Sorry but I don't currently subscribe to a web photo hosting service.
That's one advantage of Picasa desktop software - it can seamlessly upload to Picasaweb, to Flickr and to Facebook and to seamlessly email them.
I have thousands of JPEG photos that were generated by the camera but
none at present that were converted with Picasa. The results I got on
I have hundreds maybe thousands of RAW files from Kodak P880 and two Oly DSLRS - for the most part "not for printing" I use Picasa to review them, to catalogue them, to tweak them, to email them at 800x600, to upload directly or export them at 1024 size to the web.
As I said before, there are limitations in this tool - it is not designed to be a purpose built RAW processor. You cannot set the JPEG quality to 95% image quality, it does none of the fancy Photoshop features (but that isn't RAW conversion). But any RAW processor DOES NOT DAMAGE THE RAW - they produce JPEGS. Using Picasa does not preclude or exclude you using a purpose built RAW processor later for specific photos.
initial trials convinced me that it was not the right thing to do. I
do use Picasa to sort my photos and I have even used it to enhance a
few JPEGS with some success. It just doesn't have the features that a
dedicated photo editing program does.
Agreed.
It is easy enough for anyone to conduct an experiment to see whether
Picasa is any good for RAW conversion. Just shoot RAW + JPEG fine
mode and do the conversions yourself and compare. If you are
satisfied with the result then use it. I did that and was not
If you compare convenience of coming back from a RAW shoot and cataloguing, tweaking 100 RAW, for me, Picasa wins in convenience. If I want to concentrate on a few RAW files for printing, then I use a purpose built processor.
If you compare RAW vs JPEG from the camera:
1. Some cameras have a really good JPEG engine. My Kodak P880 does and my Oly DSLRs do. So whether you use Picasa or Lightroom, it takes effort or stored skills / settings to even get close to the JPEG "pop"
2. However, JPEGs esp in my Oly 510 DSLR, has a steep contrast curve baked in. If the JPEG has burnt highlights about 1 stop over, Picasa + RAW will meet the challenge better.
3. JPEGs are notoriously hard to colour balance if you shoot mixed lighting or the colour balance is wrong because the colour balance is baked in. Picasa + RAW works fine.
impressed. The colors were way off and the details were worse than
JPEGs shot at the same time. I am not interested in doing a
conversion where I have to spend the next several minutes correcting
the mess Picasa made during the conversion. There has to be a reason
If you have to correct the mess that Picasa made that advantage is completely lost.
why the vast majority of people spend good money to get a RAW
converter rather than use Picasa. What I don't understand is why the
guy who wrote RAW Therapee is giving it away. The performance of that
program rivals or sometimes exceeds that of ACR in my experiments. If
you want a free program, that is the best one I have found.
If you work hard in Lightroom, ACR, Raw Therapee, Silky Pix, you can equal or easily better Picasa. In particular, if you want to print, that is the way to go.
If you want to quickly catalogue shots, post to the web with low amount of work, and time spent say about 5 secs a shot and put it on a web host or email it or make JPEGs for display on flat panels, screens and TV (I repeat, not for printing), Picasa reduces the amount of work that you have to do.
Here are recent shots:
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Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com/
http://onepicperpost.blogspot.com/ 
