Why Picasa Rocks and iPhoto Doesn’t

I use a Mac, but I don’t use iPhoto for anything.  Why?  Because I can’t stand the way iPhoto manages my images.  I don’t want to have to search by event when I’ve added a new batch of photos I need to upload.  I don’t enjoy my software trying to rethink how my files are organized and because when you take 30 to 40 pictures a day as I often do, it quickly becomes obvious that iPhoto wasn’t built with a serious photographer in mind.

Sure, there’s Aperture. I’m sure that it would do 99% of what I need it to do, but it comes with a fairly steep price tag, which isn’t what I’m looking for after already shelling out the money for Photoshop and my Wacom tablet.  What I need is something that can handle an inordinate amount of images, do so without burning through all the memory in my system and let me get to the business of editing and uploading images as needed.

That’s where Google’s Picasa^™ comes in.  First of all, it’s quick.  Even with over 20,000 photos in my collection (and that number grows by up to as much as 100 per day), Picasa opens in just a few seconds, where it takes iPhoto a full three minutes to get up and running.  Images are stored chronologically, rather than in collections, but I do have the ability to create my own albums at will and can add as many as I need on the fly.

Picasa also gives me the ability to upload images to multiple image sharing sites on the fly.  It can upload to Google’s Picasa photo sharing site by default, but with the addition of a few simple add-ons, Picasa can upload photos to Facebook, Twitpic, Yfrog and other social media sites with ease.  All you have to do is select the images you want to upload and click the upload button.  No fuss, no hassles, just done.

Picasa comes with all the basic image editing tools that you would expect in any decent image archiving package, like straightening, image sizing, red-eye reduction and brightness/contrast adjustments.  it also has a few nifty image effects in its arsenal that can be used to enhance your photos before you upload them to your favorite sharing site or decide to load them up in a more powerful editing package for final touches.

I’m sure there are some pretty loyal fans of iPhoto out there that will disagree with me.  If so, I’d like to hear why you feel that iPhoto is a better tool.  Have I missed some golden gem of insight that would get me to use iPhoto over Picasa?  What is is about iPhoto that keeps you coming back for more?  I’d love to hear your opinion, so feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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