Posted by Lisa Conquergood, Picnik Team (Cross-posted on the Google Blog)
At Picnik, one of our favorite times of year is Halloween. We get a bit giddy anticipating our braaaaainstorm session for this holiday. We love dreaming up ghouls and ghosts that bring spookiness to your photos.
This October we brought back mob favorites; like Vampire and Zombie, Lightning and Ghostify. And we've introduced new effects to add eeriness with one-click, unearthly textures and heaps of new stickers.
Halloween Effects: Feeling beastly? Our mad scientists created tools to turn you into a zombie, vampire or other creature of the dark. Plus, many other effects to give your photo a mysterious cast.
Halloween Stickers: We crawled up to the attic and dusted off trunks full of stickers, so you can add everything from witch hats, ghosts, and jack-o-lanterns to tombstones, fangs, lesions and bats.
Halloween Fonts: We unearthed some of the spookiest fonts around so you can add text to your photo written in skeletons, ghosts or other treacherous text.
To find these fiendish delights, go to picnik.com/halloween. This Halloween, you can dress up your photos without even putting on a costume..
Posted by Jonah Jones, User Experience Designer, Google Maps Team
Here at Google, we love the experience of browsing photos on a map, and today it just got a lot easier. We have launched an update to the design of the Photo layer in Google Maps to provide you with a better experience when browsing your favourite places:
There are three main improvements in this latest update:
Firstly, we have made improvements to the density of the photos on the map, making it easier to see clusters of photos in popular locations. On the screenshot above, you can now well see that there are a lot more photos taken on the coast than there are inland.
Secondly, we’ve made the small thumbnails partially transparent, making it easier to see the underlying map, and helping you to stay oriented. On the screenshot above, the city and neighbourhood labels are now more legible.
Finally, we are showing more information when you hover over a photo. Now, you can see a large thumbnail and the title of each image, so you can get a fast preview of what any photo looks like.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the new layer, so feel free to leave us your comments in the Panoramio forum.
Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager
Back on July 7th we announced the Democracy Photo Challenge, a photo competition that asked people from around the world to use the medium of photography to express what democracy means to them.
Nearly 3,000 photos were submitted by photographers from 131 countries, capturing the unique and many times stunning interpretations of this personal concept.
Wednesday, on the International Day of Democracy, the 12 winning photos were officially unveiled at the United Nations in New York City, where they will be exhibited in the South lobby until October 11th.
If you're in the New York City area we invite you to visit the exhibit to view the photos first hand, and if not, to take a virtual tour of the winning photos and add your own voice to the conversation by leaving comments or "liking" your favorites photos.
The Picasa team is honored to have helped the US Department of State and their partners further this global conversation through photography, and excited to launch more photo challenges in the future.
Posted by Jonathan Sposato, Product Management — Photos Team
It used to be all or nothing when it came to sharing a new Picasa Web Album in Buzz. If you created a public album in Picasa Web Albums, it created a public Google Buzz post. That was great for when you wanted to share your photos broadly. But for those times when you wanted to share with a smaller circle — no Buzz.
Now when you create a private album, the select people you choose to share your photo album with will see a notification in Google Buzz as well.
Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager
In the few weeks that have passed since we announced the first ever Picasa Web Albums powered contest, the Democracy Photo Challenge, nearly 3,000 photos from 131 countries were submitted.
A jury has narrowed down the field of democracy themed photos to 36 finalists and now it's up to the general public to vote for the 12 winning photos, by clicking the "like" button under any photo in the finalist Picasa Web Album.
The winners will be announced on the United Nations’ (UN) International Day of Democracy, September 15, with the winning photographs exhibited at the UN in New York.
Today, we released the latest version of Picasa with lots of cool new features but there’s one item that we’re particularly excited about.
Face movies create a movie based around one person both figuratively and literally. Instead of the usual transition from one photo to the next, the images align themselves to the face in the photo. This creates an extremely smooth viewing experience which allows the person in the photos to remain the focus rather than the transition effects themselves.
Words cannot adequately describe this feature, it’s better to see it for yourself:
Some more items in this release:
Picnik integration
A few weeks ago we announced the integration of Picnik, the powerful online photo editor, into Picasa Web Albums. We’re now excited to bring this same functionality to Picasa. You can now use Picnik’s rich editing tools and effects from right inside of Picasa and see where your creativity takes you.
Batch upload from Picasa to Picasa Web Albums
With this new version of Picasa we’re also fulfilling a popular request: batch upload from Picasa right to your Picasa Web Albums account. In addition to uploading multiple photos, you can now upload entire albums, all at the same time, plus remove albums from your Picasa Web account, change the upload size, visibility and sync state of photos that are already online.
Metadata updates
For those of us who enjoy the technical side of photography, we have some nice metadata (information stored inside of your image file) updates too, including support of Color Management. Picasa will now read the metadata from your photo and present the photo in the correct color space, thus improving the way your photo displays on your monitor or TV screen.
Picasa also has expanded support of XMP, which will be presented in an easy and accessible way alongside your image in the Properties panel. You can find people, places and tags in this space as well.
We’re also adding a few other under-the-hood updates such as improved support of external drives, increased efficiency of CPU usage, and improved settings when sharing with your Gmail contact groups.
This latest release is in English only for now, but we plan to roll out additional languages soon. Download Picasa today and, as always, feedback and questions are welcome in our forums.
Updated 10/20/2010. Now these features can be enjoyed around the world. Today, we launched Picasa 3.8 in all 38 (35 for Mac) supported languages.
Last fall, as northern hemisphere-dwellers were enjoying the picturesque crisp days of autumn, we had an idea to host an Autumn photo challenge to uncover the hidden talents of the Picasa community. We were excited by the creativity and skill that our Picasa lovers displayed in our gallery &mdash see for yourself!
On a recent visit to Europe, we were so impressed with the architectural variety of the historical and contemporary buildings there that we were inspired to host the first Picasa Photo Challenge in Europe. We invited Dutch, French, German, Polish and Spanish communities to show off their best photo of architecture. Our Picasa community in Europe impressed and delighted us all. Unfortunately we could only choose one winner for each language group. The most ‘liked’ picture won the challenge and they are proudly featured on our Featured Photos page.
We want to thank all of our European users for their enthusiastic participation and a send a big congratulations to the winners!
Posted by Jason Holt, Software Engineer for Street View
Ever marveled at the way many retail sites create 360 views of products? Now you can bring your own photo albums to life by clicking and dragging left and right on a photo in full screen mode. This works especially well if you put an object on a turntable, but even if you're not looking to create a 3-D effect, it also provides a unique browsing experience for albums in general, like our featured shots from the 2010 Winter games.
This feature is available in our embedded album viewer, or if you prefer to host a viewer and images on your own site, check out the Swivel Viewer site at code.google.com, where you'll find an Open Source embeddable album viewer that also supports zooming and panning.
Posted by Thomas Kang and Steve Leroux, Software Engineers for Picasa Web and Picnik
A few months back we welcomed Picnik, the powerful online photo editor, into the Google family and today we’re happy to share the first of more exciting things to come.
Picnik’s rich editing tools are now integrated into Picasa Web Albums allowing you to experience them without ever having to leave your account. As long as you’re using Picasa in one of the Picnik supported languages, just click ‘edit’ from the edit drop down menu or from the new handy Picnik icon.
Then, Picnik away by applying an effect, adding a sticker, or exploring your own creative path with advanced tools. When you are done editing your photo, save back to your album by either replacing the existing image or making a new copy.
Sometimes 1+1 really does equal more than 2. Happy Picniking (from right inside of Picasa Web Albums).
Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager
What does democracy mean to you? This is a personal question whose answer can be expressed in many ways--with lines of prose, a video documentary, or a even single photo.
To inspire people around the world to use photography to share their individual perspectives on democracy, a unique group of partners made up of democracy and youth organizations, academia, the film/entertainment industry, technology companies and the U.S. Department of State launched The Democracy Photo Challenge, the first contest powered by Picasa Web Albums.
Submissions will be accepted by photographers of any experience level until July 28, followed by the selection of 36 finalists by an independent jury. The public will choose 12 winners during a global online vote from August 19 - 26, and the winning photos will be part of a special exhibition at the United Nations and at other venues.
Posted by K. Michael Alexander, Picnik UI Designer
The Picnik team recently launched a set of soccer-themed photo editing effects that make it easy and fun to show the world which team you’re cheering for in South Africa.
With the new effects, you can add digital face paint, soccer-themed stickers and team flag overlays, customized for each of the 32 qualifying teams. To get started, go to picnik.com and choose a photo to edit — you can upload from your computer or import one of your photos from Picasa Web Albums, Facebook, or other photo site. Pick a team from the pulldown menu, select a Soccer Fever effect you want to add, and edit away.
Photos can be displayed in all sorts of places; on a wall, on your desk or in a Picasa Web Album. We recently announced yet another place — the Google homepage, where you can use your favorite photos or images as a background. If you store your photos in Picasa Web Albums, you can choose a photo right from your existing albums. There is also the option to upload a photo from your computer or choose one from a public gallery of featured photos hosted by Picasa.
When you visit google.com, you’ll see a link in the lower left-hand corner inviting you to "Change background image." For those of you outside of the U.S. we will begin rolling this out to you within the next few days. If you don’t see the link yet, please check back soon.
Once you’ve customized your homepage with a fun personal photo we’d love to see what it looks like. Tweet a picture of your page with the hashtag #myGooglepage to share it with us.
Six months ago we began offering a free 4GB SDHC Eye-Fi card (a $95 value) to anyone who bought 200 GB of Google paid storage for $50, which is shared between Picasa Web Albums, Gmail, and Google Docs. An Eye-Fi card lets you wirelessly upload photos and videos from your camera directly to Picasa Web Albums, or straight to your computer - no cables needed.
As with all special offers, this too must come to an end: this Thursday, May 27th, is the last day to take advantage of this deal. Head to picasa.google.com/eyefi.html to check out all the details and get one for yourself.
Posted by Roger Trias i Sanz, Panoramio Software Engineer
The Panoramio team is happy to announce the recent launch of the Panoramio Widget API, an easy way to publish photos of your favorite places on any site or blog you own. Using a Panoramio widget, you can share photos from your far-off travels or pics of your favorite local haunts.
The Panoramio widgets are highly customizable, so you can embed a photo slideshow, a set of thumbnails, or just a single photo. We'd love your feedback, so please let us know what you think about these new widgets in the Panoramio forum.
Like many other things in life, photos are best when shared. I share the majority of my photos on Picasa Web Albums, but I also sometimes tweet about specific photos or share them on my blog. Today, we're making it a little simpler to share your PWA photos to whichever destination you want, with the launch of easy share buttons for Google Buzz, Blogger and Twitter.
To share a photo or album from Picasa Web Albums straight to any of these sites, just click the appropriate icon to the right of your photo, customize your message, and post it.
We also know that sometimes you don't want to share quite so publicly, but actually just want to share a link to a single unlisted photo, without revealing the whole album. We've now made this possible, by updating the "Link to this photo" URL so that the album name is hidden on the viewer's photo page (the "Share" button still works as normal).
Check out our Help Center for more information, and please let us know what you think about the new sharing options in our forum.
Posted by Evan Tsang and Tammy McLeod, Software Engineers
We want Picasa Web Albums to be a place you can share and store all your digital photos, regardless of how many you have. We recently made extra storage really affordable, but until now, Picasa Web accounts have been limited to a maximum of 1,000 albums. We heard that you needed more room, and because we want you to keep sharing your photos and posting them to Buzz, we've worked hard to now raise this limit to 10,000 albums.
Since we want the Picasa Web experience to be really fast, the default view still only shows a hundred albums. If you have more than a hundred albums, you'll see two links at the bottom of your screen that let you to load the rest.
In a world where everything seems to be getting smaller and smaller, we still believe that bigger is sometimes better. On the photos team, we know this is definitely true. That's why we're happy to announce LifeSizeTM on Picasa Web Albums, an easy way to create and print larger-than-life versions of your photos, all from the comfort of your own home. LifeSize uses intelligent shape detection software to find the subject in your photo and automatically determines its approximate real-life height based on background scenery, surrounding objects, and the ratio of the subject's foot-to-navel length and the navel-to-head length. Check it out and make your own really, really big photo at picasa.google.com/lifesize.
We launched Picasa for Mac in Google Labs just over a year ago, and it's grown up fast. With the 3.5 launch, Picasa for Mac matched the features of Picasa for PC, and today we're excited to announce the next milestone: Picasa for Mac is now available in 35 languages. For the first time, Mac users who speak languages other than English can take advantage of Picasa's free photo-editing and organization tools, plus lots of new stuff that's been added recently: adding name tags, creating collaborative albums, and geotagging photos using Google Maps. For an in-depth overview of all the new features available, check out our launch blog posts for Picasa 3.5 and 3.6 or the Picasa Help Center.
To get Picasa 3.6 for Mac in your language, download the newest version from picasa.google.com/mac/ 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 in System Preferences.
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.
.jpg)
