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Google Reaffirms Its Commitment to Linux with the Launch of Picasa 3

Justin Kerr — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:02:13 -0500

Many Windows users have been running Picasa 3 for the past several weeks now, but Picasa development for Linux has always seemly lagged behind. This all changed on Thursday with a public beta release of Picasa 3 with support for all the major Linux distributions. According to the feature overview, the new version includes many of the new editing and retouching features missing in the previous version as well as a tighter integration with Picasa Web. For Linux users looking to further automate the process of importing photos you will also appreciate the auto detect feature that runs each time you plug in your camera. In a blog post by Google Software Engineer Lei Zhang he reminds the Linux community of Google’s commitment to their platform. Some of its largest contributions have been in the form of patches for the open source WINE project with over 2700 fixes. WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is an application for Linux which allows users to execute programs written for Microsoft Windows. Want to learn more? Check out the November print edition of Maximum PC on sale now for an excellent how to guide on using WINE for gaming in Linux.

Picasa 3.0 Beta: More Speed, Better Photo Repairs and Better RAW Support

Mark Edward Soper — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:44:07 -0500

This week, Google unveiled a public beta of its Picasa 3.0 photo-sharing software. Picasa 3.0 offers a huge number of new and improved features that will appeal to both point and shoot and DSLR users. I was particularly impressed by the following:

A new photo viewer that integrates with Windows Explorer and supports PNG, TGA and RAW formats as well as JPEG, TIFF, BMP, and GIF. The preview window displays thumbnails of other photos in the folder for faster navigation and offers one-click editing in Picasa, one-click uploading, or a one-click slideshow. Even on my less than swift single-core laptop, it displays Canon CR2 RAW files much faster than Windows Live Photo Gallery does. Google tested Picasa 3.0 on systems with up to 1 million photos, and it shows.
The ability to display image metadata for RAW files from within Picasa.
The enhanced photo collage creator with six preset designs along with easy drag and drop repositioning and image rotation. It's so good that I wonder if Microsoft Research's new AutoCollage 2008 (which costs $19.95) can compete.
Improved photo editing tools such as the retouching tool (good for removing scratches and dust) and the tuning tool, which features highlight, shadow, fill light, color picker, and color temperature controls. If you don't want to learn (or pay for) Adobe Photoshop Elements, you can do quite well in fixing less-than-perfect photos.

Here's the photo viewer in action:

And here's the same picture after editing in Picasa:

Picasa 3.0 also adds better integration with the improved Picasa Web Albums utility, better text handling, and much more. Learn more about the new features in Picasa 3.0 at the Picasa blog, or download it and give it a try.

Adobe Photoshop Elements Turns 6

Mark 'Marcus Soperus' Soper — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:26:33 -0500

If it's autumn, it must be time for a new version of Adobe's Photoshop Elements. Photoshop Elements 6 is now available on store shelves as well as from Adobe (but you can beat Adobe's online price by $20 or so by shopping at stores like Wal-Mart). It's been just over a year since version 5.0 hit store shelves, so should PE5 fans head back for a new version?

Photomerge Gets Smarter - and Easier

PE 6 brings the much-improved version of Photomerge pioneered in Photoshop CS3 over to the consumer side. The original Photomerge was designed for landscapes only, but the new version also adds support for faces and group shots - perfect for solving the problem of "somebody's eyes were closed - again!"

Better and Easier Photo Editing

Choose from full-featured, quick, or guided step-by-step photo repairs
Easier area selection tools
Better healing brushes
Easier clone tool operation
Better brightness/contrast controls

Get Artistic with PE6

PE6 improves the black-and-white conversion options inherited from PE5, adds better RAW file support, and an improved photo book creation feature. Like to create multiple versions of a photo? PE6 stacks them automatically for you.

Photo Organizing and Sharing Made Simple

Instead of clicking all over the place to locate CD burning, slide show, email, and other sharing features, PE6 puts them all in one place with the new Sharing Center.

Find the photos you want by specifying multiple search criteria with Smart Albums.

Bundle Up! PE6 + Adobe Premiere Elements 4

Adobe continues to provide single-package savings for photo and video fans by bundling PE6 with the new Premiere Elements 4 (or you can buy it separately). New features in Premiere Elements 4 include:

Support for direct uploading to YouTube and mobile devices
Video style effects and transitions for photo slide shows
Video freeze frame effects
Transformation of frames into disc covers and albums
Movie themes
New audio mixer
Improved title animation
HD /Blu-ray Disc support
Automatic optimization for playback on any device

Time for an Upgrade? Hopefully, Soon!

Whether you're strictly a digital photo fan or have a leg in both the digital photo and digital video world, upgrading to PE6 or the PE6 plus Premiere Element 4 bundle makes sense. Better features and improved ease of use make the upgrade worthwhile - if you use Windows XP SP2 or Vista. Unfortunately, MacOS is still on PE4, but Adobe promises version 6 for MacOS in early 2008.

However, keep in mind that some users are reporting significant bugs in Premiere Elements 4 and some users running Windows Vista are less than pleased with PE6's performance (see related articles). Adobe frequently introduces patch files not long after shipping a program, so keep a watch on the Downloads page at Adobe.com for updates. Hopefully, Adobe will fix any lingering bugs sooner rather than later, because PE6 and Premiere Elements 4 have exciting new features you'll want to try.

How Did You Shoot That Photo? The Metadata Knows...

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 23:19:17 -0500

For years, serious photographers have always recommended, 'write down your exposure, lens, and filter data.' I always smiled, nodded agreeably, and kept shooting. I found that I was often too busy taking pictures to write down the details. Fortunately, I have an industrial-strength memory for f-stops, shutter speeds, film speeds, and other information, but the perfect combination of settings behind some of my favorite conventional photos is lost in the (increasingly distant) past.

Thanks to digital photography, pads and pens can stay in the camera bag. Every digital camera, from the humblest 3x optical zoom point-and-shoot to dSLR powerhouses like the Canon EOS 5D, stores exposure and lens data as part of every digital photo. It's called "metadata," and it's the key to understanding why some of your photos are great - and some need repair in a photo editor before they can even be called 'adequate.'

One Need - Many Solutions

Windows XP can use the free RAW Image Viewer and Thumbnailer PowerToy to view metadata from any digital camera, and to view RAW images from some dSLR models.

You can discover the shutter speed and f-stop used for your photo, the zoom lens focal length, metering method, white balance, and lots more digital goodness.

Windows Vista has exposure metadata viewing built into its Pictures Explorer, and you can edit new fields such as Lens Maker and Lens Type:

Prefer a third-party solution? Try Picasa from Google (use the EXIF display mode). Linux users running a distro that includes GNOME usually have the F-Spot photo organizer already included.

Any way you choose to do it, you need to check out the metadata stored by every digital photo you take. Understanding the combination of factors that lead to great (or awful) photos can help turn you into a better photographer.