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The free Google software contains the vast majority of the Picasa features that Windows users have enjoyed for years, including retouching tools, drag-and-drop collages and the ability to upload photo montages to YouTube.

Click here to read our review of Picasa 3 for Windows

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such as geotagging are not included in the first beta for Mac, although Google insists that it will refine the feature set and interface of the software in due course.

Mac users have been able to upload photos to Picasa Web Albums for some time, but this is the first time the company has offered the full desktop software to Mac owners.

It will inevitably become a direct competitor to Apple's iPhoto, which is bundled with new Macs, but costs £54 as part of the iLife suite if Mac owners want to keep up-to-date with the latest version.

Google says Picasa for Mac will "play nice" with iPhoto by taking a "read-only approach to editing photos stored in the iPhoto library, [and] duplicating files as needed, so that users' iPhoto libraries are never affected when they use Picasa."

Picasa for Mac is available to download here.