Google has announced Picasa for Mac (in beta) – free software that helps Mac users easily organise their photos in one place, edit pictures, and share them online with friends, family, and the world.

Picasa for Mac makes it easy to manage large photo collections and helps users make professional-looking edits without any technical knowledge, including:

  • A drag-and-drop photo collage tool that gives users control over layout and content
  • A retouching brush to wipe out scratches and blemishes – and repair old photos
  • A slideshow movie maker that uploads users photo montage videos to YouTube with a click
  • Smart auto-cropping that guides users on how to zoom in on their subject
  • And, auto red-eye removal.

People who already share photos on Picasa Web Albums will find that Picasa for Mac allows them to easily and quickly manage their online and local photo collections. Millions of Mac users have been sharing photos on Picasa Web Albums, and while Google has previously offered a Mac uploader and iPhoto plugin for Picasa Web Albums, Picasa includes additional sharing features like automatic web sync.

Picasa for Mac "plays nice" with iPhoto, and takes a read-only approach to editing photos stored in the iPhoto library, duplicating files as needed, so that users’ iPhoto libraries are never affected when they use Picasa.

Avid iPhoto users who currently use our Picasa Web Albums Uploader plugin can continue to do so, although features like automatic web sync, photo collages, and more will only be found in the Picasa application.