Posted April 5th, 2009
by Peter Fontaine
by Pete Fontaine
Traditional scrapbooking may soon be taken over by its digital cousin. The digital scrapbook craze has made huge headway into the world of scrapping. Because all digital scrapbookers posses the necessary computer skills to enjoy their hobby, it means that they can avail themselves to vast online resources. Free and low cost tools, creation software, and video tutorials are everywhere. If you need tailor made advice, technical assistance, or friendly community you’ll find it easily.
Don’t limit yourself to just using just your digital photos. All of your old photos can be sent to a low cost scanning service to be digitized. For as little as a nickel apiece you can add hundreds of your favorite memories to your scrapbook.
Scanning photos for your scrapping hobby has the added advantage of preserving them from deterioration due to moisture, mold, or age. Saving your photos to a DVD also allows you to store a copy in two or more places permanently shielding them from loss or damage. Scanning services make it possible to give a complete set of all your pictures to family members.
Aside from using your digitized images for scrapbooking you’ll be able to create and purchase photobooks, buy specialized photo based novelties, and upload your photos to the net for sharing, all with a just a few clicks. You can also build slideshows with music to view on a digital picture frame or on a TV.
Use a photo scanner who will scan your ordinary photographs at 300 dpi. Lower resolutions than that are not suitable for creating a master record of your photos. Higher resolutions mean you are paying for something that you are not really gettinga better quality scan. But, make sure they save your scans as high quality jpeg files. High quality jpegs have bigger file sizes because they are compressed very little but they produce better images. These larger files can always be minimized for various uses, if necessary, but keep the original file.
Find a photo scanner who offers an inexpensive photo enhancement service. These services can make descent improvements to most of your photos. Don’t pay a lot for this because it won’t perform miracles, and it won’t fix all of the problems. But beware; always enhance a copy of your original scans. Don’t let a photo scanner send just the enhanced scans. Photo enhancement as well as any manipulation or rotation of your scans means they will be recompressed. Repeated recompression means loss of image quality.
A quick search for “digital scrapbooking” will give you immediate access to educational e-books, organizational software, online classes, templates, toys, and tools. The raw materials of scrapping are your photo scans. So find a low cost scanning service and get started!
About the Author:
Scanning photos for digital scrapbooking rescues them from the possibility of destruction and deterioration.
Photo Scanning makes it easy and inexpensive to share a complete copy of your family’s digital images with each family member. Learn more about photo scanning at Pete’s website
www.nickelscan.com
Tags: digitize photos, family, family tree, genealogy, hobbies, home, organization, photo preservation, photo scanning. photo scanner, Photography, scan photos, scanning service, scrapbooking Posted in Photography
Posted March 26th, 2009
by Pete Fontaine
by Pete Fontaine
Everyone has that big box of photos in the back of the closet that’s worth a million and at the same time next to nothing. If you can’t share your photos easily then what good are they? You’ll be surprised to find out that it’s simple and inexpensive to turn your deteriorating images into an enjoyable work of art. There are photo scanning services that can digitize your photos for as little as a nickel apiece. And don’t try this yourself! Photo scanning at home is heart stoppingly boring!
You can build your own slideshow by purchasing software. My favorite is Pro Show Gold by Photodex. This software is relatively simple to use and has lots of features that make the project fun. You just add your photos to the program, then drag them into the order you want. With Pro Show Gold you can edit your photos and color correct, add your own music and then synchronize it to the photos. You can add text to the photo in the location you choose and use the “Ken Burns” effect to zoom from place to place on your images. With Pro Show Gold you can play your slideshow on TV. You’ll be amazed at how good your 4×6 photos look on a 50″ TV.
Free slideshow software is everywhere on the web. A quick search will yield tons of opportunities to create slideshows to share with friends, or to upload to your social networking site. Take a little time to investigate the features, and always download from a trusted site. Though most free software will not allow you to show the end product on a TV, they often include the ability to include music and do limited photo editing. Check out Google’s Picassa 3, Extra Photo Slideshow Free, and Wildbit software.
You may want to think about placing your slideshow in a digital picture frame. Prices have come down on digital picture frames with some 14″ frames selling for as little as $99. Some of the smaller frames now go for under $25. We expect this trend to continue. With memory card prices also hitting new lows you can afford to put your entire digital photo library on them. Lots of digital frames come with slideshow software installed, and some will play audio. So when your friends come over you can crawl into the back of that closet to dig out the box of gradually fading photos, or you can flip on that beautiful digital picture frame.
You can have your slideshows hosted online at Picturetrail or Iwebphoto. You can then send your friends and family a link to your slideshows. This can simplify matters somewhat. If you have a lot of photos it can save everyone from downloading the files. And you can add remove or edit the slideshows at any time. Don’t forget to add a text description to your slideshow to let everyone know what the photos are about. And go ahead and jazz up your photos with special effects or make a few black and white. Have Fun!
Make sure you choose a photo scanning service that scans at 300 dpi, and don’t pay for more. See if you can find a service that includes automatic photo enhancement at a reasonable price. This can do wonders for some if not all of your images. And be sure to insist on a complete copy of the original scans that have not been rotated, enhanced, or manipulated in any way. Then always make a copy of your master scans to use for anything. Shop around, scanning costs can vary greatly.
There are additional benefits to scanning your photos for a slideshow. By digitizing your photographs you can permanently protect them from damage and destruction and stop their everyday deterioration from age, mold, and moisture. You can also make complete copies of your scans and put them in two or three places. This not only protects them from loss or damage, you can then send copies to family and friends. Your precious memories are permanently secure.
Tags: Arts And Crafts, Digital Photography, digital scanning, entertainment, family, genealogy, hobbies, photo scanner, photo scanning, Photography, scan photos, scanning services, slideshow Posted in Photography
