Picasa 3.9: Now with Google+ sharing and tagging

Posted by Chandrashekar Raghavan, Product Manager

Picasa 3.9, the latest update to the Picasa client, is ready for you to try out! This update includes Google+ sharing and tagging, new photo editing effects and lots more. To download Picasa 3.9, click here.

Sharing on Google+
Photos are a great way to capture that special moment, and now with Picasa 3.9, you can share those memories on Google+. When you log in with a Google+ account (sign up at google.com/+), you’ll see several new features:

• Share with people in your Google+ circles: Picasa 3.9 makes it easy to share the right photos with the right people with just a few clicks. To share an album, just click on the green “Share on Google+” button and add the specific circles you want to share your photos with. Find out more here.

And of course, you can always share by adding someone’s email address or emailing them a link to the album.

• Tag people in your circles:  When you click a photo to tag a friend, the dropdown menu now includes people in your Google+ circles in addition to your Gmail contacts. If you tag friends from Google+, Picasa will automatically suggest that you share your pictures with them when you upload your album. Learn more about tagging.

• Upload all your pictures for free:  Picasa 3.9 offers two simple upload options for Google+ users, original size and best for web sharing. When you select the “Best for web sharing”  option, you can upload any number of pictures for free! What’s more, these pictures are uploaded at high resolutions of up to 2048 px.

That’s not all...
In addition to these Google+ features, all users can enjoy the following improvements (listed on our What’s new page).

• 24 new photo editing effects 

• Side by side photo comparison

• Simplified tray interface: Less commonly used tray icons (such as BlogThis!, Collage, Movie, Shop)  are hidden by default (you can always add them back).

Give this new version of Picasa a try, and as always, we’d love to hear your feedback.  If you'd prefer to keep using Picasa 3.8, you can download it from our archives here (Mac - Windows).

Google Photography Prize: Looking for the photography stars of the future

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Google+ is only a few months old, but the photography community is already thriving on it. Take a look at the profiles of Scott Jarvie, Thomas Hawk, Colby Brown or Claire Grigaut to see just a few of the inspiring photographers on Google+. More than 3.4 billion photos have been uploaded to the platform in the first 100 days.

We’re really excited about this, and think great art deserves great exposure. So we’re teaming up with Saatchi Gallery, London for the Google Photography Prize, a chance for students around the world to showcase their photos on Google+ and have their work exhibited at a major art institution.

The contest is open to university students around the world (some exceptions apply, see google.com/photographyprize for more details). From far-away places to up-close faces, there are 10 different categories to spark your imagination. And there are some great prizes to be won: 10 finalists chosen by a jury of renowned photographers will show their work at Saatchi Gallery, London for two months in 2012 alongside Out of Focus, a major photography exhibition, and win a trip to London to attend the exhibition opening event with a friend. One winner will go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to an amazing destination with a professional photography coach.

It’s easy to enter: After you pick a category, upload your photos to Google+ and share them with the world as a public post, then visit the submission form on google.com/photographyprize by January 31, 2012 to enter.

Saatchi Gallery, London will share updates on their Google+ page for the contest, so add it to your circles if you want to see the great work that’s being submitted.

We can’t wait to see your photos!

Posted by Obi Felten, Director of Consumer Marketing, Google EMEA

Share your Machu Picchu photos with the world

Posted by Debbie Jaffe, New Business Development Director, Latin America

Much has changed in the world of photography since I first visited the “Lost Inca City” of Machu Picchu in 1997 after my wedding in Peru. On my first trip I had a “regular” point and shoot camera with cartridge film. I had to scan the prints and host them on my own website to share photos with my friends. When I visited Machu Picchu with my parents last year, digital cameras were everywhere, and we were able to capture the sites and quickly share photos via Picasa Web Albums.

Now everyone is invited to share their favorite Machu Picchu photos with the world. July 24 marks the 100th anniversary of the scientific discovery of Machu Picchu by American Hiram Bingham in 1911. PromPerú, Peru’s tourism ministry, is celebrating the anniversary with events and a Machu Picchu centennial website where they are inviting visitors to share their most amazing pictures of this historical sanctuary in the Machu Picchu vistors photo gallery. The best photos will be recognized by PromPerú and CAN-Machu Picchu (the committee in charge of the Machu Picchu 100 year celebration) and will be published on the official anniversary website. You only have until July 31 to submit your photos, and publication of selected photos will be on Wednesday, August 3rd. Let’s see if my mom lets me submit this one :)

Google Photos Salutes National Travel & Tourism Week

Posted by Brian Rose, Community Manager

Traveling is one of the most exciting things you can do, so a camera is a must-have on your packing list. Part of the fun of capturing your trip is to share it with others and relive the experience yourself years later. So in honor of U.S. National Travel & Tourism week, we’d like to invite everyone to visit Panoramio and take a virtual trip to Las Vegas, Zurich, or Hawaii; upload your latest trip to Picasa Web Albums; or edit with Picnik to highlight just how magnificent that blue sky was, and share with your friends and family.

We hope you enjoy some of the Photos team’s favorite photos from our travels. To create your own photo collage with Picasa, follow these steps.

So whether you’re about to leave on a trip, just returned or inspired by Travel & Tourism week to set out on an adventure, don’t forget your camera. Whether you’re off to some exotic destination or even your hometown, remember to share with the world the photos you’ve taken. Happy travels!

Google.com/Weddings Sweepstakes Winner

Posted by Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager Team

A little over three months ago, we announced Google.com/Weddings to help couples during the wedding planning process. Since launch, we’ve been overwhelmed by the positive feedback with over 700,000 visits.

As part of that announcement, we partnered with Michelle Rago to not only help us with creative direction but also with hosting a wedding sweepstakes. The prize is $25,000 towards a dream wedding designed by Michelle.

The sweepstakes ended on March 29th and today we’re pleased to announce that the randomly selected winning couple was Philong Nguyen and Nhu-Y Nguyen of Houston, Texas.

Philong and Nhu-Y are currently using Google Docs to organize every facet of their wedding; Google Sites to build their wedding website, Picasa Web Albums to share photos with friends and Picnik to edit their photos. Philong had this to share about their engagement:

“We had already been looking at rings so I decided I wanted the time and place to be a complete surprise. Luckily she was working one weekend and had to go to work very early since she works in a hospital in the lab. I’m usually sleeping at that time, so I knew she wouldn’t expect to see me at 5 AM in the morning when she left for work. I woke up very early, brought dozens of roses that I had bought the day before and plucked, and created a trail of rose petals that led her from her door to the backyard where it ended in a heart with me waiting on the grass. Of course, the hardest part was waiting for her to open the door but when she did she followed the trail, found me and said Yes."

The couple will be working with Michelle Rago to design their September wedding. We can‘t wait to see the pictures. Congratulations to Philong and Nhu-Y!

Cross-posted on Blogger Buzz

You asked, we listened

Posted by Tammy McLeod, Software Engineer

We recently made some updates to Picasa Web Albums to address some of your top feature requests. In addition to sorting your displayed albums on Picasa Web by upload and album date, you can also now sort by album title. Visit your My Photos tab, then select “Album title” from the drop-down menu.

We’ve also made it easier to update your album visibility and photo location settings with a new “Edit visibility” link. Quickly see your visibility settings across all your albums, make changes, and when you’re all set, click “Done.”

Changed your name, or changed your email address? We added an option to transfer your photos, videos, comments, and people you follow to a new or existing Google account. Learn all about the account migration tool in our help center, or check it out from your Settings page.

As always, you can share your feedback about our updates, ask a question, or suggest a new feature in our forum.

Picnik is better with friends

Posted by Thomas Kang, Software Engineer

Picasa Web Albums has expanded the collaborative albums feature to support collaborative editing using Picnik. Now you can invite friends and family to contribute to an album either by uploading photos of their own or by editing any existing photos in that album.

Your original always stays safe and sound as your collaborators make edits to add funny speech bubbles, give you pointers on editing techniques, or pitch in to help you touch up your hundreds of vacation photos. If they edit one of your photos in Picnik and save the changes, it will save back to your album as a new image, and their name will show in the sidebar to give them credit for the new version.

To enable collaborative editing, simply share an album with your friends, and be sure to click on the checkbox to let the people you share with contribute to your album. Soon you’ll start seeing all the cool new images they create from your photos.

We're sure that there are many fun uses for this new feature, so if you discover something that was helpful to you, we'd love to hear about it. Happy editing!

A more picturesque Google profile

Posted by Dave Cohen, Engineer Google Photos

Recently we updated Google Profiles to help you decide what the world sees when it searches for you. Your profile and scrapbook photos already make it easier for people to get to know you, but we want to do more to help you showcase your favorite pics.

Now you can add Picasa Web Albums to your Google profiles. By choosing to show the “PicasaWeb” tab, you will enable visitors to see your public albums. Private albums will remain visible to only the people you’ve shared them with directly.

Add Picasa Web Albums to your profile now by visiting profiles.google.com. We hope you enjoy this change, and be sure to let us know what you think in our forum. Happy posting!

More storage, more photos, more fun

Posted by Matt Steiner, Engineering Lead-Photos Team

With Picasa Web Albums, you automatically get one gigabyte of free storage. As some of you may have noticed, we recently changed the way storage works so you can continue to share and store images even after you fill up that free gig.

In the past, each image and video you uploaded counted toward your free 1GB. Now, uploaded images that are 800 pixels or smaller and videos that are 15 minutes or less in length no longer count against your free storage limit. This means you can upload and store unlimited photos and videos at the above sizes -- for free!

800-pixels is a good size for sharing pictures on the web, but if you prefer uploading your images at a larger size for better quality (archival or print), and you are nearing the 1GB limit, you can always purchase additional storage for as little as $5/year. To check your available storage amount scroll to the bottom of your home page or view your settings.

For those of you who’ve already purchased additional storage, any existing 800-pixel images or videos shorter than 15 minutes will no longer count toward your storage limit, so enjoy the extra space and post away!

We hope you enjoy the change, and we’d love to hear what you think.