David K. Israel
Picasa VS. Flickr
by David K. Israel - April 28, 2009 - 5:58 AM

Okay shutterbugs, let’s see a show of comments: Who likes Flickr and why? Who likes Picasa and why? Who has a better alternative for photo sharing (Photobucket, Ovi, Pikeo?) I’m using both Flickr and Picasa and I find that each has its strengths and weaknesses. (And I use them both on my desktop and iPhone).

For those who don’t use either, or who don’t know much about these great, powerful sites, here’s some basics, plus my thumbnail review:

Picture 35.pngPicasa is Google’s photo sharing site, enabling you to upload and share photos like Snapfish or Ophoto, etc. You can also buy prints through a third party (like Snapfish). The amazing thing about Picasa: it’s a software app too, that sits on your desktop and organizes all your photos much the way iPhoto does.

Picture 51.pngThe moment you run it for the first time, it automatically combs through your entire HD and finds all the images, allowing you to not only see them and locate/organize them, BUT, edit them. Okay, so it’s not as sophisticated as Photoshop, but all the basics are there.

Then, once you get all your photos looking the way you want them, Picasa lets you sync them up with your account online, so others can see them. You can even upload videos (though, for my money, they look pretty crappy, which is strange since Google has all that video technology on its side already).

Picture 44.pngFlickr is Yahoo’s photo sharing site, and it, too, has an application you can download to help upload large batches. It doesn’t, however, let you edit the photos on your desktop. So you’ll still need Photoshop or iPhoto. BUT, if you’re a die-hard iPhoto user, you have the option to purchase a plug-in that allows you to upload to Flickr directly from iPhoto.

The videos on Flickr look A LOT better to me than they do on Picasa. But here’s the catch (isn’t there always a catch?) you only get TWO videos a month, unless you want to shell out $25 a year for a pro account. But with the pro account, you can upload HD video (whoo hoo!).

Prints are handled by a third party called Qoop, and, like Picasa and all the others, you can upload your mobile photos directly to your account.

So that’s my .2 cents. I think I’m leaning toward using Flickr exclusively. But let’s hear from some real users out there. What are you using and what do you love about it? What do you hate about it? Include linkage in your comment so we can see what you’re up to!

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Comments (46)

  1. with flickr, you have other options for ordering photos, you can do so directly from flickr to target or mail order, w/o using a third party. Also, you can edit flickr photos once they are on the web with a flash enabled system. Also, if you take good pictures, flickr might ask you to join a company that supplies stock photography.

    posted by Tim on 4-28-2009 at 7:14 am

  2. I started off on Picasa and switched over to Flickr a few months ago. Two main reasons:

    1. Picasa requires putting every photo in an album; this works well if you only put up batches of photos or if you take photos that fall into clearly defined groups, but not so well if you regularly put up one-off shots that you don’t want to categorize. On Flickr everything goes into your photostream, and then you can separately organize them using sets and tags.
    2. My RSS-using friends and family want to be able to subscribe to a feed so they know when I put up something new. The RSS on Picasa is extremely limited–officially, your choices are to subscribe to individual albums and see when new photos appear there, or subscribe to the whole gallery and see when new *albums* appear there. There is no official RSS feed for all new photos, period. (You can futz around with the gallery feed URL to get it to show photos instead of albums, but then it shows only the 100 *oldest* photos; if you go past 100, it stops updating. There are apparently further ways to futz with the URL to switch that to the 100 newest, but it’s not supported. This was the point when I started looking at Flickr.)

    Incidentally, Apple’s MobileMe Gallery takes exactly the same album approach as Picasa and has exactly the same RSS issue.

    The one thing I dislike about Flickr is the navigation interface. On Picasa, when you’re viewing a photo, there are great big arrows above the photo to go forward and back–it’s very clear how to go from one photo to the next. On Flickr the navigation sits in the right bar (which allows you to move within the multiple sets a photo might be in), and it shows you thumbnails of the actual previous/next photos, but what you’re supposed to do there isn’t the least bit obvious if you’ve never seen it before. (For example: There are arrows there, but the arrows move you within the navigation interface, they don’t actually go to the previous/next photo. And because it shows the previous/next photos right next to each other, but nothing in the middle, it’s not really clear the first time you see it that where you are *right now* is between those two photos. If you have a couple similar-looking photos next to each other, it starts to be really confusing about what it’s showing you. Try explaining this to your grandmother.)

    That aside, I wound up paying the $25 to get a Flickr Pro account. Money well spent, and it’s worked much better for me than Picasa.

    posted by jmd on 4-28-2009 at 7:30 am

  3. I use Shutterfly, for two main reasons:

    1) When sharing photos with friends/family, they don’t have to have an account to view the pics.

    2) I adore their photo books! I don’t buy prints of my photos anymore – I make them into books, and Shutterfly has heaps of options for backgrounds, layouts and captions.

    posted by Dawn on 4-28-2009 at 7:34 am

  4. Why sell yourself short? 0.02 cents != 2 cents. Or maybe you meant 0.02 dollars (which is 2 cents).

    posted by Joshua on 4-28-2009 at 8:16 am

  5. Picasa wins out for me because of the software support. The editing options that Picasa affords are great and the interface makes it super easy to upload to a web album, blog pictures, email pictures and order prints right from the desktop app. Great stuff.

    posted by Peter on 4-28-2009 at 8:20 am

  6. I prefer Picasa because the process of downloading my photos from my camera to my computer and then posting them online is extremely simplified and takes just a few clicks.

    I also find the “photostream” method used by Flickr confusing to use.

    posted by Erik on 4-28-2009 at 8:23 am

  7. Hey David – great question!

    A crucial piece you left out of the Flickr overview is that Flickr now includes photo-editing within the Flickr site via a slick integration with Picnik.com. You can pull your photo’s from Flickr into Picnik, use the amazing features of Picnik (the Auto-Fix in Picnik rivals photoshop and it’s way better than Picasa), and then push them back into Flickr. Photo touch-up was always my complaint about Flickr as well, and they surpassed my expectatoins when they integrated with Picnik.

    A fundamental question you need to ask is, “Who is my picture audience?” If you are taking pictures and want the world to see them, Flickr is the way to go. An alternative to Flickr is Zooomr.com, a smaller site but offers all the features of Flickr with no $25 a year charge (there are ZooomrPro accounts but they removes advertising and doesn’t limit the storage or view). However, zooomer doesn’t do video yet – they will though. If you ever decide to leave, there are apps that can download all your pictures from both Flickr and Zooomr.

    If you want to do all the editing on your desktop and only upload finished picture (and aren’t a photoshop jockey), picasa is the way to go. My HUGE complaint about Picasa is the lack of unlimited storage. 10GB or 20GB of space fills up fast with pictures.

    If you want your pictures to be seen by family and friends – in other words, only people you give your address to – I highly recommend SmugMug.com. The guys and gals at SmugMug run a top quality site that is worth every penny of the years charge. They do HD video and unlimited space. Smugmug also does the best prints out of any of the sites, also giving you the most options. SmugMug is probably the best of all the sites – you get what you pay for.

    Even though it doesn’t look like you are leaning this way, I would stay away from sites like photobucket. They are too restrictive, keep all your photos, and are more hassle then they are worth.

    So, after all that, I would recommend either Flickr or SmugMug. Figure out your audience and what you want to get out of the site, and your choice should be easy.

    posted by Tim C. on 4-28-2009 at 8:25 am

  8. I’m a picasa user, I like the interface and its ease of use and don’t upload many videos. Also, I like how integrated it is with all my other google services. I don’t feel like maintaining yet another email address (yahoo in this case) just to host photos.

    posted by dan finnegan on 4-28-2009 at 8:46 am

  9. I have always wondered about this. I use Picasa. I have tried using Flickr every once in a while, but feel frustrated by the interface. Not that I think Picasa is perfect like its habit of emailing you about someone’s comment days after the fact. But I like ability to upload my pics using the software. It does not hog the bandwidth and gets the work done even on my DSL Lite.

    posted by septerr on 4-28-2009 at 9:11 am

  10. I guess I could say I’m a semi-pro photographer (i.e. I get paid nicely but rarely). What that means in practice is that I tend to shoot *prolifically* at events (especially airshows). Lately I’ve been shooting with two 8-gig cards as my primary storage with about 5 gigs of smaller cards in case I go over during any given session.

    Now, I certainly didn’t upload all 10,000 frames I shot at the Blue Angels’ airshow last time I was there, but even if I only upload the top 1% of my shots, storage tends to run out terribly quickly.

    For $25 a year, I can have a Flickr Pro account and upload as much as deserves it, with no need to decrease quality or to decide which of my thousands of photos to remove from the Internet. Thankfully, with the Flickr Uploadr, it’s not hard to upload gargantuan batches all at once. Sometimes they’re even done by breakfast. ;)

    posted by CJ the Photog on 4-28-2009 at 10:10 am

  11. Also, flickr has EASY easy easy integration plugins for wordpress blogs, so my website, eaglefam.us, only used flickr, and it works out very well.
    -tim

    posted by Tim on 4-28-2009 at 10:49 am

  12. Personally, I use Shutterfly.

    posted by Sarah in CA on 4-28-2009 at 11:16 am

  13. I tried a bunch of sites and settled on Smugmug. I think the photo quality is the best and it is easy to share links with no subscription needed by the viewer. When ever I have emailed a help question I have gotten an answer very quickly. I have found that my more serious photographer friends use Smugmug.

    posted by Joe on 4-28-2009 at 11:30 am

  14. I have been a Flickr user for a few years now. I have a pro account, which costs very little for unlimited uploads and archive-quality storage. My favorite thing about Flickr, compared to several sites that I’ve also used sparingly (Shutterfly, Snapfish, etc.), is that the photos are stored at much larger sizes. Also, anyone can view them unless I mark them as private or for only certain users. I regularly send links to photo sets to family following events. I also enjoy the community aspect of Flickr, though I have only a few contacts and submit photos to groups occasionally.

    I tried Picasa long ago when it wouldn’t work with either my browser or computer. I’m sure it does now, but I am very happy with Flickr.

    posted by Melissa on 4-28-2009 at 11:36 am

  15. I am not a shutterbug, I take a few pictures here and there and picked my camera because its a great point and shoot.

    I don’t have photoshop or need to do anything fancy with my pictures, so Picasa works great, a little bit of editing, arrange my pictures by where they are on my computer, and put them online.

    If I was more professional, I suppose Flickr would be a better choice, but for my level of skill and interest, Picasa is great :)

    posted by Cheri on 4-28-2009 at 11:42 am

  16. I waited a long time before I jumped into online photo sharing. Finally decided on Smugmug. It’s a bit pricey, but I’ve always been a bit wary of free stuff on the web. No advertising on the site, great customization options, and a merchandise/photo store second to none. Smugmug also has a Photoshop plugin for uploads.

    posted by gwdMaine on 4-28-2009 at 12:01 pm

  17. @Joshua I’m glad I’m not the only one who caught that .2 cents =/= 2 cents ;)

    posted by Erica on 4-28-2009 at 12:03 pm

  18. It should be noted that one doesn’t need a Flickr account to view photos on Flickr. You can keep your photos private there and share them with friends and family via a guest pass.

    I’ve been using Flickr for four years now and am happy with it. My participation there has dropped off some, but I still use it to share photos. And while I generally use Photoshop, I’ve had occasion to use Picnik a couple of times and it works great.

    The Pro account is worth every penny of the $25.

    posted by Alison on 4-28-2009 at 12:17 pm

  19. I use Picasa. It allows me to use other photo sharing sites and still keep what I want private, private.

    posted by Hannah on 4-28-2009 at 12:24 pm

  20. I’m solidly in the Flickr camp. I’ve tried using Picasa, because that’s what my Mum uses and she loves it, but I find that I just do not get on with it.

    I post to my blog twice a day, and one of those posts is always a photo post so the reliable compatibility between Flickr and Typepad is a great help to me. I love my little Flickr side-bar widget, and it makes it much easier for people to search for a specific image (Like a different photo of my cats having a nap in a patch of sunlight).

    Another thing I really like about Flickr is that they partner up with other companies to offer services like printing and photo editing. I probably wouldn’t have found Picnik otherwise, and for that alone Flickr would get my loyalty and thanks.

    $25 seemed expensive before I signed up for it, but I’m definitely hooked in now. I am looking forward to building a nice big Flickr album!

    posted by Jen - The Alien Spouse on 4-28-2009 at 12:56 pm

  21. I use Flickr to share photos with friends and use them on my blog and such.

    However, I do use Picasa’s to organize and maintain all my pictures on my hard drive. I just don’t use their online tools.

    posted by JD on 4-28-2009 at 1:58 pm

  22. I’ve tried both… I’ve never been too happy with either services support for scripted upload apps. I’ve just started trying out a service called Plogger. I’ll see how that goes…

    http://www.plogger.org/

    posted by Jason! on 4-28-2009 at 2:07 pm

  23. I have used Flickr for a year and a half now. I pay for pro because I take a lot of pictures, and this is a way to back up an unlimited amount while also letting other people see them. It was especially great for letting people keep up with me when I was studying abroad in New Zealand last semester.

    posted by Rachel on 4-28-2009 at 2:42 pm

  24. Flickr wins for me hands down, but then I’m also a Pro user so the limitations don’t apply. Considering the amount of photos and videos I upload (not a pro by any means, just love to capture family memories via pics/video), Flickr provided the best price for display and storage. Plus considering the huge community following, it’s easier to find a plugin or free 3rd party software to support however you want to share or archive your data. I dislike that there’s no mass photo download with flickr, but have found alternative solutions through the community.
    However, I use Picasa to manage and organize my photos and upload to Flickr (via plugin).

    posted by Nikki on 4-28-2009 at 2:52 pm

  25. Flickr wins for me hands down, but then I’m also a Pro user so the limitations don’t apply. Considering the amount of photos and videos I upload (not a pro by any means, just love to capture family memories via pics/video), Flickr provided the best price for display and storage.
    Plus considering the huge community following, it’s easier to find a plugin or free 3rd party software to support however you want to share or archive your data.
    I dislike that there’s no mass photo download with flickr, but have found alternative solutions through the community.
    However, I use Picasa to manage and organize my photos and upload to Flickr (via plugin).

    posted by Nikki on 4-28-2009 at 2:58 pm

  26. I use deviantart.com. If you take pictures on a regular basis, you can network with other local photographers and lovers of everything photo. You can print through the site or have others buy directly prints, calendars, t-shirts, etc. I’ve made quite a few friends through it and have had some job offers.

    posted by Kim W. on 4-28-2009 at 4:43 pm

  27. flickr all the way. I think the community aspects of the website are most fantastic, in addition to the quality UI. I’m speaking as a pro user, of course, so I can’t really compare it to the free Picasa experience. Still, flickr is one of the few services that is so amazing I bought pro mostly because of how much I enjoy it.

    posted by kati on 4-28-2009 at 6:28 pm

  28. Hmm… Seems that pro users love Flickr, but how about regular users?

    I’ve been using Picasa (though I’m by no means thrilled with it) over Flickr because it seems to upload the photos significantly faster than Flickr. I once uploaded the same batch of photos to both (using their respective applications on the same computer with the same connection, not at the same time) and it took 3-4 times as long to upload them to Flickr. Has anyone else noticed this difference?

    posted by Alan on 4-28-2009 at 6:38 pm

  29. @ Alan – That’s interesting because I tried the same thing and it was the other way around. Picasa took much longer. Perhaps Flickr processes video faster (I upload as many videos as I do photos, so it’s a lot of vid.)

    posted by David K. Israel on 4-28-2009 at 6:54 pm

  30. I use DeviantArt. It’s good and easy.. Only if my scanner was hooked up I’d use it more. If your pro you can get job offers too.

    posted by Isabella on 4-28-2009 at 9:09 pm

  31. I don’t like Flickr because I can only upload 100mb of images per month, and I don’t want to pay for a pro account. How much do Picasa, Shutterfly, etc. allow?

    posted by Justin on 4-29-2009 at 1:22 am

  32. It is a dilemma for me: I have a Flickr Pro account and I am very happy with Flickr BUT I’d prefer to use Picasa because I am a big Google Apps users, relying on Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Documents.
    So my online life is tied to Google.

    The only thing that prevents me to switch to Picasa is that on Flickr I can have unlimited storage for 25$ while on Picasa with 20$ I’ll get just 10Gb. It is a huge limit.

    posted by Pelpa on 4-29-2009 at 6:59 am

  33. I use flickr because there are themed groups you can join by adding your photos to the Group Pools. These forums are an excellent way to view other photos similar to your own and also explore creative and technical photo techniques.

    posted by Mandolin on 4-29-2009 at 10:16 pm

  34. I don’t think you have to purchase a plugin to upload iPhoto picture directly to Flickr. I have that, and I didn’t pay for anything.

    posted by Catherine on 4-30-2009 at 11:58 am

  35. Well, I’m for Flickr, and have been for several years. Why … well, because it works, that’s why.

    That said, I’d switch, if I could easily migrate from one to another (and all of my blog posts could be updated easily), just because I tend to upload lots of pictures, and the Flickr Uploadr is particularly NOT robust. When a batch of 300 photos fails at picture 25, and doesn’t just automatically retry … well, that’s just idiocy.

    posted by DaviMack on 5-1-2009 at 5:14 pm

  36. Im a pro flickr user and I love it. I love the community part of it the most. The only thing I hate it when I order prints, I really don’t care for the quality or the price of flickr’s prints. I use snapfish to get all my prints. I wish flickr would join up with snapfish so I could get my prints through them. i’ve used picasa some but haven’t figurd out the community part of it.

    posted by Ashley on 5-4-2009 at 3:26 pm

  37. Does anyone have an opinion on WEBSHOTS? WS is easy and free. It seems to have a good following.

    posted by Prof Gizmo on 5-26-2009 at 5:37 pm

  38. I have been using Flickr for a couple of years now and decided to look into Picasa last night since a friend was using it. Not having unlimited upload pricing was a dealbreaker to me. Plus the picture quality looks better on Flickr. Those would be the two most important factors for me.

    Flickr is not without its own problems though. As someone mentioned before, the thumbnail navigation interface on the righthand side is clunky and pretty useless. I’m surprised this issue has not been addressed yet by Flickr. It would also be better if Flickr lets users customize pages with their own css like Pbase.com or at the very least let users change the background color to something other than sterile white.

    posted by Richard on 7-8-2009 at 4:54 am

  39. I’m starting to use Flickr despite being a hardcore Picasa guy at heart. Two reasons:

    1) I have relatives in China and the government there is constantly fucking with Google; right now nobody over there can see Picasa Web Albums.

    2) Picasa’s online slide shows are seriously inferior to Flickr, which looks extremely professional while Picasa’s look unfinished.

    posted by Light Machine on 7-23-2009 at 6:49 pm

  40. Nobody mentioned the cost to print. I guess nobody prints anymore?

    I am a flikr user and could not figure out how to download the images from the web site so that I could take them to my local Sams club to be published. Sams club is cheaper and I wanted the pictures right away.

    posted by J-bird on 10-12-2009 at 9:33 pm

  41. one thing that i see being seriously overlooked, in this conversation, is the issue of licensing. believe me, this *should not* be overlooked!

    i use flickr, initially for the awesome web interface, then for the unlimited storage [pro accounts are really awesome, and completely worth the price]. the thing that will keep me with flickr, for the foreseeable future, is the licensing they use. creative commons ftw.

    when considering the licensing issues, the true concerns come out when talking about the companies that you use to print you images! like dawn commented above, i love photo books too, but if you care about retaining exclusive ownership to your photos, *do not* use shutterfly! in fact, reading over the fine print of most of the photo printing sites out there, 99% of them retain ownership/reproduction rights to any photo that you put into their server [printed or not]. for printing, i use winkflash. the design of their web site is awful – something they really should fix – but the prints get delivered to me in a timely manner and looking great! most importantly though, their t.o.s. say nothing about them retaining reproduction rights or anything similar, in fact, they go out of their way to say just the opposite!

    again, consider your art/work… the movie/record/tv/etc industry doesn’t let just anyone reproduce their works, why should we just haphazardly allow it just because we want to get a good deal on photo prints! make those companies come up with [or pay for] their own artwork for their advertising campaigns!

    posted by thinbegin on 11-11-2009 at 10:31 pm

  42. I just happened upon this blog entry while searching for thoughts on the two sites. Thanks for the article & comments.

    One thing that was just changed is Picasa/Google’s price for extra storage. It just dropped a lot to:

    20 GB ($5.00 USD per year)

    80 GB ($20.00 USD per year)

    200 GB ($50.00 USD per year)

    400 GB ($100.00 USD per year)

    1 TB ($256.00 USD per year)

    So now the comparison for price is much harder – 80 GB year is $20 on picasa and unlimited is $25/year on Flickr Pro

    posted by GeekAba on 11-12-2009 at 12:18 am

  43. I have the Flickr pro account, but one thing that is limiting is I can’t allow my friends to download the photos I send them unless I add them as a “friend”. But then they have access to all my photos labeled “friends”. I have several different groups I send to. I don’t want all of them to have access to all the pictures I send out. Am I doing something wrong, or is this the way Flickr works?

    posted by mari on 11-22-2009 at 1:14 pm

  44. I like Flickr more then Picasa personally, because it show bigger photos, however, do eveyone share photo on facebook?

    normally Facebook resize your photo when you uploaded, do try a facebook application “YouGotSnapped”, it allow you to upload FULL SIZE photo to facebook!!

    http://www.yougotsnapped.com

    posted by Andy on 11-23-2009 at 3:36 am

  45. I am a happy flickr pro user. I love the videos in the slideshow, and use a free iphoto integration plugin that is awesome. I use their amazing JSON api to pull pictures for use on my javascript dynamic website etc. Sooo very nice.

    The only negative is that I don’t like flash, and I wish flickr offered a javascript alternative to their flash slideshow. Their iPhone version is ok though.

    posted by Dave on 12-1-2009 at 1:22 am

  46. I used a Flickr Pro account for a couple years (and created a couple Qoop books via Flickr). Then switched to Picasa, where I’m pretty happy.

    1) I found the Flickr uploader was not reliable for me. I also disliked how you have to select all of the photos you want to upload and copy them to the uploader, whereas in Picasa, you can “star” the photos you like, then move them all over to an album at once. In other words, selecting and uploading pictures for Flickr was more time consuming, painful, error prone. Just my experience, perhaps there’s a better way to upload to Flickr, but I didn’t find it.
    2) Storage update – as one of the users has recently mentioned, Picasa now has 80 Gb for $20 (as opposed to 10Gb). That’s pretty solid, with hints of more to come as prices of hard drives go down.
    3) It’s useful to be able to edit Picasa photos on my computer. I’ve tried Flickr/Picnik, that’s ok, but I prefer Picasa. I also am a fairly decent Photoshop user, but like how Picasa makes photo edits easy.
    4) Picasa makes it a bit easier to have photos selected for end of year photo books, whereas I found this difficult to do with Flickr (you basically have to re-do your work of selecting your favorite photos). As an example, say you have 5,000 photos you’ve taken this year and you want to select the best 50 for a photobook you are putting together.

    In Picasa, you can go through your albums, copy all the Starred pictures to an album called “Best of 2009″ and then whittle that album down until you have your top 50. Then what I did last year was I took those original copies of the 50 photos and used them in Blurb in order to create my Best of book for the year.

    On the other hand, with Flickr, you’d kinda be starting from scratch. You might need to go through all 5000 pictures (which is pretty painful). Then you’d copy the favorite 50 over to a new folder, and/or upload them to Flickr, then use them with a Qoop book or do a Blurb book.

    The point being, with Picasa, you’ve already starred your favorites during the year, and it’s pretty easy to create a new “Best of” album with all the starred pictures in it.

    5) Work and Home accounts. I have a work picasa account and a home picasa account, and it works pretty nicely to use the Picasa software to upload to both. For example, if I shoot a bunch of pictures today at work and then at home, I can create albums for both and then upload them to different accounts without much fuss. With Flickr, I found that process to be a little bit more challenging.

    Finally, my one concern with Picasa is that since Flickr has a mindshare lead, sometimes I wonder if Picasa will become an also ran and not have the latest and greatest features. So far Google seems to be committing resources to Picasa, but I’d still give the “popularity” edge to Flickr.

    In summary, I’ve tried both Flickr and Picasa. There are a few things I like better about Picasa, but I could see how people would like either one (or neither one) so hopefully you can weigh my thoughts in with your own needs and choose the best service for yourself.

    posted by Howard on 12-13-2009 at 10:35 pm

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