Here’s my review of the version of Google Picasa that was released for the Mac platform on January 5th, 2009.
Download the beta version here, and read the related blog post, Announcing Picasa for Mac.
I had Picasa scan only my media folder that I created on my MacBook Pro, not the default Pictures and iPhoto folders. Picasa takes a while to perform the scan.
The Bad
My Nikon D90 RAW files aren’t rendered very well in Picasa. The color and exposure is all wrong. Here’s what D90 NEF thumbnails look like in Picasa, vs. in Nikon ViewNX.
Picasa:
ViewNX:
I notice the same effect when viewing JPEG images in Picasa vs Preview. The following is a screen capture of a Nikon D3X image showing how much more muted colors are in Picasa compared to Preview (click to view a larger version).
Here’s a color rendition comparison between iPhoto and Picasa. A set of four Nikon D90 RAW files is displayed:
And finally, Adobe Bridge CS3 and Picasa:
Again, I’m not sure why images seem to have less color and appear muddier in Picasa.