Large Scale Central

The end of Picasa??

Model Photography
#1

I got notice today that the desktop program Picasa will not longer be supported but worse then that the Picasa web albums will go away as well. For me this is a potential disaster. Every photo I have posted on garden RR websites is from a Picasa web album photo. I have hundreds of albums (some are even not RR related… Smiley) that I share with others daily. What will happen to my photos on train websites when the web album function is goneEEK!?

Plus the desktop program is very useful to me for simple organizing of photos and videos, and simple editing functions when I don’t want or need to use Lightroom level editing. The desk top program is still on my computer and will not go away, but no longer will link to web albums.

First cut poking at the web on this issue did not reveal any suggestions for similiar programs for desktop/laptop that so elegantly linked to web albums.

My photos are now automatically in Google Photos, and a quick look at that shows them there, but only organized by date, album names, etc gone. SO the album “Marty 2013 Friday” is gone replaced with the date of that event when the photos were taken. Disaster.

Any thoughts out there on alternatives?

Thanks

Jerry

#2

Jerry,

This is definitely bad news. But a few years ago, I was storing my photos on Photo Bucket and all seemed well. Then computer geek buddies of mine said I should probably think about storing photos on my own computer and also on the “Cloud”. That’s where I have my stuff now. A one terrabyte hard drive, removable hard drives AND the Cloud.

#3

Thanks Gary for your thoughts. However for me this is not about storage at all but ease of use, downloading from camera to computer, and utility of desktop to web albums and then sharing web albums. All my photos are on my desktop, with a 2 T backup hard drive that backs up every day as well. The web photos I have on Picasa are all reduced in size for web and sharing use, not primary storage. I am just about to engage a paid service as well to store original photos on a remote server in case of a home disaster also.

The basic and quick editing, deleting, cropping color adjust of desktop P and the creation of albums and uploading to web P and sharing with friends and websites like this one is what is very important to me…

Regards

Jerry

#4

Hi Jerry,

I understand what your saying. For resizing and cropping, fixing exposure problems, etc. I just rely on ACDSee Pro. I bought it years ago and is quick to use and editing is very fast.

Good luck with your photo problems.

#5

Gary- Thanks for the mention of the software, I will be trolling for alternatives and will take a look at that one

Jerry

#6

Does anyone know who Picasa’s POA is?

#7

Picasa is a Google program.so Maybe they are just consolidating

#8

jerry bohlander said:

Gary- Thanks for the mention of the software, I will be trolling for alternatives and will take a look at that one

Jerry

ACDSee Pro is not cheap software. I paid $125 for it about 10 years ago. I just looked it up and its not too bad now:). About $55 ACDSee Pro 9. I have ACDSee Pro 2. Probably lots of changes in the ensuing years.

#9

after such a disaster happened to me, i bought my own address, and rented webspace.
now my pics will stay visible/usable until i go broke or die. (whichever comes first)

even, if i have to change webspace, the URL will stay the same.
cropping and resizing pics is easily done with MS-paint.

#10

Pete Lassen said:

Picasa is a Google program.so Maybe they are just consolidating

More or less - yes. Google says they are concentrating on Google Photos as it is mobile and decktop compatible. Picasa isn’t. The cellphone strikes down yet another useful desktop program. . .

Picasa was extremely efficient at finding and managing photos - I used it a lot on my old computer. I feel your pain, Jerry.

#11

Found in the NEWS section of Facebook.

Google’s purchased software, NIK, will now be available for FREE download.

LINK: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

I have downloaded just now.

Also, Adobe Elements 14 is now $49 at Best Buy as Deal of the Day.

TODAY ONLY

#12

Elements 14. Wow! I am still running elements 4.

#13

Is the issue the editing software or the cloud storage.

For storage and stability, I did what Korm did… my web site actually started because my wife was visiting on the other coast and could not get emailed photos, nor install sharing software.

I got the site and WYSIWYG software, posted the pictures on my site and everything is fine, since all a person needs is a browser. I do not like sharing photos on a system that forces people to log in or have some other software installed.

Greg

#14

I like to use a few places for storage, snapfish and tiny pics. With snapfish you could make photos albums, just have prints made or have them stored on a CD. I also save all my photos on a CD and a backup CD. Thats the problem with storing photos on a host site, with everyone always upgrading etc… you never know how long these sites will be around.

Jerry cant you copy or drag your Picasa pictures into another site or onto a CD or Thumb drive? It would probably be a lot of work but it will save your photos.

#15

I second that, backup your pictures now. By the way, you can buy an external 1 TeraByte USB hard drive for about $55 at Costco, I have all my pictures stored on at least 2 hard drives, the external one and my main computer. Storage is cheap nowadays.

Greg

#16
Storage is cheap nowadays.


And so am I.

#17

I was talking to Jerry (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)

#18

Thanks for the thoughts, gents.

A little clarity again; I do not use Picasa to store or archive photographs on their web site server, never have. The photos I have in Picasa web albums (PWA) are all as small as possible to save space, thus not for archiving. I use PWA primarily to share photos with friends after trips or events, and as the source for all the photos I post on LSC and MLS. I archive my photos on an external 2T hard drive with critical ones on an additional 1T drive.

I use the desktop version of Picasa as a simple editor and gateway for viewing, discarding, and sorting my photos on a daily or so basis. I like the ease of looking at large collections of photos (eg: ECLSTS) and quickly making albums to put on the web site for the above reasons. Like any software, after using it for years, I find it quick and easy to take in photos, edit, save or discard, make albums, and put on PWA for distribution. But life goes on

Jerry