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The new "name tag" feature automatically matches facial characteristics to present users with an assortment of photos it believes to be of the same person, allowing users to tag hundreds of photos at the click of a button.

Google claims the technology is still at an early stage, and admits it will struggle to identify faces in profile or under difficult lighting, such as shadows and glare.

Nonetheless the company is hoping the feature will encourage users to begin the previously arduous

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task of adding metadata to their photos.

With one eye on privacy, Google requires the facial recognition feature to be enabled manually and photos may only be tagged within a user's own account.

Picture editing

Alongside the name tag feature, the company is also introducing an "explore" view that lets people browse Picasa photos, sorting them by name, location and date of upload. There'll also be an ability to email photos to the service.

Google has also been busy touching up its image editing software, Picasa. Among the new tools in the beta of Picasa 3, users can automatically edit out blemishes and red eye, and combine photos and music into videos which can be uploaded with YouTube.

There's a new "collage mode" allowing users to combine lots of photos into one image, but with the ability to tweak the placement, size and rotation of the individual images within the montage.

As well as this, Google is introducing a synchronisation feature that will synch changes made on the desktop to any uploaded photos every time you connect.