Picasa 3 Updated - No longer Beta

The latest version 3 of Google's photo management and touch up software is now out of Beta. Google summarised the changes from v2 to v3 as:

Better integration between desktop and the web

• Automatically sync edits from PC to web, and share online albums directly from Picasa.

More editing tools

• New Retouching tool
• New Text tool
• New Smart Cropping tool
• Improved Photo Collage tool

New Movie Maker

• Create video slideshows with photos, videos, and music
• Direct upload of videos to Picasa Web Albums or YouTube

New Photo Viewer

• Picasa 3 includes a streamlined photo viewer for browsing photos via the Desktop or Windows Explorer

Changes in this release versus the final 'beta' build (57.24) include:

• Minor bugfixes to the text tool, web sync, and virtual albums

To learn more about Google Picasa v3 and the associated Web Albums service, take a look at Google's official Picasa Blog.