complain when it’s a free product and of course it takes some time to get used to new things. On the plus side, they are marketing that you can store a lifetime of photos – for free if they are the low res option.
I have tried this via my iMac before, but ended up cancelling it as I just couldn’t figure out their system and it was messing with mine on my computer – I save all my photos in folders depending on the day they were taken, but this app seemed to be (at least then) copying all of these into other folders on my computer which freaked me out a little. I didn’t ever lose any photos – but it was just annoying. I don’t know if this still happens.
Sharing photos with people is still a bit confusing. It’s hard to know if you’re sharing just a photo or an album, and as not many of my friends are using G+ or Google photos, I end up cutting and pasting links across to Facebook – making me wonder why I don’t just share them there in the first place.
Picasa was just such a nice way of really quickly organising stuff into albums, making basic edits, renaming folders and essentially providing a great interface to sort things out on my hard drive. I also used it to create collages, and search for different albums. I’d bulk-upload an album into G+ or export it to my desktop to upload to Facebook or where-ever else I chose.
So now, I’ll just have to find another way of doing all these things. iPhoto is an option but I’ve also never quite fallen in love with that either, especially with the push now to store stuff in the iCloud, which works fairly well but is super expensive, and not easily compatible with my PC products.
Another option is to really take the time to learn Adobe Lightroom, again I’ve tried a few times and ended up going back to Picasa, but now I can’t do that perhaps it’s the right time.
There’s still a chance I’ll fall in love with Google Photos too I suppose. After changing from Apple to Android recently, I do like how I can take a photo or video on my phone and have it appear seconds later in my Google Photos account.
The quirky little auto-assistant on Google Photos is something I’m not sure if I like or not. It tends to throw together random stuff, which probably has more to say about my photo-taking patterns than its algorithms. I mix photos of my kids, my work and things I want to remember….and Google doesn’t know how to seperate these very well (sometimes neither do I). Occasionally though, it comes up with a nice auto video, but one that I have little control to edit -seems you can currently make some small edits on a tablet or mobile but not on a desktop.
Did you ever use Picasa? Will you miss it?
Renee
Zestee 
I have my entire life in Picasa. The facial recognition software alone is amazing. I’ve been using it for 13 years and love it. I don’t care about the web albums, I’m talking about the way it organizes my ACTUAL photos on my computer. I have every family member organized into nice little folders and it’s a great tool for finding their face and making a mosaic with the picasa software. It’s also super fast, and I don’t need to import copies of photos into it, it just KNOWS WHERE MY PHOTOS ARE and shows them to me in an beautiful interface.
Why they would discontinue one of the best software products I’ve ever seen is both sad and amazing.
Can google at least replace it with SOME KIND OF DESKTOP version? It doesn’t have to be as good, or have 1/2 of the features, but can’t they come up with something? I will PAY for it. Please give us something. Don’t kill picasa.
Hi Alex, thanks for your comment and totally agree! Of all the software I’ve used over the years, this is one of my favourites and I’d quite happily pay. Maybe someone will pick up this gap in the market soon. -Renee
It´s not free because very soon you will have to pay for space for your gmail. It´s my case. They moved all my photos from Picasa without asking me and now they say that muy “cloud” is full.
Thanks for your comment, you’re right, it’s not free if you use full sized photos. But you can resize the ones you have uploaded if you wish, or pay for storage if you want to retain the full sized ones. Personally, I use Google Photos for a smaller size (digital) back up and pay for a Dropbox subscription to keep my full sized photos. Good luck! -Renee
Also in a panic, not only was my family life on photo stored in Picasa, but my work life too, loved the ease of the editing and that everything was in one place. My biggest burden though, is that I am unable to find my Picasa photos on my new laptop. I was lucky enough to be one of the final downloads apparently, but now I log in and it doesn’t transfer my photos my my old laptop-so accounts must not be synced? Totally in a panic, logged into Google Photos and none are there either 😦
I can not believe that Picasa is gone. I loved being able to make the collages and have the pictures all twisted. I miss being able to frame my pictures. I miss this program so much and want it back to bad. Google photo’s does not even come close to having the editing option and the building options, the creating options or the sharing options. Please bring back my Picasa. What is it going to take? 😦
Hi Annie, yes a lot of us will miss it, have to say that Google Photos are starting to come up with some neat new features (I like the search option for example), but I wonder if it will ever reach the functionality that Picasa had. Definitely a gap in the market for an alternative, I’d pay for something similar to Picasa. -Renee
I also loved Picasa, it was so easy to use and had all the editing tools I needed. I am so disappointed with Google and wonder if they were paid to kill it so users are forced to pay for other editing programs. These days it’s all about the money!:(
After using Picasa for years, I’m so disappointed in google. I’m not that comfortable.with computers…my family says I kill them and Ido tend to…but I found Picasa to be so user friendly. Google just doesn’t have what I need!!