#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 INSTALL#
#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 UPDATE#
#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 UPGRADE#
#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 SOFTWARE#
#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 LICENSE#

Google will continue to encourage you to join Google Plus, but so far as I can tell, you can just say no. When you click the ‘Share’ button you will be sharing on Picasa Web Albums. If you do use Picasa Web Albums – which requires a Google account – and you’ve never linked your Google account to Google Plus, then nothing has changed for you.

#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 SOFTWARE#

If all you do is use the Picasa software for managing the pictures on your computer, then the change from Picasa Web Albums to Google Plus Photos doesn’t affect you at all. It is a companion to Picasa on your computer that you can choose to use or not.

Realize that Picasa Web Albums is on the web.

Some folks are distressed that, in version 3.9, Picasa Web Albums seems to be going away and in it’s place is Google Plus.

#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 INSTALL#

So, if you move a folder of pictures to another computer, then install Picasa, it will be able to read the album designations from the Picasa.ini file in the folder, and recreate your albums for you. Now, in 3.9, album definitions are stored in the same picasa.ini file as all edits – right in the same folder with the pictures.

If you copied your pictures to another computer without using PIcasa’s backup and restore, for example, you would lose your album definitions (not the pictures themselves – just the album groupings). If you use Albums a lot, this might just be the one feature to make it worth upgrading! In the past, I’ve had to caution users, and explain in depth how Albums are a Picasa-only feature. Very easy, and very useful! New Album Definitions You can also put two different pictures on the screen side by side. You can put one picture up on the screen twice and apply editing features to just one of them to see the difference. Some of the effects are fun, but I doubt I’ll use them often, like Neon:Īnd, here’s one that I doubt I’ll ever use, but it might be a lifesaver for some folks – Invert colors can be used to make a negative be positive.Īll the above images come from using the new feature of side-by-side editing. There’s even more – too many to show you here. There is also ‘Polaroid’ which adds a thick white border, and a simple border or drop shadow. The picture above demonstrates both ‘Vignette’ – the dark shadow around the edges, and ‘Museum Matte’ where you can define an inner and outer frame at specified width and color. I think these are my favorite new effects. In addition to adding depth and richness to the photo, there’s some dreamy, blurring going on. This look comes from a slide-sandwich technique devised by Michael Orton. The picture on the left is my original, the right has added HDR-ish effect. But, I really do like the sharpness and contrast that HDR-ish can give. In fact, I find that I need to move the sliders all toward the middle to lessen the effect a bit. The HDR-ish (High Dynamic Range) effect is kind of like Sharpen on steroids. If you read about Lomography you’ll find that it’s film photography with an old toy camera! The Lomo-ish effect looks more rich, vibrant and focused on the center while the edges are dark. If you don’t like the effect, you can always Undo. As usual with Picasa, they are simple click and maybe drag a slider bar or two to try them out. There are two more tabs-worth of effects. In my last article about Picasa 3.9 I mentioned the differences in your opening screen, this time I want you to take a look at the effects.

#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 LICENSE#

I found that the Run process took an abnormally long time and it had no progress bar showing – so, just be patient, it will finally pop up with the license agreement and, after you click ‘I agree’ and Ok the folder location, you’re almost done. Be prepared to wait a bit, this is a bigger file than past versions. Follow the instructions to download, then install or Run.

#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 UPDATE#

If it reports that ‘This application is up to date’ you can still update to version 3.9 by going to the website at and click the big “Download Picasa” button.

#SUBSTITUTES FOR PICASA 3.9 UPGRADE#

You might be able to upgrade by clicking on Help and Check for Updates but more often than not, this won’t inform you about new versions. You better know the answer to this question!Īlready have a good backup of all your pictures? Ok, let’s go. However, your pictures are precious, and any upgrade can have it’s problems on some people’s computers so what do you do first? To upgrade, or not to upgrade, is that your question? There are definitely some features worth upgrading for! And that is what I’ll talk about in this article.

Substitutes for picasa 3.9