Now when Google has Google Photos as its standalone photo organizer app, it finds no point continuing Picasa. The search giant recently announced that it would stop supporting Picasa from coming March. In an official blog post, Google suggested users convert to Google Photos, the online uploader, and photo organizer.

Google says, “After much thought and consideration, we’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos. We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products.”

While Google won’t let you operate the Picasa desktop album after March 2016, you can still use it locally on your Windows PC. In this post, we will learn how to download, install and use Picasa Desktop Application locally on your Windows 10/8 PC. However, some features might not work particularly those which require integration with your Google account.

Picasa Desktop Application

Picasa Desktop Application is a lightweight free desktop application which downloads and installs on your PC in real time. The application starts scanning your computer for photos as soon as you are done with the installation.

As per the announcement made by Google, the Picasa desktop application will not be developed or updated after March 2016, but those who have already downloaded the application or do so before the final closure date will be able to use the application as it is.

Download the desktop application and install it on your PC.

Manage and Organize Your Photos– The application automatically scans all photos on your PC as well as those uploaded on Google Plus account and Picasa Web Albums. The application categorizes your photos date-wise and folder-wise. You can move the pictures from one folder to other, create a new album, move them to Google Photos, mail them and much more. Just select the photos and take your cursor to File option in the top left corner. Choose the option you want.

Add effects to your photos- The Picasa desktop application comes with some good photo editing tools. Select any photos and transform them by adding different effects. The editing effects include some commonly needed fixes, lighting and color fixes, and some fun image processing effects.

Check out the cropped and edited photo below-

Click on Create, and you can create a collage, make a poster, add borders to the images, create a Gift CD, set an image as your desktop background or can even make a movie taking different slides of images. The option also lets you post the image directly to Blogger; this feature might not be available after March 2016 though.

Upload Your Pictures to Google Photos- There is a green button Upload to Google Photos, which lets you upload your pictures to Google Photos, the online digital photo gallery of Google. Select any photo and click on the button to upload it. You can also tag people, faces or places in the pictures.

While all these features are available for now, some of them might not work after March 2016. As per the official blog post made by Google, the features which might shut down with the closure include-

• Flash support
• Community search
• Mutation operations other than uploads
• All support for tags, comments, and contacts

You will still be able to read photos, read albums, and upload new photos. Google says that they will keep us updates of any kind of small or big developments. Stay tuned for more updates on the same.

Picasa desktop application download

You can download Picasa desktop application from picasa.google.com. The tool has been retired now. But you download it now by clicking here. Please be careful during installation as it may offer to install 3rd party software/toolbars.

You might want to see how to use Google Photos and maybe take a look at some alternatives to Picassa.

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This product has been discontinued and is no longer available for download or use. Download.com offers no downloadable file and presents data on the last available version for informational purposes only.

Picasa is a photo editing and management program that also lets you take advantage of Google+ integration to back up your photos automatically. With a nice array of editing functions and other features, this program is a good photo management alternative for users of varying experience levels.

Pros

Automatic backup: Through this app, you can automatically back up all of your photos to Google+. All you have to do is log in with your Google account, and the backup will run in the background. Any new photos added will be automatically backed up as well, but none of these files will be public unless you choose to make them that way. If you do want to share any photos, though, having them in Google+ already makes it much more convenient to share them.

Editing tools: This app contains a nice set of editing tools that allows you to crop and straighten images, eliminate redeye, add contrast, and apply all kinds of filters. Many of the editing tools come with sliders to control the intensity of the effect they deliver, giving you the ability to find just the right balance for each image.

Cons

Import options: When you first open the app, it asks you whether you want to search only select preset folders and locations for photos to import or if you want to search your entire computer. While this is convenient when you want to add all of the photos on your computer to the app, it's not helpful if you only want to selectively add files to edit. You can't, for example, choose individual images or only certain custom folders, as the program selects the preset folders for you, and there's no way to stop the automatic import once it starts.

Bottom Line

Picasa is a capable photo editing program with a nice set of additional features, including Google+ integration. It doesn't contain the types of advanced editing tools that power users may be looking for, but casual and novice users will likely find all they need through its intuitive interface. It is free to download and use and includes 1GB of storage for no additional charge.

What do you need to know about free software?