Macworld '09 came with exciting new products and launches and one of them is the all new iLife '09 which will be moved to Apple's very own Clouds. iLife includes iPhoto and iMovie and both of these apps are packaged with exciting features.
iPhoto is a response to Google's Picasa and therefore I thought it to be necessary to compare extensively the features of the two and so here they go:
1. Pricing: Picasa is Free whereas iPhoto costs 79$ and 99$ for family pack
Be patience and mess with iPhoto. I was so frustrated at 1st because I don't think it's as user friendly and easy to learn as Picasa. But if you take time to learn a few basic things and go through the tutorials I believe iPhoto is actually better by far. You have to stick it out for and mess with it for a little while. The thing I loved most about Picasa and hate about Google Photo and iPhoto is that when I moved a photo to a folder, that was the only place I would see it. It wasn’t sitting on a screen with 30,00 other pictures to wade through and no way to know if they were in a folder or or had been edited or not. There are more alternatives than iPhoto and Picasa in the Mac OS X photo management world, see '9 Photo Management Apps for OS X (released )' for more details. This is a selection of various photo management software for the Mac. An iPhoto plugin and a standalone program for uploading photos were available for Mac OS X 10.4 and later. In July 2004, Google acquired Picasa from Lifescape and began offering it as freeware. 4 On February 12, 2016, Google announced it was discontinuing support for Picasa.
2. Organizing Photos: Picasa helps in organizing your photos in one place and categorizing them for future viewing. Photos can be placed categorically in separate folders and Picasa 3 has also given the option of moving the entire folders in the HD or within Picasa main folder.Cons: There is no photo tagging or naming which means you end up searching for them manually and organizing each set manually whereas iPhoto has an amazing feature of categorizing your photos by 'Who, Where and When' but it has to be done manually. Besides, its Faces technology offers face recognition and searching same faces within your albums and group them together. This ofcourse was much needed feature.
3. Geographical Tagging: Picasa has no such feature BUT if you have shot your photos from a GPS enabled camera or your iPhone then your photos are automatically geo-tagged so for example if you want to search for your 18th birthday photos which you celebrated at Eiffel Tower then simply type in Eiffel Tower and the photos will jump out. Besides, if you dont have a GPS enabled camera or iPhone then you can also manually tag individual photos or collectively tag a whole album. Its really an innovative feature!
Download Iphoto 11 For Mac
4. Editing & Effects: In Picasa you can use the Retouch tool to remove unsightly blemishes and improve photo quality. It can also help you to restore old photos with marks, water stains, and scratches to excellent condition. You can also remove Red eye and give your photos a professional look whereas in iPhoto you can remove red-eye, adjust exposure, brightness, and contrast and add instant one click effects like convert color photos to black and white, give them a classic sepia tone, add a vignette border etc. Crop to frame your subject.
5. Slideshows: Photos, videos, and music can be combined into a movie as a Windows Media file. It can then be shared with friends by uploading it directly to YouTube.You have complete creative control - change the music sync, the slide duration, and slide transition style, among other things. Supported audio formats include mp3 and .wma. You can also add text slides whereas in iPhoto you can create a slideshow using new slideshow themes. Each theme includes professionally designed layouts, titles, and transitions that make a perfect backdrop for your photos. You can embed any song from iTunes library. Slideshows can be customized even further by saving it as a project. Then you can reorder photos, set the length of time individual photos remain onscreen, or, with some themes, choose different transitions. The slideshows can be synced to iPhone or iPod..
6. Screen capture: In Picasa 3 you can directly capture screen aswell as web cam stills right into your Picasa 3 but in iPhoto if you want to capture screen then use the old bob's way.
7. Online Publishing: Automatic publishing to your Youtube or Flickr account is not available but you can do that by adding Picasa plugins whereas in iPhoto you can directly publish to your Youtube and Flickr by simply a click!
8. Sync: Changes to already uploaded photos in your Picasa Web Album are automatically synchronized by Picasa 3 whereas in iPhoto photos can be synchronized using iTunes to sync them to your iPod or iPhone to enjoy and share on the go. Or photos can also be Synchronized to Apple TV and they can then appear on your widescreen TV in full HD quality.
9. Printing in custom covers: No custom covers for printing in Picasa BUT iPhoto makes it drag-and-drop easy to design your own softcover book, wire-bound book, or hardcover book — complete with a photo-wrapped cover and matching dust jacket. You can make your travel books even more special with custom maps that use location data from your photos to illustrate your journey. personalized photo calendar can also be created. You can also send photo greeting cards and postcards featuring your friends and family. Or order professional prints in a variety of sizes and have them shipped directly to your door..
10. Travel Maps: Non existent in Picasa BUT iPhoto ’09 makes travel books with custom maps that illustrate your journey. It uses the location data from photos to generate a beautifully rendered map showing the countries and cities visited. Or you can type in the names of places you’ve visited to create a travel map in any photo book theme. Every map is fully customizable. You can show a point-to-point path of your travels, change the order of the cities, and mark points of interest.
Conclusion: So all in all, there are pros and cons in both but if pricing is not a problem for you then I would recommend you go for the more features packaged in iPhoto especially its all new Geographical Tagging and Faces and One-click publishing features. Picasa will surely catch up and if you have a bundle of photos already on Picasa and moving them to iPhoto could be hectic for you then I would recommend you stay where you are as the photos you want to share on Facebook and Flickr do get tagged and organized and so all the offline features are available for your Picasa stock.
I would appreciate your comments and suggestions.
In case you haven’t heard, iPhoto is going away. Apple is putting all your photos into one basket called simply, “Photos.” It will no longer be offering either of its current photo management tools, iPhoto or Aperture. The iPhoto App on the iPad is already disabled if you upgraded to iOS 8. The Macintosh version will wait till sometime next year when OSX Yosemite is released. I can’t find any information on whether you will still be able to use the iPhoto you currently have, or whether it will stop working like on the iPad. Of course, Apple is providing a migration path to its Photos app and, with full integration of iCloud Photo Library, I expect that this is going to be a very good option. It sounds a lot like Google+ Photos actually, especially the Auto Backup part!
Google Photos Vs Iphoto
I recommend following this procedure now just to be sure that your pictures are not held hostage by iPhoto. You see, iPhoto keeps all your pictures in its proprietary library structure. If you look at your Mac’s folders and files (using Finder,) you will only see one – very large – file for your iPhoto LIbrary. All your pictures are inside that ‘package’ and you can only view them using iPhoto. Picasa, on the other hand is not a container for your photos. It is a tool for viewing, organizing, and editing that works with the individual .jpg files in your computer’s filing system. So, this process of “migrating from iPhoto to Picasa” is really just copying all the pictures out of your iPhoto library and putting them into folders where Picasa – or any other program that works with .jpg files – can see them.
If you’ve been thinking about using Picasa, the announced end of iPhoto gives you the reason to do that now. Picasa for Mac provides the tools to do the work quite easily. This video shows you the process: (please note the comment by Michele below – make sure to check that all your pictures did, indeed, get imported. If not, use iPhoto’s export function)
Google Picasa Mac Download
This tip, and the whole website PicasaGeeks.com are brought to you by Geeks on Tour. We’ve been teaching Picasa since 2004 and have nearly 100 tutorial videos available in our Learning Library.