Picasa — the Free Photo Editor and Organizer from Google

The Picasa photo editor and organizer will surprise you with its unique interface and its amazing power. With Picasa, you can easily edit photos with basic fixes, as well as adding any of 12 lighting and color effects. You can organize your photos, write captions on them, and even order prints.

(click on the image for a larger version)

One way you can make more dramatic images, especially if you're moving from a high-pixel photo to the much lower resolution of a web page, is to crop you photo to get only "the important stuff". The reason I specify a high-resolution image for starting is that, if you want to print it later or expand it to be a Windows "desktop" background.

Picasa is extremely intuitive and, I found, a pleasure to use — especially when compared to most of the graphics editing progams available today.

While Picasa doesn't have the sheer power of Adobe Photoshop, and still doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Adobe Photo Elements or PaintShop Pro, Picasa can be used by almost anyone and the price is certainly "right".

Picasa's wizards guide you through the steps to edit your photos - or to create a screensaver or photo collage.

Get Picasa as part of the Google Pack of free software...