I’ve been using both Flickr and Picasa for some time now and I’ve finally decided on which one I’m going to use from now on. My decision was based on what you get for a subscription fee around $20-25, but I’m also going to talk about the free memberships and the uploading applications in this post.
So let’s start off with Picasa. I’ve been using Picasa for quite some time since this is a Blogger blog (all images uploaded on my blog are linked to my Picasa Gallery, or actually it’s the other way around). It works great for my blog but that’s where the lines goes. Picasa still feels a bit like a beta, it has potential but it’s just a little too buggy and the features are lacking compared to Flickr’s. Here’s a list of what I find negative about Picasa.
- Organizing photos. You can choose to organize your photos by date, filename or manually. However, ordering by date (which probably is the best way to organize photos) doesn’t really work at all. The first pictures I ever uploaded in one of the albums are in the middle of everything, when they should be either first or last depending on how I order them (ascending or descending). Oh, and it’s not even possible to choose if you want to have them in an ascending or descending order.
- Tagging pictures. Tagging is a pain on Picasa, you can’t tag a batch of photos, you have to tag them one by one. So tagging is really time consuming, and it’s really boring.
- No sub-albums. You can’t create sub-albums on Picasa, which means you have to use tags to organize your photos. And looking back at the previous point, tagging is nothing you want to do on Picasa.
- Browsing albums. Loading albums with many pictures can be slow since it has to load a lot of thumbnails.
But Picasa of course has it’s benefits. The slideshow feature is really neat, even the embed slideshow works really well and is probably a feature I’ll use on my blog in the future. The uploading software (for Mac) is good, you still can’t tag a batch of photos at the same time with it though. I also find Picasa to be a bit faster when it comes to uploading, Flickr is sometimes slow when processing the photos. Another positive thing about Picasa is that you don’t have to pay anything to be able to use all the features, on the other hand you only have 1024 MB free storage (upgradeable to 10 GB for $20/year).
So how about Flickr? Well, I haven’t really found a lot of downsides on Flickr, as a Pro member. Everything works fine, I only got an error message once when I tried to organize my photos, but refreshing the page fixed it. The real downside however is the free membership. The free membership is so limited that it doesn’t make any sense to use Flickr at all, for me at least. You can only upload 100 MB per month and others can’t access the original files unless you’re a Pro member. So if you’re not willing to pay, you’re probably better off on a free service like Photobucket. A positive thing about Flickr is that everyone’s there, just like on YouTube. If you want people to see your photos, Flickr is the way to go, it’s where the community is. On Flickr I can also easily set permissions on my uploads, that way I can upload my family photos and only show them to my family and/or friends.
Now I’ve finally decided on which one I’ll be using from now on. Flickr is the winner and the most important reasons are listed below.
- The community is at Flickr.
- For $25 you get unlimited space and all features you need, while you get 10 GB storage on Picasa for $20 and not all the features you might need.
- No sub-albums on Picasa, I want to be able to actually organize my photos.
So what do you think about Flickr and Picasa? Which is better? Where do you upload your photos? I’m interested in knowing so leave a comment!
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I use both. Picasa is a great organizer for the desktop, but I find PicasaWeb to be very lacking. Flickr, as you mentioned, is probably the best for organizing and presenting on the web. So fortunately, I found an app at http://picasa2flickr.sourceforge.net that combines them. It adds a button that sends the selected photos to the Flickr Uploadr. Best of both worlds.
About tagging in Picasa. I regularly tag multiple photos. Select multiple photos either by using CTRL and clicking on photos, or a range by using shift. You should see that multiple photos are selected in the lower left corner. Then hit CTRL-K and enter your tags. When you add, it will add them to all selected photos.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the info about the software. However, I still can’t get multiple tagging to work. I’ve tried doing that in the web organizer, but it doesn’t work. I’ve also tried doing it in the software, but that doesn’t work either. Are you on a Mac? Cause I am, and the software might be different on Windows/Linux.
Maybe I’m doing it in the wrong place, can you provide a screenshot for me? It might help.
Thanks
Sorry, I am not on a Mac. I am using the latest beta version for Windows.
I see, that might be the reason then, if the programs aren’t the same. Keyboard shortcuts are usually pretty much the same on the Mac when it comes to stuff like this though. The software for the Mac seems to be kinda new though so all features are probably not built in yet.
Thanks for the info anyway, I’m not always on the Mac so I’ll try it when I’m using Windows.
I’m in the process of making the same choice. Pretty much for all of the points you articulated, I’m leaning towards Flickr.
I see, I think Flickr is better than Picasa at the moment. Picasa just needs some time, like with all Google tools it’ll grow bigger and better. So I suggest you go with Flickr too, for now :)
I was never particularly fond of Picasa’s layout, so I favored Flickr. You’re right, though.. Flickr is really pointless if you have a free membership. I only keep my account there to keep tabs on great photographers, friends and family.
I added you as a contact; hope you don’t mind!
This is roon from H!O, btw :)
I see, I still use both though, but Picasa is for my blog only. You can find almost everything on Flickr, it’s really cool :)
Thanks for adding me, I’ll add you back!
I actually found your Flickr totally by accident the other day. I was searching for Nozomi Sasaki pictures, and you had the ones I was looking for, haha. I clicked on them and was like, “Hey, it’s Sanokame! He comments on Tofugu, yay!”
Weird, huh?
Haha that’s great! :D The internet is not that big after all!
I do have a Flickr, but I don’t know if I want to go “public” with it just yet, haha. I like having a few “private” projects :3
Btw, Nozomi Sasaki was just in Hawaii! I think she was probably here for a shoot or something.
I see :P Well, tell me when you go public then!
Yeah she probably went there for a shoot, you must see celebs all the time over there, right? ‘Cause they come there for photoshoots like all the time…