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Google Picasa vs Microsoft Live Photo Gallery vs Adobe Photoshop album starter edition
Aug 20th, 2008 | By Premnath Sah | Category: Reviews & Comparisons, Software
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Google released Picasa for free after acquiring a startup which built this software, It becamse instantly popular for its ease of use and feature set. Now the other biggies Microsoft and Adobe have unveiled their answer to immensely popular Google Picasa.
Microsoft has released Microsoft Windows Live Photo Gallery. Adobe’s has naturally released a software since Google is trying to enter its forte of image manipulation domain. Lets see how the three stack-up with each other.
Download Size:
| Picasa | Live Gallery | Photoshop Album SE |
| 5.8 MB | 15.3 MBm | 7.8 MB |
In download size Google Picasa is the smallest. Let’s find out whether the competition packs extra features for the extra space they need.
Live Gallery Download is not direct download. We need to download a 2.3 MB Windows Live installer and followed by downloading Live Gallery using the Installer just downloaded. Windows Live Installer is a application which can be used to install any application which is part of Windows Live Suite. Interestingly when we download using Live installer the progress bar moves very fast at start and waits at 99% for very long time, This means the progress bar actually does not check how have been really downloaded.
Feature Set:
| Feature | Picasa | Live Gallery | Photoshop Album SE |
| Organizing Features | |||
| Image Tagging | No | Yes | Yes |
| Image Collection/Album | Yes | No | Yes |
| Datewise Sorting | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Image Editing Features | |||
| Auto Fix | Yes (I’m feeling lucky) | Yes | Yes |
| Auto Color | Yes | No | Yes |
| Auto Levels | No | No | Yes |
| Auto Contrast | Yes | No | Yes |
| Auto Sharpen | No | No | Yes |
| Red Eye Correction | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Manual Color Adjustments | Yes | Yes | No |
| Manual Sharpness | No | Yes | No |
| Cropping Photo | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Manual Brightness/contrast etc | Yes | Yes | No |
| Image Viewing | |||
| Zooming | Yes (good) | Yes (good) | Yes (limits max zoom size) |
| Slideshow | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Image Acquiring | |||
| Camera / Memory Card | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Scanner | No | Yes | Yes |
| Storing / Sharing | |||
| Burn to CD | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Upload to web | to PicasaWeb | to Live Spaces / Flickr | to Kodak easy share / Flickr |
| Extra Features | |||
| Collage | Yes | No | No |
| Creating Video from photos | Yes | Yes (uses Windows Movie Maker) | No |
| Calendar | No | No | Yes (Third party service) |
Lets look at our experience using these softwares for organizing our images.
Lets start with Google Picasa, we can say that Picasa has lots of features, looks good and is very easy to use.
Picasa:
Where Picasa Rocks?
- Ease of Use
- Search Feature
- Supports jpg, gif, tif, bmp, psd, png, raw, avi, mpg, asf, wmv, mov file formats
- Good UI
- Versatility
Where Picasa sucks?
- Load time
- Cant upload to flickr
Windows Live Gallery:
Where Windows Live Gallery Rocks?
- Speed
- Complete manual image editing features
Where Windows Live Gallery Sucks?
- Needs more features in editing section
Photoshop Album Starter Edition:
Where Photoshop Album SE Rocks?
- Provides Tagging and Album feature
- Complete Automatic image correction
Where Photoshop Album SE Sucks?
- No manual image correction
- Image manipulation features is slow
- Image size in the window is smaller than other apps.
- Adobe Photoshop Album SE (starter edition) annoys you by asking to register repeatedly.
What do you think of these apps? which is your favourite app? let us know by commenting below.
