Picasa vs. iPhoto

[CylonGlitch]

Using Picasa doesn't require you to upload anything to Google's servers. It's just an optional thing.

Read the licensing carefully, it doesn't say it has to be posted on their servers, just in their services; which Picasa is. Thus, in theory, they could pull stuff off your computer and use it as long as it is in Picasa. Sorry, won't give anyone those rights.

 

[QCassidy352]

Read the licensing carefully, it doesn't say it has to be posted on their servers, just in their services; which Picasa is. Thus, in theory, they could pull stuff off your computer and use it as long as it is in Picasa. Sorry, won't give anyone those rights.

I agree. Maybe I'm paranoid too, but gmail/search/maps is quite enough of my life to be in google's hands. Not interested in docs/picassa/contacts/calendars, thanks much. iPhoto is awesome, so no reason not to use it. Oh, and with mobile me you can do some pretty great web sharing galleries.

 

[lymbada]

MultiOS ?

Hey.
Just having had our wedding and honeymoon, I now have over 5k photos to sort and organise. Having read through previous points, I was wondering if anyone would be able to humour me with something a little more complicated.

* I have a MBP with iPhoto (08 I think, but can easily upgrade to 09) and Picasa. (also a G4 mini, currently un-used)
* My Wife has a HP, WindowsXP machine with Picasa. (though I am considering an upgrade to Windows7)
* The photos are stored on windows storage server 2003R2, and shared via AFP and/or SMB. (media needs to be on the server as it already has a backup system in operation).

So my question is, has anyone experimented with using iPhoto/Picasa over multiple platforms while maintaining the same library? (as it is preferable to have only 1 library).
or has anyone tried two machine of the same platform with a single library (either Picasa or iPhoto) ?

Matt

 

[allthingsmac]

Related question: how does Picasa handle photo transfer from an iPhone? iPhoto just opens and treats the phone like a camera. Does Picasa do the same?

I downloaded Picasa 3 for Mac today... and my iPhone was connected to my MBP. It automatically offered to import (with an option to cancel). It does so every time I connect my iPhone. So I guess this is pretty similar to how iPhoto works.

 

[macrabbit]

My understanding is that Picasa simply scans and references the actual directories of the photos and allows you to view them, whereas iPhoto took all my pictures/files and created this single large directory file approx. the same size as all my other files. I assume this iPhoto file is basically a read-only mirror of the actual photos/files? To me this doesn't make much sense, as lets say you import 20GB worth of photos from a Windows PC into your Pictures directory in Finder. Is iPhoto going to place another 20GB directory file just so the program can sort properly within itself? On a 120GB MBA, another 20GB is quite a waste of precious space.

Also I wonder after the initial import of all your picture folders into iPhoto, where are newly imported pictures placed? Are they in this black hole directory that I am not suppose to touch, and/or they placed in a new folder within your Pictures finder folder?

I ask because what happens if you dont want to use iPhoto anymore and want to delete the iPhoto library to free up space? If the program is not creating actual folders and placing the imported pictrues in there nice and tidy like, how are you suppose to easily move these pictures around, if they are in this black hole you dont want to use anymore?

I am hoping to use one program and want to give iPhoto a try because of the integration factor. But if I switch down the line to Picasa, is it going to be a huge pain?

hopefully this makes some sense, thanks!

 

[Squidley Bott]

@macrabbit

I can't comment on any of the Picassa features as I've been using iPhoto since it first appeared and see no reason to change.

Your initial paragraph contains a number of items that need to be addressed.
There is no need to copy any photos into the finder - ever.
you import them directly into iPhoto from your source device - phone, camera, external drive/stick, other computer or any image creation app that you may want to use. Just drop your source file/folder onto the iPhoto icon in the dock or into an open iPhoto library. iPhoto will deal with almost any image file format.

While the images are being imported they are being sorted - there is no extra work to be done on that front.

The big 20GB directory file that you see is not a 20GB directory file in the accepted sense, it's what is known as a 'package'. You only see one item in the finder but inside are all the files, carefully arranged in date sequence folders (and a number of others too). It works on the principle "Don't mess with my contents - I know what I'm doing"

If you are used to seeing hierarchical folder structures then this may throw you, but it's done for a very good reason.

Earlier versions of iPhoto did use the traditional folder system - however - the number of times I had to go rescue someone's iphoto system because they had removed a photo from one of the folders in order to use it in some other app, made me realise that the current system is as close to foolproof (or idiot-proof) as it is ever going to get.

Your assumption that the file is a mirror is way way of the mark. The file IS the entire iPhoto library. Every single image. every original, every modified image, every bit of EXIF, every library, every album, etc.,etc.,etc.. If you have copied a folder of images from the finder into iPhoto then you can throw the original folder away (from the computer that is - you obviously keep your camera cards with the original images safe somewhere else.

The second and third paras in your question are effectively the same as the first.

The question I would ask is "why do you want to access the original files and their folders outside of iphoto?" After using iPhoto for a long time I can honestly say that I have never had need to access those folders do do anything. Everything I want or need to do with an image is done within iPhoto or one of the other apps that use the iPhoto libraries. If however, you do really really want to access them they are all there and can be moved to another cataloguing app if you wish. But, after having spent several hundred of pounds on high-end image cataloguing software over the years I find iPhoto beats them all.

Someone else mentioned that they couldn't rate images in iPhoto like they could with Picasa. I don't know how easy it is to do in Picasa but it's a doddle in iPhoto - you can use key-strokes or menu commands or just hit the stars in the info window - seriously easy to rate an image or group of images from 0 stars to 5 stars.

I probably spend 50% of my time at my Mac doing something with images and I use Photoshop for 50% of that time. - However, I only use PS for serious stuff like montages and creative manipulation. Adjustments to exposure and the like and simple retouching of minor blemishes are all done with iPhoto's tools - they are an order of magnitude easier to use than those in PS. Sometimes I might be working in iPhoto and decide that what I need to do is beyond what iPhoto can offer and I need to switch the image to PS. Two mouse clicks and it's in PS. I do what I need to do and close the image and the job is done, and the image in the iPhoto browser changes to show what I have done. If at a later date I wish to revisit the original image (i.e. BEFORE I PSd it), it's simple - every alteration in iPhoto is none destructive - the original is there untouched in that big 20GB file - I get it back from the menu - 'revert to original image'. It's very rare I have to do that - but if I want to I can. If you want to make different versions of an original with different modifications then Command-D will duplicate it the browser (as many times as you like). I do this regularly if I'm using different versions of the same image in something.

Using images outside of iPhoto is where many go wrong, and this is where they start saying they can't get at the files. Just use the image from the browser - that's what it's for. Pulling an image into a Word doc is as simple as pulling an image into a memory stick or a CDR or anything else you might want to pull an image into.

Later today i have to produce a 20 minute presentation in Photomagico (probably the best Slide-show app on a Mac - more control than the iphoto slide-show) All the images are in iPhoto (where else) but I won't have iPhoto open while I create the show. FotMagico will have it's own browser that shows the album I am working with (and music from iTunes as well).

Having said all that - I think iPhoto11 is awful compared to iPhoto09.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

I agree,

I haven't used picasa but I will give you my $.02 or at the very least a couple of points to ponder.

iPhoto is one of Apple's "killer" apps, it continually gets updated and like many other apple apps, it integrates very nicely to other apple programs within iLife, iWork, OSX, iTunes, and of course mobile me.

There's something to be said about that, and while picasa may have benefits I'm not a fan of google especially when they say that once you upload stuff, they can use it. Picasa isn't any different they're service agreement states that they now have a right to your images.



Am I being paranoid, probably a little, but I choose not give my life over to
google and they're marketing machine.

For me Picassa, is to simplistic, I use iPhoto,with my Canon point and shoot,SD900 a lot, but I use Aperture with my Nikon D5100 when it matters

 

[Roofy.]

iphoto '11 is amazing. I save all my photos from the internet as well as any phone pics in it. Every photo on my comp is in iPhoto. I came from an old mac mini with iPhoto 09 and while it was pretty good, its nothing compared to the new iPhoto.

 

[macrabbit]

Thank you Squidley Bott for the concise explanations. You have me reconsidering iPhoto 11, but I have a few major hang-ups before I commit.

-emailing image(s) as attachments from iPhoto's native email function. When I tried the function, Mac email imbedded images instead of attaching.

-native upload function to Picasa Web Albums. I do not see any built in function except for Facebook, Flickr, and few others I do not use. When on the road or traveling, I like Picasa for uploading my photos on the go.

-when uploading photos to the web for various uses (tinypic, craigslist, forums etc), where do I search for the actual photo? Currently using Picasa, its quite easy to simply navigate to the existing folders in Finder.

-Faces. Wastes space, resources, and is not accurate. How do I turn off?

 

[flynz4]

For me Picassa, is to simplistic, I use iPhoto,with my Canon point and shoot,SD900 a lot, but I use Aperture with my Nikon D5100 when it matters

Dave,

I am curious why you do not use Aperture 3 for everything given that it's #1 strength is photo organization. I have migrated everything into A3 including all digital P&S, DSLR, iPhone, and scans. I am currently in the middle of a massive effort to digitize all of our old negatives and slides and they are also going into A3.

/Jim

 

[shotts56]

My tuppence worth, having used Picasa on Windows until earlier this year when I switch over to iPhoto 11 on my iMac.

They are very similar products, and they have a similar feel to each other, and are equally as easy to set up, import images, manage them etc. However, to me Picasa has two advantages over iPhoto :

- syncing iPhoto online to Flickr is a bit more of a manual process than Picasa onto Picasaweb. With Picasa just click one check box and it does it, and constantly keeps each folder up to date. iPhoto's Flickr interface is a bit more long winded, and in my experience sometimes updates the online copy and sometimes doesn't, leading to me having no confidence that the online copy is up-to-date and accurate

- the facial recognition software is iPhoto is significantly poorer. When you import photos to iPhoto, my experience is that 90% of the time it doesn't know who they are and even on the rare ocassion it guesses, it gets it wrong. Its utterly useless with children. My experience with Picasa was that it was right at least 75% of the time.

That's the two advantages that Picasa has over iPhoto, and I honestly can't think of anything the other way around.

My opinion, but after giving iPhoto 6 months I just don't like it and will be going back to Picasa.

 

[MiddleMan]

RE: MultiOS ?

Hey.
* I have a MBP with iPhoto (08 I think, but can easily upgrade to 09) and Picasa. (also a G4 mini, currently un-used)
* My Wife has a HP, WindowsXP machine with Picasa. (though I am considering an upgrade to Windows7)
* The photos are stored on windows storage server 2003R2, and shared via AFP and/or SMB. (media needs to be on the server as it already has a backup system in operation).

So my question is, has anyone experimented with using iPhoto/Picasa over multiple platforms while maintaining the same library? (as it is preferable to have only 1 library).
or has anyone tried two machine of the same platform with a single library (either Picasa or iPhoto) ?

The subject quoted above is the part about iPhoto that bothers me the most. I have used both Picasa and iPhoto extensively and although both are great products overall I think anybody considering using only iPhoto must keep in mind it's restrictive mentality which can be summed up as "do everything, do all, do only on your Mac". iPhoto assumes that it can handle ALL your photos in ONE library located ON your Mac. If you're like me (and the quoted poster) and have a central photo library accessed over a network (for several advantages: backups, multi-user access, multi-OS access, storage) then I wouldn't recommend depending on iPhoto. iPhoto is great with photos local to the Mac, but anything else (multiple libraries, synching, remote access) becomes a headache. For some time now I've been trying to find ways to transition from Picasa to iPhoto for this sort of remote library usage and I get nothing but headaches. I've heard that Apple's Aperture can handle synching and multiple libraries but then you have to pay a pretty penny for that.

PS. the same holds true for iTunes as well. If your world revolves around your Mac, iTunes is great. But if you want to share libraries or access music over a network, good luck. iTunes can handle this stuff a little better than iPhoto, but overall usability is still poor.

 

[windowstomac]

To me it comes down to something simple. On my i5 MBP with 8gb ram, Picasa is quick, iPhoto is slow....

 

[SixPants]

iPhoto 11 on 10.7.2 Painfully Slow

I just switched to Picasa3 after using iPhoto for years. Here's why...

1) Speed.
I don't have a HUGE library. Less than 10k photos. And iPhoto became unbearably slow. So frustrating, even after the database re-builds and other tricks.

2) Picasa is more fun.
Yeah... imagine that! Apple getting beat in the pure "fun" category. Picasa has more fun filters, more fun "projects". It doesn't have the amazing Photo Books of iPhoto but I can just import what I want into iPhoto to do that.

3) PicasaWeb
When it comes to sharing, Google has it down. It's the unlisted link feature that's a huge win for me. I with with PhotoStream I had more options to share. In Picasa I set it to upload starred photos. It's that easy.

4) Contact Sheets
I'm pretty sure you can't print a contact sheet in iPhoto.

5) Collages
Picasa offers 5-6 different collages. Again, it's fun.

I'm really pressed to think how iPhoto beats Picasa3. Picasa2 was still clunky and had a lot of crap. But now that Google is embracing a clean, "minimalistic" interface design with all it's products, it's getting tougher and tougher to ignore all of Google's offerings.

Bias: Let me state my bias here: I love Apple. I have about 10 of their products from ATV2 to iPhones to Nanos. Although the entire Lion 10.7 experience has produced more frustration that I've ever experienced with my mac.

 

[pshie]

Picasa versus iPhoto

I have also been trying out both programs to see which suits my needs better... and these information have been very helpful. I've decided to go to Picasa for couple main reasons:

1. I use Lightroom to import and process my pictures (I take photos in RAW format). Because of this, iPhoto doesn't recognize that I have new pictures and I will need to imported into iPhoto library; whereas Picasa recognizes things right away and updates it real time.

2. Space... even though I have tons of space, I just don't like the idea that iPhoto is making an exact duplicate of my pictures... that's just a waste of space to me.

 

[Mawal]

I used picasa in the windows world and I continue to use iton my mac, here is why


- it uses less resources than iphoto
- it accepts and will no mess with a given folder structure
- it is easy to use

I may switch to lightroom eventually.

 

[hafr]

I have also been trying out both programs to see which suits my needs better... and these information have been very helpful. I've decided to go to Picasa for couple main reasons:

1. I use Lightroom to import and process my pictures (I take photos in RAW format). Because of this, iPhoto doesn't recognize that I have new pictures and I will need to imported into iPhoto library; whereas Picasa recognizes things right away and updates it real time.

2. Space... even though I have tons of space, I just don't like the idea that iPhoto is making an exact duplicate of my pictures... that's just a waste of space to me.

You can just turn off the "Copy into the library" setting, and there's a setting for RAW format there as well. Don't know if this would matter to you, but at least now you know

 

[hafr]

So I've tried Picasa for a few hours now, and there is ONE thing that makes me say "no thank you" and choose iPhoto instead. The backups...

Every time I make a change in the library, Time Machine backs the whole thing up. It's been backing up over 10 GB since my last post, which being on wifi with less than perfect signal reception and not connected to a power source means my battery is being killed. If I was using a stationary computer connected with ethernet, I would've opted for Picasa. But I'm not willing to choose between having acceptable battery life and not backing up when on battery power...