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PRINTING, EMAILING, SHARING DIGITAL IMAGES
The photo lab of the 21st century
By Nancy & Steve Ross
In recent columns, we've discussed issues related to selecting digital cameras, questions about using these cameras, and provided other tips about the new wave of these devices. This time, we'll tackle the question of what to do once you have those images.
Move the images to your computer: You'd be surprised how many people leave their images on a digital media card in their camera, and consider this safe storage. It's not. You need to copy the images of your travels to your computer. This is easily achieved on either a PC or a Mac simply by plugging the cable that came with your camera into the camera and then into the computer. Recent versions of Windows or Mac OS will offer to copy the images from your camera to the computer where they will be safe. Once this is done, consider copying them, yet again, to a CD where they cannot be erased. You can learn about burning CDs in your Windows Help (Help on the Start Menu) or Mac Help Mac (Help on the Help Menu of the Finder).
Share your images via email or the Web: You will probably want to share the new images with friends, family, or if you are a travel journalist, with professional associates. This is easily accomplished using either email or the World Wide Web. Keep several things in mind when you prepare the images.
? Your camera captures larger images than the computer screen can display. That's good because it allows you to print the photographs or to crop them creatively. But? when you are planning to use them for electronic transmission, you need to size them for the screen.
? We discussed image sizing in an earlier column, but it bears repeating. Here are the guidelines: A computer screen has a resolution of 72 DPI. The average computer user has about 800 pixels in screen width by 600 in screen height. If you exceed these dimensions with your digital image, you will be sending files that are much larger than they need to be ? in fact, some email services such as AOL may not accept them. In other cases, you will be forcing viewers to scroll vertically and horizontally to view the image ? not what you had in mind.
To prepare the images, use the imaging software of your choice ? most cameras come with Adobe Photoshop Elements. Make a copy of your image. With this copy, use the Image>Size command on the menu to reduce the size of the image so it fits within the guidelines previously mentioned. Although we've used the command as it appears in Adobe Photoshop Elements, other software has this same function, and it is described in the documentation.
Not all images will fit the 800 x 600 aspect ratio, but try to stay well within that box (i.e., no more than 800 in width and no more than 600 in height). Smaller images are fine. Typically, we sharpen the image a bit at this point. Finally, save the copy to your disk as a JPEG. The reason you use JPEG is that it compresses the image such that it is better suited to electronic transmission.
Emailing: Now that you have an image sized appropriately for the computer screen, compose a message to your recipient(s). Hint: If you are emailing a huge list, put yourself on the To: line and Bcc: everyone else. That way you don't give away everyone's email address. With the message editing window open, type a brief introduction, then insert the images. There are several ways to do this. One easy way to do it is to drag the file from directly onto the email message from the Windows Explorer or Mac Finder. Alternatively, all email programs have a function to insert an attachment. This will accomplish the same goal. Once you have the email ready to go, hit the send button and get ready for everyone to admire your work.
The Web: The Web can be daunting because few of us can take the time to create and maintain our own Web sites. Fortunately, others have done a lot of the heavy lifting for us. If your goal is to share your images with friends and family, Apple users will love .Mac, which is tightly integrated with iPhoto, Apple's digital imaging application. You can publish photo albums and then send out an email directing them to your Web photo album.
Another option available to everyone is Snapfish (www.snapfish.com) where you can sign up for an account and upload photo albums. They even provide you the option to use their software to organize images into albums, create CDs, and upload the albums. Note that uploading photos to Snapfish is free; they charge for prints and other services. Film photographers will feel comfortable with Snapfish because they can handle processing and uploading of film images.
A Kodak company, ofoto.com, is another similar online service. It is similar to Snapfish with respect to online storage: Sharing of online images is free. Again, they make their money providing prints and other services.
While some portals such as Yahoo! also offer such services, MSN has gone out of this business. You may also want to check Picasa.com because their software integrates tightly with Google and hello.com.
Before you sign up. When signing up for any of these services, read their privacy policy and pricing information. Make sure you agree to their terms regarding use of your email address and sharing of information they collect about you.
Print your images: If you have a computer, you almost certainly have a printer and probably an inkjet printer. If you have such a printer, read on. Printing your digital images is relatively painless once you get the "magic formula." Each printer is a bit different. First, you will have to go back to your original image and make another copy. This time, you size it for your print. The printer manufacturer may advertise resolutions up to 2880 DPI. This has nothing to do with what you need in an image for print. Your image should be 360 DPI for any print 11 x 14" or smaller. Of course, you will be specifying dimensions in inches instead of pixels as you did before, but you will still be using the Image>Size command.
Once you have a properly sized image, you can print it but bear these concerns in mind:
? The quality of your output is governed by the image quality first. If you had to enlarge the image from its original size, prepare yourself for a somewhat "soft" print.
? Another key factor in print quality is paper quality. Printer manufacturers have a great handle on what attributes a paper must have to work well with their printers. In any case, use a photo quality paper ? preferably one designed for your printer.
? Finally, make certain that when printing, you use the printer setup option to specify photo quality printing; otherwise, most printers will assume you are printing a text document.
Although the representatives at your local retailers will tell you the printer you own can produce stunning prints on plain paper, it's not so. Use a premium photographic paper designed for your particular printer for best results. You get what you pay for in paper.
We hope these hints have been helpful and as always, feel free to email us, info@nphoto.com, with comments on our column or suggestions for future.
May/April 2006
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