More than ever before, people are sharing and storing their photos online. But until recently, you had to edit your photos using client software on your computer. Today, we're excited to announce that Google has acquired Picnik, one of the first sites to bring photo editing to the cloud. Using Picnik, you can crop, do touch-ups and add cool effects to your photos, all without leaving your web browser.
We're not announcing any significant changes to Picnik today, though we'll be working hard on integration and new features. As well, we'd like to continue supporting all existing Picnik partners so that users will continue to be able to add their photos from other photo sharing sites, make edits in the cloud and then save and share to all relevant networks.
We're very impressed with the Picnik team and the product they've created, and we're excited to welcome them to Google. We're looking forward to collaborating closely with them to improve the online photo editing experience on the web. In the meantime, we encourage you to head to Picnik, import some of your photos from Picasa Web Albums, Flickr or Facebook and try your hand at photo editing in the cloud!
We're happy to announce that Picasa 3.6 for Windows is now available in 38 languages, so people around the world can add name tags to their photos, create collaborative albums, and geotag their photos using Google Maps. For an in-depth overview of all the new features available in these international editions, check out our launch blog posts for Picasa 3.5 and 3.6 or the Picasa Help Center.
To upgrade to Picasa 3.6 in your language, download it from picasa.google.com or from your local Picasa site. When you load Picasa for the first time, it displays in the same language as your operating system, and you can always easily change your language settings under Options.
Posted by Roger Trias i Sanz, Panoramio Software Engineer
Since we know the Picasa community takes great photos of beautiful places, we're happy to announce that you can now easily upload your photos to Panoramio, a Google-powered site for exploring places through photos. Photos you upload will be shared with the Panoramio community and with the world on Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Search, and more.
To upload a photo to Panoramio, click the "Upload to Panoramio" link below the location map next to a photo in Picasa Web Albums. You'll need to sign in or create a Panoramio account to upload. Photos must be shared publicly in Picasa Web Albums and have a location set to be eligible for upload to Panoramio.
Note that Panoramio creates a duplicate copy of all uploaded photos, so if you choose to delete a photo in the future you'll need to delete it from both places.
Thanks for sharing your favorite place photos with Panoramio!
While thousands of lucky fans get to experience the excitement of the Games live and in person, most of us will only be able to watch from afar. This year, we've created a special Picasa Web Albums gallery so people around the world can get a front row seat to all the action. Whether you're at home or in Vancouver, you can peruse the best user-submitted photos of the Games from Picasa and recent photos from Google News. Click any user-submitted photo to see the full screen version or check out other photos from the album.
Wherever you are in the world, we'd love for you to submit your photos celebrating the Games. Simply upload your pictures to Picasa Web Albums, tag them with "wintergames2010", and make them public. You can even add a location geotag so people can see exactly where your photos were taken. If you're uploading photos from your mobile phone, you can use "wintergames2010" as the email subject and we'll recognize those as well. We'll select the best photos and feature them for the world to see at picasa.google.com/explorethegames.
While you're at it, check out some of the other great stuff Google is doing for sports fans. See it all at www.google.com/games10, including slope-level Street View imagery featuring snowmobile-captured ski runs on Whistler Mountain, an iGoogle gadget with real-time medal counts, news, event results, and schedules, plus much more.
For many of us, the best part about taking photos is sharing them with others. Today, with the launch of Google Buzz, we're giving you a new way to share and view photos online, and start conversations about the things you find interesting.
Google Buzz is built right into Gmail and is fully integrated with Picasa Web Albums. Any photos you upload to and share from Buzz are automatically stored in a new unlisted album in your Picasa Web Albums account, so you can view them from either site. It's easy to upload multiple photos at once from Buzz - just click "Insert: Photo" from a new post, select "upload files," and click "Add photos to post" once they're fully uploaded. Since photos are meant to be viewed fast and full-screen, clicking a photo in Buzz opens an embedded viewer designed to give you an optimal viewing experience.
Getting started with Google Buzz is easy. Just head over to Gmail and click the "Buzz" link below "Inbox" -- Buzz will be linked to your Picasa account by default. Any public photos you upload to Picasa Web Albums will automatically create a new Buzz post populated with the photos. You can also email photos from your Gmail account to buzz@gmail.com, which will automatically upload them to Picasa Web Albums and create a new Buzz post.
Check out the video below for a run-down of some of the stuff you can do with Google Buzz:
Visit buzz.google.com for more information, or head to the Picasa Help Center to find out more about how Buzz and Picasa Web Albums work together.
P.S. Keep in mind that Google Buzz is rolling out gradually, it might be a few days before you get it for your account.
In the past year, we've added several advanced search options for finding public photos in Picasa Web Albums. To help you find the right photo, you can filter your search by aspect ratio, size, photos vs. videos, photos with faces, and more. We're now happy to add one more dimension: the ability to search by camera. Searching by camera allows you to sample the quality of photos taken with a particular brand of camera or a specific model, and could help you make a decision between buying a Nikon D90 or a Canon EOS 50D.
To search by camera, first do a search in Picasa Web Albums. Click the 'Show Options' button, click 'Camera Models...' and then either choose your preferred make or type in a specific model.
Posted by Kelvin Ho, Nexus One Product Manager and Soujanya Bhumkar, CEO and Co-founder, Cooliris
Managing your media on a mobile phone can sometimes be cumbersome – many phones have cameras that make it easy to take photos and record videos on the go, but trying to find and share them afterwards can be a time-consuming process. The new Gallery app, which was developed in partnership with Cooliris for the Nexus One, makes it easier to browse, edit, and share photos and videos on the go.
For starters, when you take photos or videos with your phone, they'll automatically be available in the Gallery under the "Camera" category, so you can quickly browse photos and videos you've taken or view them in automated slideshows. Since you often want to access photos you have stored in the cloud, the Gallery can also sync with multiple Google accounts so you can view and share all of your Picasa Web Albums photos from the Gallery.
Similar to syncing for contacts and email, thumbnails of synced photos are transferred wirelessly, so there's no need to plug your phone into your computer. You can add and select the Google accounts associated with the Picasa photos you want to sync with the Gallery in the "Accounts & sync" tab under Settings. Click on an account and mark the checkbox next to "Sync Picasa Web Albums" to automatically pull your online photos into the Gallery.
It works both ways -- you can upload one or multiple photos from the Gallery right to your Picasa Web Albums, Facebook accounts, or other 3rd party applications. Just click "Share", choose Picasa or Facebook, add a caption, select your destination album (or create a new one) and click Upload.
With just a few clicks, you can also send photos or videos directly to friends or family via text message, email or bluetooth. For photos taken with your phone, you can perform simple edits like cropping or rotating, and can set any photo as a contact icon or wallpaper. To share or edit photos, simply click "Menu" from any photo to bring up the options.
The new Gallery app also makes finding photos really simple. In any album, you can switch between the standard view and grouped view using the toggle at the top right. When you're in grouped view, photos and videos are automatically grouped into digital stacks by date and time, and even by location if geotagging is enabled.
Here's a short video that shows features of the Nexus One camera and Gallery in action:
For now, the Gallery is native to the Nexus One, but it will be available in the future for other Android devices with Android 2.1 or later versions.
