If you use a Mac, you probably know and love iPhoto, but if you’re on a PC, we hope you’ve discovered Picasa, the free and easy-to-use iPhoto competitor from Google. This slick program lets you manage and download photos, view slideshows, burn images to CD, basically do everything you’d want to do with your photos on your computer… except share them on the web.

The wizards at Google haven’t stood still, we recently found out (via Michelle Jones) that they’ve been working on an easy way for you to share your Picasa photos for free via the web. Their efforts are almost ready for primetime, and they’ve coded up some pretty cool features for their free online photo sharing site:

• The photos are Big — Check out this example and click on the “slideshow” link to marvel at how big it can get.
• It’s easy to flip through an album using your left and right arrow keys. Images are cached so the experience is extra-smooth. — Try it here.
• You can download a friend’s entire album into your copy of Picasa with just a click
• It’s free for the first 250MB of storage, $25/yr for 6GB more room.

Picasa Web Albums is in beta testing now. Sign up to get an invitation code once they start giving them out or learn more about Picasa Web Albums.

UPDATE: Early screenshots from the beta.

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