Picasa Web Albums – Changed

I have been a big fan of Google’s Picasa2 photo editing software and Picasa Web Albums, but something has been wrong for sometime now and I cannot understand what. Something is no longer working the way it used to and whether it is the software or the photo albums I cannot say. Unfortunately, there is no where to go for help when things like this happen. I have tried Google’s blog and message boards, but they are not the place to get any technical information nor help. 

I am now back to uploading my photographs to Flickr as they allow me to upload my original images and allow me to download the same size, something that Picasa used to do, but does not anymore. No matter what I do, Picasa2 changes the sizes of my photographs. Usually it makes them smaller, but the other day I exported two photographs. One went at the original size so I was happy, then the other went from the original of 2.5 mb to 9.5 mb when I exported it. I have no idea why. I tried twice and it was the same both times.

This all may have begun with the latest upgrade of Picasa2 which was a few weeks ago. It may have begun when I paid for another year of service which was about the same time. And to boot, I started using a new camera and downloaded its software onto my computer. I did all three of these same things about the same time and that is when I first noticed that all of my photographs at Picasa Web Albums had been resized smaller.

So for anyone wanting to upload and download your original size of image, Picasa may not be the place to do it. Picasa resizes my images smaller and I have no control over that. Make sure you double check to see it your original image is being uploaded when you choose that option. 

The only suggestion I have found at Picasa Help for general problems is to uninstall the software and then reinstall it: http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=15040&topic=1144 . I will be trying that to see if it works.