Picasa 3 introduced many interesting new features to the photo organizer including picture sharing, collage creation or spicing up the screensaver.

The main features of the photo organizer can be broken down into four categories: Organize, Edit, Create and Share.

Organize:
Organizing describes the process of scanning the computer system for photos and providing the means to manage them easily. This does include options to import photos from the computer system, devices such as digital cameras or the Internet.

Pictures are organized in folders that are distinguished by date and location. New photos are automatically added to the photo software which is very convenient for the user.

Organizing also means the ability to create custom albums that contain selected photos. Albums can be located on the local computer or on the Internet in which case they are called web albums.

Picasa provides additional options to print, export or email images from within the interface. The export function contains options to resize the image, change its image quality and to add a watermark to it.

Words can be tagged to provide additional means of sorting and finding photos. There is also the option to geo-tag photos to save the location they were taken.

Edit:
Picasa comes with a basic set of image manipulation tools that are not on pair with image editors like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP. It should however be sufficient in most cases. The options are divided into the categories basic fixes, tuning and effects.

Basic fixes include options to remove red eyes, apply auto contrast or color or to add text to the photo. Tuning offers functions to highlight areas, apply shadows or change the color temperature of the image. Effects like glow, saturation or warmify can be applied to the photo in the last category

Create:
Photos can be used to create collages, screensavers and even movie slideshows. Configuring the screensaver could not be easier. It is just a matter of moving photos into the screensaver folder. These photos will then be rotated whenever the screensaver is displayed on the computer monitor.

Creating a movie slideshow is another interesting option. It can be used to display a set of photos as a movie slideshow. It is possible to add music to the movie and to directly upload it to Youtube or save it on the computer.

Share:
Sharing describes the process of making the photos available to other users. This can be in the form of uploading the to a web album or by sending them emails that contain the photos as attachements.

Conclusion:
Picasa is a mighty photo organizer that takes some time to get used to. It has a lot of options for power users and can deal with picture collections of 1 million photos and beyond. The new build is stable and no errors where encountered during tests.