Monday, December 06, 2010 at 7:28 AM
By Greg Robbins, Software EngineerOur new release of Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac OS X adds some valuable improvements suggested by users. If you share photos and videos on Picasa Web Albums with friends and family, you’ll find this update works even more smoothly with iPhoto and other photo management applications on your Mac.
The uploader application and iPhoto export plug-in now try to identify when files are duplicates of photos or videos already in the destination album, and will offer to skip uploading the copies. This is especially helpful when exporting directly from iPhoto, since now you can upload a growing iPhoto album or event repeatedly without having to carefully exclude the files you previously shared.
When photos are resized or are converted to JPEG, the new uploader also offers better image quality, and more consistent preservation of photo metadata like photo orientation and camera details.
This release is also a better foot soldier on the Data Liberation Front. When you use the Picasa Web Albums Uploader application to quickly download one or all of your albums, it will retrieve not just photos but now also a video file for each of your movies when MPEG-4 versions are available from the server. This makes Picasa Web Albums an even better choice for sharing your high-definition videos.
The latest release of the uploader, version 1.4, is available from the download page. If you have an older version of the uploader on your Mac, it may have already updated itself. To share your questions or suggestions, join the conversation in the Mac Uploader area of the Picasa Help forum.
