Mr. Web Diva, who happens to be a first-rate photographer, has been using Google’s Picasa for a year or so now and has been quite happy with it. So I thought I’d try it out and see how it would work for my graphic needs as a church webmaster. Specifically I looked at how it would perform the same six functions I covered for Photoshop.

To begin with, I had to use his PC, because Picasa doesn’t run on Macs. I suppose Google’s logic is that Mac users have iPhoto, which covers much of the same territory. However, this in itself rules Picasa out for me. Nevertheless, for those of you on PCs who can’t afford Photoshop, I persevered. Here’s how Picasa performed on basic graphic needs for a church webmaster.

Rotate
To rotate a photo 90 degrees, you simply click the icon near the bottom of the screen. Small adjustments are done using the “Basic Fixes” tab and selecting “Straighten.” As is generally true of Picasa, it’s easy and intuitive.

Crop
Also under “Basic Fixes,” select “Crop.” If you then select the manual mode, you have as much control as in Photoshop.

Resize
Shrinking a photo is done at the point you save it. Click the “Export” button and then adjust with the “Image Size Options.” Unfortunately it only lets you adjust the longer side of the photo. In my example used for Photoshop, I’d have had to guess or do some serious arithmetic to figure out how to get the width to 180 pixels.

Save for Web
In the same export panel used for resizing, there is an “Image Quality” dropdown with five choices (including “Custom”). “Normal” seems to be what I would call web-optimized. “Custom” makes fine tuning possible, but it’s like Photoshop before version 5.5 – you’re flying blind; there is no preview.

Sharpen
If you have a fuzzy photo to start with, before you export it, select the “Effects” tab and then sharpen. Fine-tuning isn’t possible. Also, I gather when you resize a photo (during the export), Picasa automatically sharpens it for you.

Make a transparent background
Picasa is strictly a photo editor. It saves files as jpegs, not gifs, and so it can’t be used for a transparent background.

All-in-all, Picasa is wonderful for its intended purpose – photo management. It’s intuitive and you can’t beat the price. It particularly shines if you want to create a web photo album. However, no church webmaster (whether with PC or without) is going to be able to rely on Picasa for all of their graphic needs. It’s not a Photoshop replacement, nor is it meant to be.

The good news is that in the comments on my previous post, Scott and Lance both recommended GIMP, which is free and open-source. I know Scott and Lance and respect their opinions. GIMP runs on all major platforms, so next up I’m going to give it a whirl in hopes that it’s a better match.