Picasa 3.8: Face movies, Picnik integration, batch upload, and more

Posted by Jonathan Sposato, Product Management

Today, we released the latest version of Picasa with lots of cool new features but there’s one item that we’re particularly excited about.

Face movies create a movie based around one person both figuratively and literally. Instead of the usual transition from one photo to the next, the images align themselves to the face in the photo. This creates an extremely smooth viewing experience which allows the person in the photos to remain the focus rather than the transition effects themselves.

Words cannot adequately describe this feature, it’s better to see it for yourself:



Some more items in this release:

Picnik integration
A few weeks ago we announced the integration of Picnik, the powerful online photo editor, into Picasa Web Albums. We’re now excited to bring this same functionality to Picasa. You can now use Picnik’s rich editing tools and effects from right inside of Picasa and see where your creativity takes you.

Batch upload from Picasa to Picasa Web Albums
With this new version of Picasa we’re also fulfilling a popular request: batch upload from Picasa right to your Picasa Web Albums account. In addition to uploading multiple photos, you can now upload entire albums, all at the same time, plus remove albums from your Picasa Web account, change the upload size, visibility and sync state of photos that are already online.

Metadata updates
For those of us who enjoy the technical side of photography, we have some nice metadata (information stored inside of your image file) updates too, including support of Color Management. Picasa will now read the metadata from your photo and present the photo in the correct color space, thus improving the way your photo displays on your monitor or TV screen.

Picasa also has expanded support of XMP, which will be presented in an easy and accessible way alongside your image in the Properties panel. You can find people, places and tags in this space as well.

We’re also adding a few other under-the-hood updates such as improved support of external drives, increased efficiency of CPU usage, and improved settings when sharing with your Gmail contact groups.

This latest release is in English only for now, but we plan to roll out additional languages soon. Download Picasa today and, as always, feedback and questions are welcome in our forums.

Updated 10/20/2010. Now these features can be enjoyed around the world. Today, we launched Picasa 3.8 in all 38 (35 for Mac) supported languages.

More “I do”s, less “to-do”s: wedding planning simplified

Posted by Lisa Conquergood, Senior Product Marketing Manager

Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and the Google Docs Blog

For many, your wedding day is one of the biggest, most momentous days of your life. The perfect dress, the right tuxedo, the proper shade of blue, the three-tier cake with chocolate fondant, and all of your closest family and friends—these are just a few of the many things you might think about for your special day. Although there’s much to consider and a lot of work to do, the payoff is great: it’s one of the happiest days of your life.

To help you plan this important day we’ve created wedding-specific templates in Google Sites, Google Docs and Picnik, and gathered tips and tricks for using these and other Google products at google.com/weddings. From wedding websites to save-the-date cards, these tools simplify wedding planning, letting you focus your time on the fun things—like tasting cakes!

We teamed up with renowned wedding planner Michelle Rago, who provided her insight and creativity to guide the designs you’ll find on this new site. Michelle also shared her experience to provide tips and advice to keep your guests comfortable and you sane.

We’re also hosting a wedding sweepstakes, so if you’re getting married in the next year you can enter for a chance to win ,000 towards your dream wedding (see Official Rules). Plus, Michelle Rago and her team will advise the winning couple on location, flowers, food and other design elements to create a day that is uniquely their own. (Update: The Google Dream Wedding Sweepstakes is closed and is no longer taking entries. Thanks for your interest.)

Visit google.com/weddings to start planning, or share the site with your favorite betrothed couple and help them on their way to wedded bliss.

More storage, more photos, more fun

Posted by Matt Steiner, Engineering Lead-Photos Team

With Picasa Web Albums, you automatically get one gigabyte of free storage. As some of you may have noticed, we recently changed the way storage works so you can continue to share and store images even after you fill up that free gig.

In the past, each image and video you uploaded counted toward your free 1GB. Now, uploaded images that are 800 pixels or smaller and videos that are 15 minutes or less in length no longer count against your free storage limit. This means you can upload and store unlimited photos and videos at the above sizes -- for free!

800-pixels is a good size for sharing pictures on the web, but if you prefer uploading your images at a larger size for better quality (archival or print), and you are nearing the 1GB limit, you can always purchase additional storage for as little as /year. To check your available storage amount scroll to the bottom of your home page or view your settings.

For those of you who’ve already purchased additional storage, any existing 800-pixel images or videos shorter than 15 minutes will no longer count toward your storage limit, so enjoy the extra space and post away!

We hope you enjoy the change, and we’d love to hear what you think.

A more picturesque Google profile

Posted by Dave Cohen, Engineer Google Photos

Recently we updated Google Profiles to help you decide what the world sees when it searches for you. Your profile and scrapbook photos already make it easier for people to get to know you, but we want to do more to help you showcase your favorite pics.

Now you can add Picasa Web Albums to your Google profiles. By choosing to show the “PicasaWeb” tab, you will enable visitors to see your public albums. Private albums will remain visible to only the people you’ve shared them with directly.

Add Picasa Web Albums to your profile now by visiting profiles.google.com. We hope you enjoy this change, and be sure to let us know what you think in our forum. Happy posting!