Before photography became an almost totally digital pursuit, the process of developing and printing pictures was long, drawn out, difficult and expensive. So difficult, in fact, that the film had to be physically removed from the camera and handed in to a specialized laboratory, or even sent away in the post. Even after you'd got your photographs back and picked out your favorites, having more copies of them made was equally arduous, and relied upon you being able to keep the original negative in excellent condition.
Digital images, on the other hand, are so simple to produce that you can easily do it yourself in the comfort of your own home. Most devices are capable of storing many hundreds of individual shots, and then allowing you to quickly scroll through them and choose the ones you wish to keep and have printed. If you have access to a PC and a printer, then you can turn out as many copies as you like, and even tweak things such as the cropping, the color balance and the size of the final print. The question which then arises is how to go about safely storing all of these photographs, and, again, digital technology has provided an answer in making it easy to design and print your own photo books.
Think of the photo albums which per-digital photographs had to be stored in. They usually consisted of scrap books, with empty pages onto which your favorite pictures could be glued or taped. In other words, not very special, stylish or luxurious. Creating a photo book from your digital images, on the other hand, will result in a truly special artifact, produced to the same standard as those celebrating the work of professionals. Designing online photo books has been made incredibly simple, to the point where absolutely no prior experience in either design or computing is needed. The first step is to choose precisely which photographs you wish to feature on the pages - you may want a book which celebrates an event such as a wedding, or chronicles a holiday of a lifetime.
Once you've chosen the images to immortalize between two covers, simply upload them to the website in question. There you'll find software which has been especially designed with the beginner in mind, enabling you to have fun planning the layout of each page and selecting features such as the size and shape of the book and the construction and appearance of the front and back covers. Once you've got it looking exactly as you wish, and added any text you feel necessary, it will be printed and bound to a standard every bit as high as that boasted by books for sale on the high street.
The same technology can be used to turn individual pictures into personalized greeting cards, meaning that you can create photo greeting cards which are totally apt for any given situation and will, thanks to the trouble you've gone to, truly touch the heart and lift the spirits of whoever receives them.
No comments:
Post a Comment