Now when Google has Google Photos as its standalone photo organizer app, it finds no point in continuing Picasa. The search giant recently announced that it would stop supporting Picasa from coming March. In an official blog post, Google suggested users convert to Google Photos, the online uploader, and photo organizer.
Google says, “After much thought and consideration, we’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos. We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products.”
While Google won’t let you operate the Picasa desktop album after March 2016, you can still use it locally on your Windows PC. In this post, we will learn how to download, install and use Picasa Desktop Application locally on your Windows 10/8 PC. However, some features might not work particularly those which require integration with your Google account.
Picasa Desktop Application
Picasa Desktop Application is a lightweight free desktop application that downloads and installs on your PC. The application starts scanning your computer for photos as soon as you are done with the installation. 
As per the announcement made by Google, the Picasa desktop application will not be developed or updated henceforth, but those who have already downloaded the application or do so before the final closure date will be able to use the application as it is.
Download the desktop application and install it on your PC.
Manage and Organize Your Photos– The application automatically scans all photos on your PC as well as those uploaded on your Google Plus account and Picasa Web Albums. The application categorizes your photos date-wise and folder-wise. You can move the pictures from one folder to another, create a new album, move them to Google Photos, mail them, and much more. Just select the photos and take your cursor to the File option in the top left corner. Choose the option you want.
Add effects to your photos- The Picasa desktop application comes with some good photo editing tools. Select any photos and transform them by adding different effects. The editing effects include some commonly needed fixes, lighting and color fixes, and some fun image processing effects. 
Check out the cropped and edited photo below- 
Click on Create, and you can create a collage, make a poster, add borders to the images, create a Gift CD, set an image as your desktop background, or can even make a movie taking different slides of images. The option also lets you post the image directly to Blogger; this feature might not be available after March 2016 though. 
Upload Your Pictures to Google Photos- There is a green button Upload to Google Photos, which lets you upload your pictures to Google Photos, the online digital photo gallery of Google. Select any photo and click on the button to upload it. You can also tag people, faces or places in the pictures. 
While all these features are available for now, some of them might not work after March 2016. As per the official blog post made by Google, the features which might shut down with the closure include-
- Flash support
- Community search
- Mutation operations other than uploads
- All support for tags, comments, and contacts
You will still be able to read photos, read albums, and upload new photos. Google says that it will keep us updated on any kind of small or big developments. Stay tuned for more updates on the same.
Picasa desktop application download
You could download the Picasa desktop application from picasa.google.com. The tool has been retired now. But you download it now by clicking here. Please be careful during installation as it may offer to install 3rd party software/toolbars.
You might want to see how to use Google Photos and maybe take a look at some alternatives to Picassa.
What are the best Picasa Alternatives?
Apart from the Google Photos app, you can check out apps such as Luminar, Adobe Lightroom, Darktable, Apple Photos, OneDrive, and so on. Most smartphones also offer a great way to edit the photos using their Album feature making it easy to customize the photos.
