Google launches Picasa 3 beta

Google releases Picasa 3 photo sharing and manipulation beta
Google releases Picasa 3 photo sharing and manipulation beta

Google has had a cracking week. Not only is it about to celebrate its first ten years in business, the company has announced its new Chrome web browser to much surprise and acclaim and, now, also announces the latest version of its photo sharing and manipulation package, Picasa.

Picasa 3.0 beta is now available "to make publishing photos online easy" according to the blurb on Google's blog.

"Now Picasa Web Albums hosts billions of online photos from around the globe, with users adding millions of new snapshots every day," reads the blog.

Share photos with the entire world

"Each of these photos records a different moment, or a different perspective, but one thing they all have in common is that in each case, the person behind the camera wanted to share their experience with a friend, their extended family, or maybe the world.

The new Picasa updates "are largely focused on how we share and enjoy our photos with others" with a new feature called "name tags" in Picasa Web Albums that helps you quickly and easily label your friends in all your snapshots.

Picasa Web Albums also has a new "Explore" page to let users browse the public content on the site, including "Recent Photos, a near-real-time view of public photos uploaded to Picasa Web Albums."

Picasa itself has also been upgraded with new editing tools that fix red-eye, along with handy new merge, collage and movie making widgets.

Adam Hartley