Making a comparison between iPhoto and anything non-Mac will sound like heresy to Apple fanatics, yet as a Picasa user of many years I was intrigued by how iPhoto would compare to Picasa as I moved from Windows to Mac.
I tried out both iPhoto and Picasa on my MacBook Pro. As a Picasa user, I was more familiar with the Picasa interface, but found after a week of using iPhoto regularly I found it easy and fun to use.
Some of the features where I noticed a significant difference between the two products were:
Facial recognition
Not only is Picasa’s facial recognition far more accurate than iPhoto facial recognition, it is faster, has a better user interface (which totally surprised me) and has fun extras.
The downside of Picasa’s facial recognition is that there seems to be a bug using both Picasa and contacts—some of my contacts occasionally disappear from my iPhone contacts list. A few postings on-line indicate that’s the problem, but I haven’t found how to remedy.
Face Movie
I love the face movie feature in Picasa. You can make a movie from the face tags of one person and Picasa (most of the time) adjusts the size, position and angle of the photo so the faces melt from one to the next. Yes there are plenty of bugs still in it, but for no work on the user’s part it’s pretty cool.
Organization
This is personal preference, but I like to see the file hierarchy of my photos.
Touchups
iPhoto wins on touchups— it is far easier (requires just one click, not two) and the end product is far more appealing when removing blemishes, stray hairs, wrinkles and such from faces in iPhoto.
Product Creation
iPhoto provides a direct, simple connection to make cards, calendars and other product. Picasa connects with multiple on-line providers where you can make an array of products at many different price points. It’s not as integrated, but it allows more choice.
Speed
Here Picasa wins hand down. Managing over 50,000 photos on my Mac is far faster in Picasa than in iPhoto.
Fit and Finish
iPhoto looks better and integrates gestures and other features well.
In sum, both are excellent and fun to use. If you are already familiar with one of the products it is likely not worth the time to learn a new product. But if you’re considering whether you’ll be able to move to a Mac and still use Picasa, the answer is definitely yes. And if facial recognition is critical to your photo organization then you will likely be happier with Picasa.
