Playing around with Picasa 2

I downloaded my free copy of Picasa 2 Tuesday evening and have been playing with it ever since. I highly recommend it. It has most of the photo editing tools that beginning or intermediate users will ever need. If you received a digital camera for Christmas, you want Picasa 2. Get it here. Did I mention it was free?

This is a picture I took last summer when my 9-year old son and I went to the Sears Tower in Chicago. It was a beautiful, clear summer afternoon. This picture faces northeast towards Lake Michigan. I used Picasa's graduated tint filter to add a tad more blue to the lake.

Blogger users will appreciate the way it seamlessly integrates with Blogger. I simply edited the picture, clicked the Blogger button, it called up Hello (another free download from Google) and uploaded to this blog. I had an earlier version of Picasa and downloaded Hello to add photos to my two Blogger blogs. I don't know if the newer version of Picasa requires Hello to upload to Blogger or if it uploads independently. Nevertheless, they both worked perfectly.

Did I mention that both programs are free?