Take your photos with you anywhere

Monday, February 7, 2011 11:35 AM

Posted by Tammy McLeod, Software engineer

Picasa Web for mobile lets you view and share your photos, browse photos from people you follow, or search public photos from our Picasa Web community. All on the go. Until now, there was a limit to how many photos you could view, but that limit has lifted and you can view all your photos right from your phone. Browse multiple pages of albums and photos by clicking Next and Prev. Just visit https://picasaweb.google.com from the browser on your smartphone and enjoy photos anywhere.

We'd love to hear what you think. Please share your feedback in our forum.

Software downloads for Iran

Wednesday, January 19, 2011 5:11 PM

Posted by Neil Martin, Export Compliance Programs Manager

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

During the protests that erupted in Iran following the disputed Presidential election in June 2009, the central government in Tehran deported all foreign journalists, shut down traditional media outlets, closed off print journalism and disrupted cell phone lines. The government also infiltrated networks, posing as activists and using false identities to round up dissidents. In spite of this, the sharing of information using the Internet prevailed. YouTube and Twitter were cited by journalists, activists and bloggers as the best source for firsthand accounts and on-the-scene footage of the protests and violence across the country. At the time, though, U.S. export controls and sanctions programs prohibited software downloads to Iran.

Some of those export restrictions have now been lifted and today, for the first time, we’re making Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome available for download in Iran. We’re committed to full compliance with U.S. export controls and sanctions programs and, as a condition of our export licenses from the Treasury Department, we will continue to block IP addresses associated with the Iranian government.

Our products are specifically designed to help people create, communicate, share opinions and find information. And we believe that more available products means more choice, more freedom, and ultimately more power for individuals in Iran and across the globe.

Kick off the year with updates from Picasa Web Albums

Monday, January 10, 2011 12:00 PM

Posted by Lisa Conquergood, Photos Team Marketing

We are starting off the year with a few new features in Picasa Web Albums. From metadata, to security, to a new way to zoom, there is a little bit for everyone.

More metadata
For those of you who can’t get enough of the technical side, we expanded the EXIF metadata (information stored inside of your image file) you can view for each photo. You can now get over 200 EXIF tags that are available from your photos including Metering Mode, White Space and Color Balance. From the individual photo page -- where you currently view ‘Photo Information’ like Camera, ISO, Aperture and Exposure -- click on “full details page” to view this new metadata information.

More security
Picasa Web Albums now supports https access. The https protocol encrypts your data as it travels between your web browser and our servers. Using https helps protect data from being snooped by third parties, such as in public wifi hotspots like a library or a coffee shop. We are working to make https the default but for now, to access Picasa Web Albums using this secure protocol, type “https” into your browser instead of “http,” so “https://picasaweb.google.com instead of “http://picasaweb.google.com.”

More oohs and ahhs
Now, you can view images in their full resolution splendor by clicking on the magnifying glass on the photos page. This will bring up your image in a lightbox view, from which you can zoom into the image, up to its full resolution. You will need flash to take advantage of this new feature. This works great for panoramas too.

Thank you to Mike Wiacek for this beautiful image.

How to easily share photos online (and 52 other things you might want to teach your parents)

Monday, December 13, 2010 9:45 AM

Posted by Adrian Soghoian, Product Marketing

My mom recently made a commitment to start photographing things – all sorts of things, to be exact. Everything from my cat’s latest napping spot, my recent college graduation, to my father’s 70th birthday has been captured by my mom’s (recently purchased) digital camera. My four older siblings and I have certainly been grateful to know that we have a designated family photographer taking pictures back home, except with all of us spread out around the country, it’s been difficult to keep track of and share these priceless photos.

I doubt that my family is the only one that has unshared photos lying around. With the holidays coming up, I think there’s no better time to show my mom how easy it can be to share photos online, through services such as Picasa Web Albums.

That’s where TeachParentsTech.org comes in.  A handful of us at Google decided to create a site where “kids” can select basic how-to videos to send to their moms, dads, uncles-- whomever.  Here’s a video I did that shows how to share photos with Picasa Web Albums:

For more videos or to send videos to your loved ones, visit TeachParentsTech.org. Happy holidays!

HD quality videos in Picasa Web Albums

Tuesday, November 9, 2010 10:00 AM

Posted by Detlev Schwabe, Software Engineer - Photos
 
More and more, people are capturing videos (and increasingly high-definition videos) with their cameras and phones. Understandably, we’ve been hearing from a number of you who want to upload high quality videos to your Picasa Web Albums, so your photos and videos are organized in one convenient place. We’re happy to now support uploading high-definition (HD) videos, up to 720p1080p, from Picasa to Picasa Web Albums. Whereas before you could upload, store, and share videos shot in 240 or 360p, now you can do the same for your 480p, and 720p, and 1080p (HD) videos too. 

Just like with photos, more pixels means a sharper video picture and a better viewing experience. Clarity and sharpness continue to improve as you move from 240p up to 720p or 1080p.

Now your photos and HD videos can all be stored, organized and shared in one convenient place. To upload your videos make sure to use Picasa, if you don’t have Picasa you can download it from here. We’d love to hear what you think. 

Update 12/13/2010:  Now Picasa Web Albums supports HD videos up to 1080p.

Panoramio Stats: Where are my photos viewed?

Monday, October 4, 2010 10:55 AM

Posted by Gyuri Dorko, Software Engineer

Panoramio is a community photo-sharing site for geo-located images. Photos uploaded to Panoramio show up on its website, as well as other places such as Google Earth and Google Maps.

We’re excited to announce that detailed statistics are now available to users directly within their Panoramio account. Think of Panoramio Stats as a photo-specific version of Google Analytics for Panoramio - in other words, a powerful web analytics tool that helps you measure the performance of your photos. With this new feature, you can track the sites from which your photos have been viewed in visually appealing and intuitive reports.

These statistics are available for every photographer and surface granular information about each photo. For example, a reports for the last 30 days can be broken down by referral domain so photographers can see how many times their photos were viewed within Panoramio, on Google Earth, Google Maps, and through Panoramio’s Widget API.

Additionally, Panoramio Stats helps you identify your most recently viewed and most popular photos, and lets you know about new referral sites so you can track the latest online activity around your photos and figure out what types, styles or genres of your photos generate the most interest and help you improve your craft.

As always we’d love to hear your thoughts on this cool new feature, so feel free to leave us your comments in the Panoramio Forum.

Things that go bump in the night

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 3:00 PM

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..