Picasa 3 Makes a Great Impression
After your great vacation, your digital camera is no doubt chock-full of images (and maybe a few videos). So how do you view them, touch them up a bit, and share them IN ith friends and family? For Windows users, Picasa has been the best way to do this for a while. Google's online offering is a slickly integrated image organizer, editor, and enhancer, with cutting-edge online galleries. And what's more, it's a free service that competes favorably with pay services.
On the Mac, iPhoto is nearly as good at consumer photo editing. If you want the online galleries, however, you'll have to pay a hundred bucks a year for Apple's Mob ileMe service, and you still won't get the rich mix of features you'll find in Picasa Web albums, such as geotagging and viewer commenting. With this release, Picasa adds the abilities to sync local edits with online gallery images, to edit digital movies, and to retouch photos for blemishes.
It also turbocharges red-eye fixing, collage creation, and slideshow presentations. After installation, Picasa gives you a choice of scanning either your hard disk or just My Documents, My Pictures, and the desktop for image files. You don't have to worry about the scan picking up all those temporary Internet image files, by the way—it's smart enough to ignore them. The scan is fast, and a small gray bar on the right-hand side of your screen shows its progress.
Picasa 3 doesn't have a drastically updated interface, but rather adds a lot of new functions within the existing interface, such as automatically scanning for new images; viewing images as a slideshow, collage, or movie; Movie, Geo-Tag, and Upload buttons; and the cool new Silhouette button (which finds any picture in an album that contains a face).
In short, for everyday shutterbugs who want to get those pictures off their point-and-shooters, organize them into albums, fix them up a bit, and—most important—share them with their loved ones, Picasa is the way to go. MM
PC Magazine February 2009
PICASA 3 (BETA)
SKYPE 4.0 BETA 2
Cheap Voice, Video Chat Gets Better
In response to feedback from 50,000 testers of Skype 4.0 beta 1, the company has made interface changes and fixed some bugs in this Beta 2 version. When Beta 1 launched, many users objected to its much larger main window. This time around, Skype developers have attempted to address that with a compact option; they have also changed the way contacts are grouped and made notifications stand out more.
The newest beta features the same streamlined installation as previous versions, and the process doesn't require as much personal information as SightSpeed's install does, but the download is bigger-23.6MB versus 8MB. The large main window is still the default in Beta 2, but now you can choose Compact Mode, which splits the program's main window into two smaller windows.
The new version also cuts down on scattered windows by including instant messaging at the bottom of the call window. The less-crowded new interface also makes controls such as volume and video settings more visible. Placing calls is very similar to that of the previous versions. When I talked with a person in Bangladesh, the audio quality was quite clear, though with occasional gaps. Conversations over Skype-Out—which you need to reach people who don't use Skype—sounded clear, though not quite as clear as a calls over a landline.
To receive calls from non-Skype users, you'll need a Skypeln account ($20.25 for 3months or $67.50 for a year). Video calling is also slightly better. Although this Beta version contains some glitches and missing features, it is nonetheless stable and usable overall.—Michael Muchmore
PC Magazine February 2009
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4
Photoshop CS4 Astounds
The tent pole of Adobe's massive Creative Suite 4 is Photoshop, the legendary image-editing application known for its power and scope. Adobe could probably get away with resting on the heaps of laurels the app has earned over the years, but as Photoshop CS4 shows, that's not what it's doing. In both the Standard and Extended versions, everyone will enjoy the new modern, animated interface.
But in addition, some major improvements targeted at photographers, designers, and animators make this a highly compelling upgrade, although these features augur an even more challenging learning experience. But that's why there's Photoshop Elements, right?
Navigating your way around images has gotten infinitely cooler. Clicking and holding the Zoom tool (or clicking on an image while holding the Z key) causes an animated, almost cinematic zoom-in. I also like the new tabbed document inter face, which lets you easily switch between multiple open documents. Other new features include an Adjustments palette, a Vibiance adjustment layer (which successfully manipulates saturation without disturbing skin tones), a new Masks palette, a revamped Brightness/Contrast tool, and an enhanced Auto-Blend Layers (which extends the depth of field so that all areas of the subject are in focus).
Among these significant improvements, unquestionably the most jaw dropping is content-aware scaling, a feature that lets you change the proportions of an image—for example, morph an 8-by-12 photo to 8-by-10—without squashing or stretching the important image elements. The program makes a good guess at what those important elements are, but you can also add manual guidance to the feature if necessary.
Photoshop CS4 is definitely a must-have upgrade for any graphics professional. The revamped interface brings this venerable program into the 21st century, but there are plenty of guts lurking behind the glamour. The application may be a vast, sometimes unruly beast, but its powers grow more awesome every year.—Galen Fott
PC Magazine February 2009
