Google releases Picasa 2, free photo management software that makes it simpler than ever for people to organize, edit and share their digital pictures. Google's new version of Picasa offers photographers of all skill levels easy-to-use tools that automatically organize even the largest photo collections on a PC and turn average snapshots into great pictures.

New and improved features of Google Picasa 2 include:
• Advanced editing tools - Fix pictures with more powerful tools, 12 photographic filter effects, color and lighting   
  adjustments, red-eye removal, photo cropping and straightening.
• Improved organization - Add captions, quickly and easily search across all photos on a computer, attach labels and
  stars for better photo organization, reorder pictures and clean up cluttered folders.
• Backup capabilities - Archive photos from a computer to a CD or DVD, save photos on an external drive, and create gift
  CDs with personalized slideshows.
• Customized prints - Print at home with standard sizes, or order photo prints by uploading pictures to Ofoto, Shutterfly,
  Snapfish, and Walmart.com.
• Enhanced sharing features - Email photos via Gmail (and other email clients), upload photos to a Blogger blog, and send
  and discuss photos in real-time via Hello.com

"With Google Picasa 2, we've made it easier for people to find, organize, improve and enhance their photographs, as well as create photo CDs, personalized slideshows, desktop collages, and much more," said Lars Perkins, General Manager, Picasa, Google Inc. "Digital photos are an important and growing category of personal information, and Picasa is in line with Google's commitment to develop advanced technologies that further help users to find, organize and share information that's important to them."

Some features of Google Picasa 2:

Find the pictures you forgot you had: Picasa organizes your entire collection while you watch, scanning the images on your computer and automatically sorting them by date.

Keep one picture in multiple albums: Google Picasa 2 creates a new “instance” of each photo you label without taking up more space on your computer, so you can put the same picture into multiple albums. Have photos you want to keep to yourself? You can add passwords to any of your Picasa collections (this does not affect which pictures you and others can see on your computer’s hard drive).

Amazing effects turn so-so pictures into works of art: You can see how much Picasa’s 12 new visual effects can improve your photos - and in seconds, not hours. Go sepia. Warmify. Make pictures pop with color or try austere black-and-white. Try easy one-clicks or the more finely tuned sliders for better control where you want it. And of course, you can undo your changes at any step along the way.

Know how to use a camera in manual mode? Photography aficionados can now fine-tune their photos with Picasa's EXIF display. This window shows you all the camera data that is stored in a picture's original file - such as camera model, date the photo was taken, even if a flash was used. The EXIF display also has a RGB histogram, a real-time graph that shows the intensity of colors in your picture and how they change when you make edits in Picasa.

Send photos via email that are a joy to receive: Take the guesswork out of sending photos. Picasa 2 automatically resizes and attaches pictures to email messages at sizes your friends will be able to open. Works with most email programs, including Google's Gmail.

Custom and standard sizes are now fit to print at home: Google Picasa 2 automatically fits your pictures perfectly onto the expensive paper used by your home printer. It's finally easy to print wallets, 4×6, 5×7, full pages, more sizes and even (hallelujah!) more than one picture on a page.

Burn to CD or DVD for archive purposes: Picasa makes it easy to protect your pictures by archiving them on a CD or DVD. Google Picasa 2 even displays the pictures that haven't been backed up yet to make absolutely sure you don't make mistakes with images that matter.