dddave Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 PICASSA is supposed to be so user friendly but it just drives me nuts. I am not particularly technical but I can usually figure things out but PICASSA defeats me almost every time. I'll think I'm doing one thing; It'll do another. It often puts pictures in places I don't want them to be, not where I want them. It tries to do too many things I don't want to do and wants to share with every application on the planet. I just want a program where I can download and logically store images, perform simple edits and easily retrieve and email them without pulling out clumps of hair. Am I alone in this frustration? Suggestions?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tywais Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I use FastStone Image Viewer. It is fast and not a big footprint. It has pretty much everything you need for photo management and is free. I also have Picssa and understand your frustration as I just went through it today trying to get it to organize folders in a different way. However I needed to use it as it makes photo collages very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrel Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 All my technophobic customers found Picasa very easy to use, so I wonder where the OP is going wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Conners Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Picasa is both a image hosting website and a image management tool for the PC (Mac perhaps? I don't know). I think the OP refers to the image hosting part ("..download and logically store images, perform simple edits and easily retrieve and email.."). Maybe he can clarify that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tywais Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I think the OP refers to the image hosting part Good point. Not aware of a similar application that can keep images linked/synched to a hosting site like Picassa can. My recommendation was for image management with e-mail capability only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB1950 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 An alternative to Picassa is Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave111223 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Picasa seems easy to use for me, especially the quick touch up tools. And obviously the main reason for using Picasa is so that you can upload your images: http://picasaweb.google.com/ My only gripe with Picasa is that it doesn't really like using a directory tree/hierarchical structure. I'd like to be able to easily sort the pictures into subfolders, but subfolders show up just the same as the main folders in the navigation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astral Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I hate the way it grabs all the photos on my machine. They are already sorted, so butt out........... I agree Faststone for local access. However the hosting side is good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrel Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I think the OP refers to the image hosting part ("..download and logically store images, perform simple edits and easily retrieve and email.."). Maybe he can clarify that. To me the description sounds exactly like the way the installed client works. (Download from camera, file, edit, add to emails.) Clarification would indeed be useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dddave Posted December 19, 2011 Author Share Posted December 19, 2011 Thanks for the suggestions. I did try to use WINDOWS LIVE PHOTO GALLERY but Picassa overrode it; I never seemed to be able to isolate to the Windows program, everything seemed to go into Picassa by default and I couldn't find how to shut it off. Point taken about Picassa being more a photo hosting site. Indeed, that is NOT what I want. I do very little social networking and rarely pass photos around. I thought it was primarily a storage and editing program; my mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrel Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 Point taken about Picassa being more a photo hosting site. Indeed, that is NOT what I want. I do very little social networking and rarely pass photos around. I thought it was primarily a storage and editing program; my mistake. You didn't make a mistake; the online storage functions in Picasa are quite recent and are in no way obligatory. It works just fine as a local image management tool without any online nonsense. I still dont understand why you are having trouble with the programme though. Plug the camera in: Picasa downloads your pictures to a folder of your choice/naming and deletes the images on the memory card. The main window shows all your folders on the left, in the order you wish (date/name/etc), and the content of the folders as thumbnails on the right. You then change/edit them (without altering the original unless you want to) as you wish from within Picasa by double-clicking on the thembnail. Or add the edited version of them (automatically resized) to an email by selecting them and clicking on the "email" button at the bottom. Or make picture CDs for distribution in the same way. Couldn't really be simpler and I'm surprised you are having trouble. An excellent tool. Windows Live Photo Gallery is a total nightmare in comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lopburi3 Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 Picassa to me is a storage index/editing/printing program and has been so longer than most social networks have been around. And performs quite well. I agree most Google products seem to have an age curve that often makes them somewhat hard for my old mind to understand without reading the manual however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samuijimmy Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Picasa is both a image hosting website and a image management tool for the PC (Mac perhaps? I don't know). I think the OP refers to the image hosting part ("..download and logically store images, perform simple edits and easily retrieve and email.."). Maybe he can clarify that. It works on Macs, exactly the same way as PC version.. My grips with Picasa is you cannot downsize images without uploading to Picnik first... which is time consuming! Needed only when I want to upload images to say Thai Visa, here... (it does downsize them when emailing selected images... etc). It also puts images into folders which cannot be accessed, when you need to upload... only way around that is save them to "desktop"... that I have figured, anyways. You can also set storage settings to Private, so that all your images are not visible to all... Generally though for simple image editing it's quite easy...but like all programs there is a bit of a learning curve. But it's program for email is gmail. Certainly easier to configure than many programs... I have tried many! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ludditeman Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 (edited) ACDSee is the best free (trial) Edited December 20, 2011 by ludditeman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
longball53098 Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 +1 for ACDSee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4evermaat Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 i think with picassa, you can choose in option and when you run it the first time how it searches, organizes photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lopburi3 Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Picasa is both a image hosting website and a image management tool for the PC (Mac perhaps? I don't know). I think the OP refers to the image hosting part ("..download and logically store images, perform simple edits and easily retrieve and email.."). Maybe he can clarify that. It works on Macs, exactly the same way as PC version.. My grips with Picasa is you cannot downsize images without uploading to Picnik first... which is time consuming! Needed only when I want to upload images to say Thai Visa, here... (it does downsize them when emailing selected images... etc). It also puts images into folders which cannot be accessed, when you need to upload... only way around that is save them to "desktop"... that I have figured, anyways. You can also set storage settings to Private, so that all your images are not visible to all... Generally though for simple image editing it's quite easy...but like all programs there is a bit of a learning curve. But it's program for email is gmail. Certainly easier to configure than many programs... I have tried many! You can change pixel size and quality using the export folder icon and put new copy anywhere you want. Have no idea why you can not access folders as I can and believe I just used default which for me is users/me/my photos/date which can also be accessed under Windows 7 libraries/pictures Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrel Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 You can change pixel size and quality using the export folder icon and put new copy anywhere you want. Have no idea why you can not access folders as I can ..... Indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lannig Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I use FastStone Image Viewer. It is fast and not a big footprint. It has pretty much everything you need for photo management and is free. I also have Picssa and understand your frustration as I just went through it today trying to get it to organize folders in a different way. However I needed to use it as it makes photo collages very well. I second this. To me Faststone is the greatest invention since sliced bread. It might not fit the OP's bill as far as organization goes, though. But for visualization and simple editing it's a dream come true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samuijimmy Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Picasa is both a image hosting website and a image management tool for the PC (Mac perhaps? I don't know). I think the OP refers to the image hosting part ("..download and logically store images, perform simple edits and easily retrieve and email.."). Maybe he can clarify that. It works on Macs, exactly the same way as PC version.. My grips with Picasa is you cannot downsize images without uploading to Picnik first... which is time consuming! Needed only when I want to upload images to say Thai Visa, here... (it does downsize them when emailing selected images... etc). It also puts images into folders which cannot be accessed, when you need to upload... only way around that is save them to "desktop"... that I have figured, anyways. You can also set storage settings to Private, so that all your images are not visible to all... Generally though for simple image editing it's quite easy...but like all programs there is a bit of a learning curve. But it's program for email is gmail. Certainly easier to configure than many programs... I have tried many! You can change pixel size and quality using the export folder icon and put new copy anywhere you want. Have no idea why you can not access folders as I can and believe I just used default which for me is users/me/my photos/date which can also be accessed under Windows 7 libraries/pictures Well I'll be bugg#red Lopburi 3 .... thanks for that... I just tried the export... and it worked.... (Suppose one could read the manual.... ) I agree with the Acdsee fans to, it is the program I generally use..on PC. It's been resiziing images on Mac that has been my bug bare. SO HAPPY CAMPER! ... now to sort out how to get into those folders! I actually used to do beta testing for ACDsee and get their programs free ... but now have to pay to upgrade waiting for version 5 to drop more in price... The trial version will only last 30 days I think... Just thought would throw in a pic of what I just resized....thanks again!..... That made my day/ week!! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2008bangkok Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Picasa is by far the easiest thing to use in terms of simplicity and ease of use to upload to the web, i pay $5 a year for 20 gb and not even close to filling it up. I think the problem is maybe the OP does not know how to use it correctly. If you choose only the folders to watch ie the pictures folder or a sub folder within the picture folder then it will only look and add pics from that directory and to do that go to tools>folder manager then remove all entries to watch and only add the folder or subfolder you wish to watch, then its a simple case of any new pics put in that folder will be added to Picasa so please just remove all from folder manager and you will be happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samuijimmy Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Thanks for the suggestions. I did try to use WINDOWS LIVE PHOTO GALLERY but Picassa overrode it; I never seemed to be able to isolate to the Windows program, everything seemed to go into Picassa by default and I couldn't find how to shut it off. Point taken about Picassa being more a photo hosting site. Indeed, that is NOT what I want. I do very little social networking and rarely pass photos around. I thought it was primarily a storage and editing program; my mistake. I think what you need to do to change the default program back to Windows Live. Go to the control panel, click Programs, then click Default programs then you'll see "choose programs that windows uses by default" Then you will get a list of programs you can make "default" ... That should work to get it back to what you had.... (that's on W7) The one thing that is annoying when you download a new program and it takes over...without giving you a chance to decide first.... But pleased you asked the question... sorted my problems with it,...although not sure about that Folder thing yet... Gotta work on that a bit more... thanks to others here... But Picasa is only an optional hosting site more than a social network, not like Twitter or Facebook.... you don't need to use that part of it.... but is handy just to shot off pics to family and friends, but a good way to back up pics, you can set it to Private, so others cannot view it. So long since I used Windows live, I am not sure what it does anymore! ... Hope that works for you! ... Let us know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octagon Posted December 24, 2011 Share Posted December 24, 2011 ACDSee is great. The latest version can be seen here: http://www.acdsee.com/en/products/acdsee-14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astral Posted December 25, 2011 Share Posted December 25, 2011 Plug the camera in: Picasa downloads your pictures to a folder of your choice/naming and deletes the images on the memory card.. OUCH Deletes the files................... And if you made a mistake, you are screwed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
longball53098 Posted December 26, 2011 Share Posted December 26, 2011 I don't use Picasa but this download from a device feature must be configurable so as to not delete but only copy photos from the device. I use ACDSee and the device manager can be set up on where to put the photos and if you want to delete them or not Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrel Posted December 26, 2011 Share Posted December 26, 2011 OUCH Deletes the files................... And if you made a mistake, you are screwed. Deletion is optional, of course, and is protected by an "are you sure" pop-up. And mistakes are for wimps. © Gordon Gekko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elwood Posted December 26, 2011 Share Posted December 26, 2011 Plug the camera in: Picasa downloads your pictures to a folder of your choice/naming and deletes the images on the memory card.. OUCH Deletes the files................... And if you made a mistake, you are screwed. You can alter the settings to leave the files on the camera intact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jybkk Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 I hate the way it grabs all the photos on my machine. They are already sorted, so butt out........... I agree Faststone for local access. However the hosting side is good. In Picasa: "Tools>Folder Manager" Then you can tell which folder you want it to check for new pictures, anytime ,only once or never. Then Picasa will only display folders that you let it scan and in which there are pictures. To have it display your folders they way they are on the drive, do "View>Folder view" and check "Tree view" as well as "Sort by Name". Once you edit a picture, you can save (will replace it with the modified one), Save As (you can choose where you want it on your drive, or Export picture to folder (this I agree, can be a bit misleading, as it is the way you can resize). If you're a bit at loss about where a picture is on your drive, from the Edition window, you can do "File>Locate on Disk" (or CTRL+ENTER) and inthe gallery, you can access this option by right-click on the thumbnail. For resizing a bunch of pics, select several pictures (you can drag them down to the selection window in the bottom left corner) then click "export" and choose the destination size as well as the destination folder... If you use Picasa for storing your picture and you have a smartphone (Android or iPhone), you might want to check google+. The application has a setting to synchronize the pictures taken with your phone to a private album in your Picasa account. You can tell it to sync only when you're connected to wi-fi. After being at home for a few minutes, you'll see your phone pics in that album. Up to you then to sync this folder to your computer and to share or reuse these pictures. Hope this helped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pushit Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 Check out this link to a recent Wanda Sloan article in the Bkk Post http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/computer/271605/keeping-track-of-photos-safely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lopburi3 Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 Plug the camera in: Picasa downloads your pictures to a folder of your choice/naming and deletes the images on the memory card.. OUCH Deletes the files................... And if you made a mistake, you are screwed. It only deletes if you ask it to do so - I do not ask and it does not do so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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