![]() Did we mention that Google gives Photos users an unlimited amount of room on its servers? As long as your photos are under 16 megapixels in size, the compression that Photos performs should be virtually unnoticeable. It will take hours (or days) for all of your photos to make it to the cloud, but it happens in the background and doesn’t require any intervention on your part. To begin using Google Photos, simply download the Google Photos Backup tool, tell it where to look for your photos, and then let it do its thing. The company refers to it as “switching,” because that’s exactly how you have to think about it. That’s because - with the exception of the Web Albums feature described above - Google hasn’t created a migration path from one product to the other. There’s a reason why Google doesn’t use the term “migrate” when encouraging Picasa users to embrace Google Photos. Google has been silent on exactly when or how this could happen, though. You may also find that Picasa functions which require web connectivity, like the Order Prints or Publish to Blogger features, may fail to work at some point. You can view, download, or delete your Picasa Web Albums from the Photos interface, but as of May 1, you cannot create, organize, or edit them. If you’re curious what that will look like, simply log in to Google Photos with the Google account you used to create the web Album - and voila - they’re already there. If you’ve been taking advantage of Picasa’s free web Albums feature, as of the only way to access them is through Google Photos. If you go this route, my advice is to re-download the latest version of Picasa (3.9) for Mac or Windows right now and keep the installer somewhere safe - you never know when you may need to reinstall it and who knows how easy it will be to find later. If you want to keep using Picasa, you can absolutely do so. No, your photos won’t suddenly disappear and neither will the software itself. However, if you already have the software installed, it will continue to work. That means no more versions will be released, no bug fixes will be issued, and no support will be offered. As Sposata told us, today’s announcement is just “the first sign of many wonderful things to come.” Judging from our discussion with Google, bringing more of Picnik’s tools to more Google properties in the near future is definitely one of the team’s current priorities.The best photo-editing apps for Android and iOS Chances are that Google will soon rectify this situation. ![]() Interestingly, though, there is now a very clear mismatch between the editing functions in the Picasa desktop client and the online version. Overall, this is a welcome addition to the online version of Picasa, as it enables users to perform relatively complex image editing functions right in the browser. Instead, Sposata told us, most of the work over the last few months went into migrating Picnik’s back-end (which ran on a combination of Picnik’s own servers and Amazon’s S3 storage service) to Google’s infrastructure. Google didn’t add any new features to Picnik. Picasa should automatically recognize if a Picnik user has a paid or free account. Google is also keeping Picnik’s fee structure intact. Just like YouTube and a few other Google properties, Picnik will retain its original branding. As Jonathan Sposata, the product manager for Google Photos and Picnik’s original founder told us yesterday, this was a conscious decision on Google’s part. The integration between the two services is seamless, though Picnik’s design is clearly different from Picasa’s and quite a few users will probably think that they’ve arrived on a non-Google site. Until now, Picasa users only had the option to edit photos in the Picasa desktop application. For an additional fee of $4.95 a month (or $24.95 a year), users can get access to more advanced editing tools and additional effects, fonts and stickers. In addition, users can add effects, stickers and frames to their pictures. Picnik allows users to perform basic photo editing functions like cropping and resizing pictures. Picnik, which allows users to perform basic photo editing functions and add stickers and text to images will retain its own branding and web presence, but Picasa users will now find an “Edit in Picnik” button as one of the options in the online version of Picasa. In March, Google acquired the online photo editing service Picnik and today, the company is integrating Picnik with Picasa Web Albums, Google’s online photo sharing service.
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