NEW AUTOMATIC PHOTO ORGANIZER LOCATES PICTURES STORED ON COMPUTERS, MAKES VIEWING, E-MAILING, PRINTING A SNAP
FRESH DESIGN APPROACH REFLECTS HUMAN FACTORS - PICASA THINKS LIKE PEOPLE THINK
BOSTON, Mass., October 15, 2002-Lifescape Solutions, Inc., noted for its mission "to bring fresh, compelling digital imaging products to mainstream consumers," today released Picasa, a new, intuitively easy-to-use software package created to help digital photographers effortlessly manage the family photo collection and enhance the enjoyment of reliving and sharing photo memories.
"The best home for your pictures," Picasa has been designed for the growing number of digital photographers currently frustrated by the arcane filing systems and multi-step processes used by most digital imaging programs, and who simply want to take, see, organize, share and enjoy their growing digital photo collections.
"Picasa is the first step by our company on our mission to create digital imaging products that are perfectly aligned with consumer lifestyle needs and are effortless to use," states Lars Perkins, Lifescape's chief executive officer.
"Picasa's ability to find and display images quickly and dramatically, requiring no special skills by the user except the desire to take, view, organize and enjoy a family's valuable and growing collection of digital memories, makes it the perfect companion to today's digital cameras."
DESIGNED FOR "REAL PEOPLE"
Lifescape designed its new Picasa by taking a fresh and innovative approach to digital imaging software. Picasa is based on studied insights into human cognitive preferences and memory schemata to create an intuitive, highly-visual program that self-organizes digital images. Picasa allows users to find pictures instantly by browsing through a digital photo archive and eliminates the need to recall file names, folder names or directory paths.
According to Lifescape Solutions President Ed Chao, Picasa is a "blend of visual and mental ergonomics reflective of human behavior patterns. It is the result of more than two years' observation into how 'real' people use digital cameras and their home computers to view and share family photos.
"Picasa emphasizes a visual interactive interface based on the human dominant sense of sight and our natural preference for spatial memory-emulating how drivers remember where they parked or how to get to the mall without recalling street names or specific directions given in decimal points of a mile.
"Picasa was created primarily for families, especially the family's 'memory manager' who prefers not to wrestle with multiple computer programs and files to enjoy the family album or, even worse, worry about losing valuable pictures somewhere on the computer's hard drive," says Chao.
PHOTOS INSTANTLY ORGANIZED AND PRESENTED IN HOME THEATER-LIKE 3-D "TIMELINE"
Upon installation, Picasa automatically ferrets out, finds and displays all photos lurking inside all the directories on a computer's hard disk, displays them in mini-albums and arranges them by date. It then presents each mini-album ready for viewing as a slideshow or in an innovative, kinetic "Timeline"- an interactive innovation Lifescape compares to a form of home theater. "It's intriguing, entertaining and fun," states Chao.
"Photographs are vital icons, representative of important events and people in one's life. We have observed in our studies that people do not necessarily elect to revisit individual photographs but are primarily motivated to relive certain events, usually very special events. By grouping pictures and presenting them as events, Picasa's Timeline provides an inviting pathway for time-traveling through photographic memories.
"It's an enjoyable and, above all, rewarding feel-good experience," adds Chao.
EFFORTLESS E-MAIL AND PHOTO PRINTING
While Picasa's most distinctive attribute is its ability to make a family album of digital pictures or an individual photo instantly accessible, Picasa also makes transferring pictures into a computer and sharing pictures by e-mail effortless.
When a USB-enabled camera is connected to a computer, Picasa's photo-importing process starts automatically. Sharing pictures by e-mail is as simple as selecting the pictures and clicking Picasa's e-mail icon.
"Its like sitting at the table, with all your pictures spread out in front of you," says Chao. "Picasa lets you spontaneously set a few treasured photos aside to e-mail to family and friends."
Picasa also provides easy interface to desktop printers and professional photo-processing laboratories for high quality prints. "This feature was created in response to our study groups' concerns claiming printing was 'too complicated,'" says Chao.
For desktop printing, Picasa presents a preview page of the photograph to be printed- avoiding what Chao calls "guessing games" with printer dialog boxes and avoiding misprinted photos on expensive photographic paper.
MORE ENJOYABLE, EASIER, REWARDING AND "FRICTION-FREE"
"All in all, we believe Picasa's fresh approach program makes digital photography simply more enjoyable, easier and rewarding," adds Chao.
"Our beta-test trial users have universally changed the way they interact with their photographs. Picasa has made digital photography so friction-free that users enjoy viewing their collections more frequently, and are not thinking twice about making prints to send to Grandma. With Picasa, digital photos are no longer mere fleeting, transient phosphors, but real and vital pictures to pass on to others, and to future generations."
Picasa is scheduled to be available in November at leading mass merchant outlets, software and photographic retailers at a suggested list price of $29.99. A full-featured trial version of Picasa and additional information is available at www.picasa.net.
Lifescape studies predict that, by early 2003, more than 25 percent of U.S households will own a digital camera.
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