More pieces falling off Picasa at the google photo end

I have (been trying) to use a google photo album for my travel shots on the go. I am mainly using a conventional DSLR camera and loading them onto a computer first using the now deprecated picasa, but I am struggling because google photos wants to vacuum up everything (via autobackup, and I strongly advise you not to install that) then do most of the editing and organizing for you via Auto awesome and stories, (but they are not very satisfactory and you have to edit a photo at a time, very tedious, and doing your own organization can be equally as tedious).

 

What I was able to do until last week was keep using Picasa to load and organize my photos, then uploading to my google photos albums. I often edited the photos in other tools (Picasa is still great in these  import and organization tasks and works well with other software that my edit the photos). Picasa’s RAW file rendering is not as good as lightroom, AfterShot Pro or OnOne but there is no penalty for using those other editors. It is a decent little workflow. However things are falling apart at the google photo end.

1. If you click on the google photo logo of use the view on-line button for some inexplicable reason you are connected to the old version of internet explorer (where as I use google chrome) and internet explorer tries to configure itself and set itself up as the default browser. Ok keep well clear of those buttons!
2. The bigger worry is what might happen when you press the big green button upload to google photos. It started playing funny about two weeks ago, Uploading a whole days photos. Then it started forgetting some photos in a multiple upload selection. Then often not uploading anything. Now  it also log me out of my google account after any upload. Logging back in for each upload is very tedious especially when the log in dialogue is frequently blank and it often forgets files when there are multiples of your selection tray. All super frustrating when you are relying of available WiFi and generally low bandwidth.

 

I haven’t downloaded a new version of Picasa so these must be issues at the on-line google photo end, I find it hard to believe they are trying to annoy the Picasa faithful, but they are. A big #FAIL google.

PS: Whilst I don’t understand Instagram, it is clearly an easier way to share photo from your cameraphone, when you are on the go.