Picasa available for OS X and Linux (free download)

[Ken Lee]

As many of us know, storing large .TIF and .PSD files on external hard drives can result in slow and arduous searching, even on a fast machine. I'm talking about large format film scans, where each file goes from 150MB to 1 GB or more.

For whatever reason, the programs I have used for perusing these images, sit around generating thumbnails, for each directory you try to view - just when you want to see the contents of the directory. In software engineer parlance, that's called "lazy initialization", and while it may make sense to someone trying to conserve resources, it's annoying for the user. (Perhaps their target audience are users with lots of 2 MB JPG files.)

In refreshing contrast, Picasa blasts through these large collections of big files, and lets you browse through thumbnails at a very good pace. Why ? because Picasa generates its own thumbnails, when you first set it up, and it runs a background task which continues to refresh that library, whenever you insert/update/delete and image. Unlike some programs, it leaves your original file structure alone, and whatever metadata it uses, it maintains separately. If you shut it down, it automatically catches up and updates its own metadata in background, when you start it up again. In software parlance, that's called multi-threading, and it's a more effective solution.

Just to be clear: I don't use Picasa for photo editing - just as a fast file browser.

Picasa runs circles around Adobe Bridge - but if you know of something better or faster than Picasa, please share it with the rest of us !

See http://picasa.google.com

[Scott Knowles]

Interesting, both that Picasa is now available for Mac's and that so many here read but haven't responded, either ambivalence or indifference? My only response that if you use Picasa and eBlogger, be careful with your images on Picasa and don't share images between the two without reading Google's system for image sharing.

From what I understand Google actually stores eBlogger images on Picasa, but their designated for eBlogger entries and not visible with Picasa. Once you actually tie the images across databases, meaning "import" them into Picasa for viewing, you're stuck, meaning all images on eBlogger must remain in Picasa and in the same folders, or else they will disappear in your eBlogger posts. This includes any duplicate images in multiple posts, either as the same individual image(s) in individual posts or the same image(s) in multiple posts (which is difficult to track the filename). And there is no undo to the sharing.

And I guess the question is if you want a Google Picasa background process running on your Mac? We all have those anyway (Google's new Earth sync/updater), Apple's Me (iDisk) server, etc.

[Ken Lee]

Thanks Scott.

I don't use the "import" feature, as far as I know, and I don't have eBlogger. I don't use the tool for putting images on the web or blog: just a file browser.

That background task only runs when the app is running, and it's just listening for files being inserted/deleted/updated, so it's not a resource hog. There are so many background tasks running already, and this one is actually helpful.

And, as they say... you can't beat the price. ;)

[Ed Richards]

Lightroom can be set to generate file views from thumbs to 1:1 at file import so you can browse more quickly.

[Ken Lee]

Ed -

For browsing purposes, is Lightroom faster than Adobe Bridge ?

I don't shoot many digital photos, so I don't need many of Lightroom's image-editing features - especially those which let you perform adjustments to batches of images. And I have Photoshop, which ships with Bridge.

Thanks !

[Jeremy Moore]

For browsing purposes, is Lightroom faster than Adobe Bridge ?

I have Lightroom 2 and Bridge CS3. LR2 runs circles around Bridge and I use it for the organizing and tracking of all my images, both born-digital and film scans.

[aphexafx]

I have Lightroom 2 and Bridge CS3. LR2 runs circles around Bridge and I use it for the organizing and tracking of all my images, both born-digital and film scans.

Ditto. I actually keep different catalogs for different projects so that I can easily offload them to DVD once they are completed and I need the space moving forward. Lightroom uses extremely advanced cataloging and thumb-nailing which makes even 60MP+ files very easy to work with.

I can't quite imagine trading in Lightroom for...Picasa...

[Ken Lee]

Thanks ! I will download a trial version and see how things go.

One thing I like about Picasa, is that you can browse more than one directory at a time. You don't have to open and close every branch of a directory tree. You see everything from whatever point you're at, down. If you're at the root of a tree, you see the entire thing at once.

[Jeremy Moore]

One thing I like about Picasa, is that you can browse more than one directory at a time. You don't have to open and close every branch of a directory tree. You see everything from whatever point you're at, down. If you're at the root of a tree, you see the entire thing at once.


LR2 does this and quite a bit more. For instance, say I wanted to find all of the images I shot with a Pentax K20D and a 31mm lens at f/1.8 at iso 200 that I tagged with the keyword "shadows". This just takes a couple of clicks. Scans work the same way, though, you'll have to keyword them yourself as there's no EXIF data captured with the film.

[Ken Lee]

Well, I just tried a trial copy of Lightroom, and you're certainly right: It runs rings around Bridge.

Thanks !!

I'll try it for a while and see what... develops :rolleyes:

[Ken Lee]

LR2 does this and quite a bit more.

But I'm just looking for an efficient browser of thumbnails. Picasa also supports tagging and searching via tags.

Lightroom consumes all the RAM on my 4GB machine, bringing my system to a crawl. Picasa manages to traverse the same files, but somehow takes very little RAM in the process. It seems that Picasa takes more time to consume an image for the first time, but after that, there's very little penalty.

[Jeremy Moore]

Yes, that can be one problem. I'm running a rather robust computer so that's something I hadn't thought about.

[Ken Lee]

Google has updated Picasa recently. They fixed an issue that kept it from refreshing itself often enough. Now it really works nicely on OS X. I stopped using Bridge for the most part.

[Ben Hopson]

I found out after downloading Picasa for Mac that it is only available for Intel Based Mac's. So, if like me you are still using an older Mac, Picasa is not an option.

Ben

[Henry Ambrose]

I like Photo Mechanic. Its really fast and easy.

http://camerabits.com/

[Ken Lee]

"... Picasa for Mac that it is only available for Intel Based Mac's"

Yes, that's true.

After 4 years, I got a new Mac. My old one still works fine, but I got tired of being deprived of some of the newer software, which takes advantage of the Intel platform.

[Ken Lee]

After upgrading to OSX Snow Leopard, I have migrated away from Picasa, back to Adobe Bridge.

It seems that Apple has finally improved the rendering of images, at the same time that Picasa seems to overlook files and never discover them.

So now Bridge is fast enough to render all but my largest TIFF files quickly, and can finally be used for browsing LF files without agonizing delays. It also provides a decent tree-view layout.

[Ron Marshall]

After upgrading to OSX Snow Leopard, I have migrated away from Picasa, back to Adobe Bridge.

It seems that Apple has finally improved the rendering of images, at the same time that Picasa seems to overlook files and never discover them.

So now Bridge is fast enough to render all but my largest TIFF files quickly, and can finally be used for browsing LF files without agonizing delays. It also provides a decent tree-view layout.

Ken, what version of Bridge ie. PS are you using?

I am still on CS2 but will upgrade soon when CS5 (or whatever they will call it) is available.

[Ken Lee]

I still have CS3. I didn't see any compelling reason to get CS4.

(Nor do I need Lightroom, Aperture, etc. since I don't shoot much digital, except for family snapshots).

[Eric Brody]

Ken,

Even if you shoot mostly film, as I did for many years, the ability of Lightroom 2.x to catalog and allow rapid access to scanned files is impressive. I have a pretty large number of 4x5 and medium format scans in my Lightroom database. Many of them are 500mb or even larger, and I can find them (assuming they have been given keywords-usually time well spent), in a heartbeat. I am fortunate to have a fast Mac Pto tower but there's no question Lightroom is the premier photo database program out there, and it integrates seamlessly into Photoshop.

Eric

[Ken Lee]

Thanks Eric, that makes good sense.

I have never gotten around to tagging anything, perhaps because my subject matter is so uniform. How many barns or tulips can a person tag ?

I respect the importance for commercial photographers, who need to manage their images, just as a dentist or doctor needs to manage their patient records. However, being a hobbyist and a visual thinker (for better or worse), I need to browse the images themselves, ordered by date.

Because my photos are made "on vacation", with positive associations and under little stress, I can generally remember which camera, lens, and film I used at the time, and often the exposure itself. I don't make records. If this were for work, I would probably forget much of it within a few days.

So the ability to quickly render thumbnails is where it's at for me.

[Ken Lee]

I figured out why Picasa won't load some of my Photoshop images - and corrected the problem.

Picasa doesn't like .PSD images in 16-bit Grayscale mode. If I convert them to 16-bit RGB, it will import them fine.

So now it's back to Picasa. It's still way faster than Bridge - and it finds files by tags or names quite fast too.