Picasa

toc = Picasa and Picasa Web Albums =

About
Picasa and Picasa Web Albums is a free software package offered by Google that enable users to organize and publish their photos. Picasa is software that is downloaded to a physical location like a users desktop. Picasa then searches for and organizes the photos located in that physical location. Picasa Web Albums is the web component of the software package. Users can choose photos to upload to the web via Picasa Web Albums. These photos can be made private, invitation only, or can be open for public viewing from any device that has internet access (Google, 2011a). For more information about Picasa watch the video below.

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Features
In addition to the traditional photo editing options such as red eye removal and color correction Picasa also offers some more interactive Web 2.0 features.

People - Face detection and recognition
Picasa has facial detection software that scans photos for faces and recognition software that maches like faces. Then the software prompts the user to identify the individuals detected through name tags. After only identifying an individual in a few photos the software can then apply the identification to all the recognized instances of that face. Read more about name tags in Picasa here.

Places - Geo tagging
In combination with Google Maps and Google Earth users can create an interactive experience by adding tags that "will write the longitude and latitude to the photo's EXIF metadata" (Google, 2011b). It also attaches the photo to the appropriate location within Google Maps or Earth, allowing users of either program to be able to see photos of that location taken by users across the globe. In Picasa Web, users browsing a geo-tagged photo can click on the photo and be taken to the map location.

For more information about these features watch Google's Picasa 3.5 Update video:

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For Libraries
Using Picasa or similar software can be invaluable for libraries creating digital image collections. First, it's affordable. Picasa is free up to 1 GB of storage and additional storage starts at only $5/year for 20GB (Google, 2011c). Secondly, the facial recognition technologies can save archivists time and the interactivity of putting images on the open web allows patrons help contribute to the archives by helping to identify people and places within the photos. Additionally, the geo-tagging creates another interactive experience for patrons as they view digital collections.