And the Winner Is...
STORING
Both Picasa and Flickr have free storage options,
but power users might want to pony up for extra space. Picasa
has a tiered system, beginning with 10GB of storage for $20/year
and topping out at 400GB for $500/year. However, you can use the
storage space for your Gmail account as well (and any future ser-
vices Google releases), so if 2.9GB of free email storage and 1GB
of photo storage isn’t enough for you, this is a good deal.
The free option for Flickr limits you to 100MB of uploads a
month, but for $25/year, a Pro account lets you upload and store
all the pictures you desire—no limits. Since we don’t see the need
to keep a database of 300,000 emails, we think Flickr is the best
deal for our photo-storage needs.
WINNER: FLICKRhead 2 head TWO TECHNOLOGIES ENTER, ONE TECHNOLOGY LEAVES
W
hile Google’s worldwide domination of all things online seem-
ingly continues unabated, FlickrFlickrFlickr is still our choice for online is still our choice for online
photo sharing and editing. We like Picasa’s ease of use and simple
uploading interface, and we expect that Google will continue to invest
in the product, but at this time it still lags behind Flickr.
We do have some concerns about Flickr’s filtering of content on
its overseas sites—Yahoo has countered that it’s only doing so to
comply with local laws. The site has also been inconsistent in how it
filters images on its North American site, with seemingly innocuousimages of parking lots and other public places deemed unsafe for
public viewing. While the situation is not widespread, it does give us
pause. Still, Yahoo’s photo-sharing site provides the most complete
way to sort and search for images. With the addition of the Picnik
photo-editing suite, Flickr now provides a comprehensive photo-
editing and sharing site with enough options to satisfy typical users.
Additionally, Flickr’s strong user base is a bonus if you want to share
pics with the world, and its multilevel privacy system means you are
in control of who sees your pics.round^4
EDITING
Picasa started out as a free photo-editing app
and offers a basic suite of tools, including auto contrast and
color, highlight and shadow tuning, and 12 effects. However, the
tools offer very little user control, making many changes all-or-
nothing choices.
Flickr recently added photo-editing options via Picnik; the
free version of the app is similar to Picasa, but the $25 Advanced
version offers more user control, additional tools, and a selec-
tion of 26 effects. For those who don’t require all of Photoshop
Elements’s features but want more user control than free photo
editors offer, Picnik Advanced is a good compromise. However,
you can access your Picasa web albums through Picnik as well,
making Picasa the clear winner here.
WINNER: PICASAround^5
http://www.maximumpc.com | FEB 08 | MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC 15
PICASA
http://picasa.google.comTHIRD-PARTY APPS
Yahoo released Flickr’s
API back in 2004, so programmers
have had a head start on creating
third-party apps for the site; large
collections are available at http://
bighugelabs.com/flickr/, where
you can go to create a wide range of
products, from lolcats to wallpapers,
as well as http://flickrbits.com/,
which includes more than 130 Flickr
apps and plugins. Picasa, though, is
a bit behind, and many of the apps
available for the service also work
with Flickr.
WINNER: FLICKRround 6