Postprocessing using Picasa

I use Windows Live Photo (yes I know this a newb move) for basic stuff like exposure, WB and cropping etc. Recently I have started using Picasa since it has options for borders and framing and just discovered that it has a bunch of fun filters and started toying around with it.

Here a couple of pics post processed with Picasa. The first one I applied a infrared filter with light fade and on the second one I applied a infrared filter with soft focus as my wife wasnt too happy with the picture and wanted to be "edited" out.

I realize that gold standard tools like LR4/photoshop offer great flexibility and options but for novice users who just want to do basic stuff Picasa seems like a great alternative with very little effort. Also read that Google acquired Nik Software recently. Hopefully some of the features will make its way into Picasa as well.