Google Picasa 3.9 review

The non-destructive workflow means that it’s tricky for the developers to improve on existing editing functions without upsetting users’ edit databases. This possibly explains why Picasa’s colour-correction facilities haven’t changed for as long as we can remember.

Colour correction is pretty basic, and isn’t up to the task of processing raw files

Manual colour correction includes the ability to boost mid-tones and highlights and to darken shadows, but not vice versa. There aren’t even basic brightness and contrast tools, although the Auto Contrast button often does a pretty good job. Raw format support is extremely comprehensive, which is great for library management, but the colour correction tools are nowhere near being up to scratch for raw processing.

Meanwhile, Picasa misses out on one of the most useful virtues of non-destructive editing. Edits can be undone at any time, perhaps days or years later, but they’re presented as a linear undo history. That means you have to step back through the editing history until you get to the process you want to undo, rather than simply re-adjust it, as other non-destructive editors let you do. The one exception – thankfully – is the Crop tool, which can be readjusted at any time.

The creative effects library is relatively small and control is limited, but there are a few attractive filters in there

The creative effects are slowly growing in number and now total 36. These include simple Sepia and Saturation effects, some attractive filters, including Glow, Lomo-ish, Orton-ish and Cross Process, and quite a few less successful ones, such as Heat Map, HDR-ish and Neon. Most come with minimal controls.

It’s for these reasons that Picasa scores badly for photo editing. We happily use it to crop photos and rescue the odd bad exposure, but for any occasion when we want the best possible image quality, it won’t be found here.

It might be worth having Picasa installed just for photo management, but it’s worth paying for superior editing functions, such as for Adobe Photoshop Elements 11. Various editors now include excellent library management too, so Picasa is no longer the must-have application it once was.