Google Picasa facts for kids

Picasa was a special computer program that helped people organize and edit their photos. It was first created by a company called Idealab. Later, a much bigger company, Google, bought Picasa.

The name "Picasa" is a mix of a few things. It sounds like the famous Spanish painter Pablo Picasso. It also sounds like the Spanish phrase mi casa, which means "my house". And, of course, "pic" stands for pictures!

Google bought Picasa in July 2004. After that, they started offering the Picasa program for free. This made it very popular for managing digital photos.

Picasa was available for different computer systems. There were versions for Windows XP and Windows Vista. An older version could be used on Windows 98 and Windows Me. For Apple computers, there was a tool for Mac OS X (version 10.4 and newer) that helped upload photos.

Picasa Web Albums: Sharing Your Photos

Picasa also had a special online part called Picasa Web Albums (PWA). This was a website where you could store and share your photos with others. It was similar to other photo-sharing sites like Flickr.

If you had a Google account, you could store up to 1 GB of photos for free on Picasa Web Albums. If you needed more space, you could buy it. This extra storage could also be used for other Google services.

Here's how the storage plans worked:

You could upload pictures to Picasa Web Albums in different ways. You could use the Picasa program on Windows, or special tools for Mac OS X and Linux computers.

Google did not show any ads on Picasa Web Albums, even for free accounts. This made it a clean place to view and share photos.

Picasa Web Albums was first launched on June 6, 2006. When it started, it offered 250 MB of free space. This was later increased to 1 GB on March 7, 2007.

The End of Picasa

On February 12, 2016, Google announced that they would stop supporting the Picasa desktop program. This happened on March 15, 2016. Google explained that they wanted to focus all their efforts on one main photo service. That service is now Google Photos, which works online and on different devices.

This meant that Picasa and Picasa Web Albums were officially retired. Users were encouraged to switch to Google Photos for their photo needs.

A Look at Picasa's History

Picasa went through many updates and changes over the years. When Google first offered it for free in July 2004, it was version 1.618.

Later versions added many new features:

• Improved search tools to find your photos easily.
• Automated tools to make photo collages.
• Better photo editing options.
• Ways to share photos directly to Blogger, Google's blogging service.
• Support for many different languages.
• Tools for printing CD covers.
• Better handling of special camera files called RAW files.
• Support for network drives, which are shared folders on a computer network.
• New ways to burn photos to CDs or DVDs.
• Improved ways to upload photos to Picasa Web Albums.
• New tools for processing RAW images and adjusting colors.
• Support for Google Photos Screensaver.
• The ability to add geotags to photos, showing where they were taken.

Picasa was also available for Linux computers starting around June 2006. It wasn't a native Linux program but an adapted Windows version that used special software called Wine.

For Mac OS X, Picasa was still being developed. However, a special plugin was available for iPhoto that allowed users to upload pictures to Picasa Web Albums.

Images for kids

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  KDE Image Plugin Interface (KIPI) export to Picasaweb

See also

In Spanish: Picasa para niños