Archive for October, 2008

Making a Meaningful Online Photo Album

October 30, 2008 at 6:46 pm · Filed under blog ·Tagged

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Online photo sharing sites offer a great way for people to share their memories with family and friends, and even complete strangers. Unfortunately, not everyone understands how to really make his or her photo collections meaningful. They just throw together a bunch of semi-random pictures in a folder and call it a day. It’s really a wasted opportunity – you can really take your free online photo album to another level with a little extra effort.

You should strive to make your photo albums tell a story that anyone, even people who don’t know you, can understand. Most online photo sharing websites provide all the tools you need to make sure that you photo album tells an interesting story. It doesn’t take much work, and it’ll greatly enhance the experience for people who are viewing your photos.

You should try and share things that you yourself are passionate about. If you’re not really interested in what you’re taking pictures of, why should your audience? If you have a hobby that you particularly enjoy and are proud of, you should share that through your photos. This is especially true for crafting projects. Be sure to take pictures of the work-in-progress through its various stages, as well as a picture of yourself with the finished project. You can add comments to each photo explaining how the process works, so viewers of the album will learn something about the craft and about you while they view your photos.

Creating a “photo documentary” of your life is another great way to engage viewers of your photos. You can share an important week in your life, perhaps your training prior to running a marathon all the way through the marathon itself. You can capture your family vacation and share it with the world, day by day. This creates a great way for new acquaintances to really get to know you and for old friends and distant relations to catch up with your life in an instant.

You should also take some time to convert your old photos to a digital format in order to share them with your free online photo album. It’s not just the recent events in your life that are important to share. You may be able to dig up some old family photos and share with everyone the history of your family. It’s a great way to reminisce about days past with your loved ones.

Remember that the important moments in life aren’t always around the holidays. Many people tend to let their cameras sit and collect dust when there isn’t some sort of holiday celebration going on. You should always keep your camera close at hand ready to capture those special moments in life – they could happen at any time.

You should never neglect to add comments to all of your photos. Let the people viewing your pictures know what’s going on in the picture. Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but adding a few extra words can really flesh out what’s going on in your pictures.

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3 tips for digital photo printing

October 30, 2008 at 5:55 pm · Filed under blog ·Tagged ,

With all the pictures we take, learning digital photo printing is essential. If we don’t learn the best way to to do it then the pictures we print will look less than wonderful. Many people who still prefer to take traditional pictures with its limited number of shots available, and the expense of film and developing, do so because they claim that digital cameras just can’t take pictures as good as a regular camera. But chances are, they’re just not taking the best pictures they could, and they’re setting everything up properly before they print. They also then cannot create a free online photo album as easily.

Free online photo sharing services are excellent for letting you choose the photos you want printed without you having to actually do any of the printing work. But you’ll want your photos to look fantastic before you order and pay for digital photo printing, so that you end up with a product that looks great. And if you’re printing the photos yourself, you’ll want good photos to work with to minimize your own frustration with the process, which can be daunting, especially if you’ve never done it before.

A number of things can lead to low-quality digital photo printing, not the least of which is taking poor pictures to start with. But assuming your photos aren’t poor, there are some things you can do beyond learning to use your camera and following some basic good photography principles to take great shots.

Some digital shots can look fine even they’re not the greatest quality. Digital photo printing, however, will show every flaw. There are ways to minimize and eliminate these flaws right from the start.

* Take the highest resolution shots possible. All but the most basic cameras offer choices in this area. For the highest quality digital photo printing, choose the highest resolution. For great looking wallet-sized photos, or larger album-sizes photos, up to a 5 x 7 print, use a resolution of at least 2 megapixels. For larger photos like 8 x 10, use a minimum resolution of 3 megapixels. These will make the shots sharper and clearer.

* Make sure your camera and your imaging software is set to save these photos in TIFF format. While JPEG is common and great for photos you’re putting online or sending through email, because it compresses the image and makes the file smaller, TIFF pictures are much larger because they retain all the detail in the photo. For printing, TIFF format is highly superior to JPEG, which loses the fine detail in the compression process.

* When you’ve downloaded your pictures on to your computer, use the software that came with your camera or a separate image program to enhance the photographs for the best digital photo printing experience possible. Touch them up like a professional by removing red eye, blemishes and anything else you wish. Most photo programs have extensive instructions to help you do these things. You can change adjust the lighting in the picture, even alter the color a little, soften the edges and add any kind of special effects that appeal.

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2 outdoor digital photo techniques

October 30, 2008 at 4:33 pm · Filed under blog ·Tagged , ,

If you love to take digital pictures outdoors, then you’ve probably already experimented with a variety of different ways to get the best shots possible, especially if you do your digital photo printing yourself.  But there are a couple of techniques for outdoors shots that can make your photography time even more rewarding and fun, and make digital photo printing even better because the photos you’ll be producing will be even more impressive than usual. You may even want to create a free online photo album.

If you usually do your digital photo printing yourself, practicing these techniques could take your photography skills up a notch, and you may even start to prefer taking your photos to a lab for printing, or doing your digital photo printing through another professional service, like your favorite online photo sharing service, for the best results.

However you do your digital photo printing, try these two techniques for outdoor photos and you’ll end up with some of the best digital pictures possible.

If you love nature and the outdoors, then you already know that it’s amazingly beautiful, from the impossibly vast sights like the Grand Canyon, to the tiniest stamen on a flower.  And while shots of things like the Grand Canyon can be stunning, there’s nothing quite like a close up of an intricate spider web, or an extremely close shot of the inside of a flower.  Zooming into nature opens up a whole new interesting world that we take for granted every day and never really examine.

Flowers, especially, can look even more stunning when you can see the texture of the stamen, or the dots of pollen or dew resting on the petals.  Some of the most beautiful pictures ever taken of flowers were extreme close-up shots.  So look for the setting on your digital camera that allows these extreme close-ups.  It’s often called “macro mode” and sometimes is even represented by a flower symbol. When you’ve found your photo subject, focus on the part that moves you.  Up close shots have a more shallow depth of field, so everything but the most focused part will soften a little into the background.  Hold the button halfway down to give the camera a moment to focus, before depressing the button all the way.

Another gorgeous technique for stunning outdoor digital photo printing is that of photographing moving water. Find your waterfall, stream or other water source where water turns to “white” water by going over a fall or even just small rocks in the path of the stream.  A shaded water source is best.  You’ll also want to use a tripod to keep the camera steady. Set the self-timer on your digital camera, and set the aperture to f-8, f-11 or f-16, if your camera has an aperture priority setting.  This slows the shutter down for a longer exposure each time. If you can get each exposure to last a second or two, the water in your photo won’t look captured or frozen in time, it looks as if its flowing.

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Free online photo storage can save you heartache and trouble

October 28, 2008 at 1:05 am · Filed under blog ·Tagged

I always told myself I should subscribe to one of those free online photo storage services! And there I was, staring blankly at the screen of my laptop. I was consumed with a mixture of disbelief and bewilderment. The past 4 years of my life was encapsulated a ten-pound heap of soggy, coffee stained mess. At that very moment, I could have banged my head on my computer until the F and the J keys were permanently imprinted on my forehead!

When I would hear the woes of a friend losing all of their data, I would always make a mental note to make a hard copy. Somehow, I would never get around to it. And in all, I would always attribute their hard drive crashes, digital dumps, and hardware havoc to carelessness. I would always rattle off the “you should have done this” or “ maybe you could have done this instead”. And here I was, as my entire life sat in a pool of my a.m. latte.

As I kicked myself for my arrogance, I realized, it wasn’t just my life trapped in a plastic shell, videos and pictures of my children’s firsts steps, first recitals, first teeth being yanked out of their heads were all drenched in my hurried morning ritual. And then the surge frantic panic came over me. In seconds I was trying to save them, releasing them from their prison of micron Intel chips and java. I quickly went to snatch up my laptop and shake out the coffee, hoping to catch it before it could permeate deeper into my motherboard. And to think all of this could have been easily uploaded to a free online photo service and avoided.

I hurried to my local computer outlet to seek out my favorite gadget guru. He promptly opened my laptop, and shook his head as I was in a frantic regurgitation of what was in my laptop and how I had failed to make hard copies or uploading my images to a free online photo storage site. But, in a sheer act of benevolence by a higher power and a pair swift hand, he was able to salvage my data and avert my emotional breakdown. However, my laptop was toast and would have to be replaced. By the time I walked out with my new computer in hand, my guru had all of my images and videos hosted on a free online storage service, far, far away from the dangers of steamed milk and caffeine.

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Public Photo Sharing Stories Illuminate Humanity

October 28, 2008 at 12:48 am · Filed under blog ·Tagged ,

There are a number of great websites where you can create and view free online photo sharing stories. There are some truly amazing photos and stories out there at free online photo storage sites. They give a brief glimpse into a life that a person would otherwise never have been aware of. They offer a chance to reflect on one’s own life and the people in it. Sometimes a new perspective can make all the difference in conquering a person’s fears or overcoming their obstacles. There’s just so much in a photo and then when a story is added to it, the whole thing becomes even more compelling.

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A lot of budding professional and amateur photographers are cutting their teeth by posting their photos and sharing their free online photo sharing stories for all to see—and comment on. This is a great way to hone their skills as they discover what makes a photo capture the audience’s attention and what techniques actually distract from the story they were trying to tell. Nothing teaches a person more quickly than the uncensored honesty you get on the internet! The aspiring photographer can then make the proper adjustments to his next project, post the new photo and story and see if the changes affect the way people view his pictures and/or story.

Families enjoy sharing their photos and stories online, too. Sometimes they post these in public free online photo sharing stories as well. Other times they prefer an account that allows them to control who has access to their free online photo sharing stories. Either way, they enjoy sharing the magic and wonder of a child’s first step, kindergarten graduation or winning touchdown with a photo sharing story. These online stories are a great way to preserve the families cherished memories without the worry of pictures being destroyed by fire, flood or any other natural or man-made disaster.

They say a “picture is worth a thousand words” and when you add a story and post it online it is absolutely priceless. Telling the story brings even more life into the picture. The story can tell what happened right before or after the picture was taken. It could also explain the “why” behind the picture. Why is the boy sitting there with a bowl of spaghetti on his head? Did the photographer just step in to capture the action or was the scene staged? Did he put the spaghetti on his head or was it his sister whose face we see laughing in the background? The story is the difference between a picture being given a quick glance and an “aw” and really having an impact on the viewer.

There are so many possibilities with free online photo sharing stories. They are enjoyable to view and enjoyable to create. From preserving and sharing family memories to educating and inspiring others, online photo sharing stories provide endless creative opportunities. They also provide a great creative outlet in which to express oneself and share interesting ideas with others. The possibilities are endless to say the least.

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Share your Stories, Share your Life

October 28, 2008 at 12:30 am · Filed under blog ·Tagged ,

People’s lives today are so busy. There are jobs, classes, taking care of the kids, clubs, lessons and so on. They don’t always have enough time to spend with the people they love, especially in their extended families. Writing individual letters and sending pictures takes up more time and money. Creating and sending out a family newsletter to everyone on your list is a better idea, but that still costs money for paper, ink, envelopes and stamps. Which means you will be less likely to share it with everyone you know.

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An even better way to keep family and friends in tune with your life is to use free online photo sharing stories. The people you love can keep up with all the things your family is doing no matter where they live in the world. Imagine how much easier it is to send them an email link and let them know about the updates? Then Mom can forward it to your Great Aunt Martha or your second cousin Samantha without it costing you a dime or taking up any more of your precious time.

One great thing about free online photo sharing stories is, obviously, that they are free. This eliminates all the excuses for not keeping your family updated on Johnny’s swim team or Susie’s dance class. Maybe you want to share the simple things in life, like your latest quilt design or a new recipe you tried. You can post as many photo sharing stories as you want for free so you don’t have to worry about something being too trivial. People love being included in the small moments and it really helps them feel closer to you and your family.

The other great thing about free online photo sharing stories is that they are so easy to create, especially at free online photo storage sites. You can upload your photo to the website and add your story along with it. It can be as long or short as you like. Some people just like to share a sentence or two that describes the scene in the picture. Others write a complete essay-style story to really engage the reader include their friends and family into their lives more intimately. The choice is yours.

And it doesn’t take a lot of technical skill to do these. Most of the time all you have to do is point and click. Click to add the photo. Click in the text box to write your story. Click once more to publish it to the web. It’s so much easier than creating a newsletter or even creating a scrapbook page at home. Plus, there are not any paper scraps left laying around the house.

Free online photo sharing stories are so much fun to create and to view. It is really a win-win situation for everyone. You can keep up your busy lifestyle while still staying in touch with family and friends and they get to appreciate and enjoy all the great times you and the children are having. That is a grandparent’s wish come true!

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Boost your College Application with Photo Stories

October 27, 2008 at 9:34 pm · Filed under blog ·Tagged ,

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Did you know that many college admissions boards Google prospective students these days?  It’s true and what they find there may work for you or against you.  Too many potential students these days are posting photos and stories of themselves in compromising situations bragging about illicit activities and bad behavior.  This doesn’t sit well with college boards or future potential employers, for that matter.  If you have done any online photo sharing that casts you in a bad light it would be wise to remove the photos and give yourself a more positive image.

Creating free online photo stories that illustrate what is unique and good about you is a much better idea.  You could post photos of yourself winning an award or playing in your favorite sport.  You might also consider posting photo stories that feature you doing a service project for a local charity.  Anything that makes you look like a responsible person that is looking to achieve great things in life will make you more desirable to potential college admissions officials.  This makes a great compliment to your college application and the photo stories you post should reflect and support the information you give there.  If you volunteered at the local animal shelter to gain experience for a future career in veterinary medicine, post a photo story of you working closely with the animals, for instance.

And you don’t have to wait and see whether the college admission reps are going to Google you or not, just include a link to the free online photo storage site right in your college application letter.  This will show great initiative on your part and let the college know that you are creative and comfortable with a computer as well as sending whatever message and image you have created with your free online photo sharing stories.  Image is everything and while it won’t compensate for lousy grades or low SAT scores, it may just give you the edge you need to outshine the competition and make it into your college of choice.

You may not get a chance to meet with the college admissions board in person until after they have made their decision so the only chance you have to make a good impression is with your application and online photo story.  Adding compelling pictures and stories to your site will help the board feel as though they know you and like you.  You become a real person to them instead of just another paper application they have to choose from.  It is much harder to say “no” to a real person than to a piece of paper.

You only have one chance to make a first impression and your free online photo sharing stories can make whatever impression you want to make.  Let yours tell people that you are intelligent, honorable, active and a real go-getter.  You never know what opportunities may lie ahead until you give it a chance.  In today’s world it takes every possible advantage to succeed and your online photo stories are just one more way to create an advantage.

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This Isn’t an Old-Fashioned Scrapbook

October 24, 2008 at 8:19 pm · Filed under blog ·Tagged ,

Back in the “old days” they had photo albums. These were books with blank pages to which pictures could be adhered. Later, they came out with self sticking books that had clear page covers that flipped over and a person could simply stick their photos into place. Unfortunately, all too often these books had high acid level which caused pictures to become brittle or discolored. Advancements were made over the years and scrapbooking became a popular hobby. Pages were (and still are) designed with different colored acid-free paper and adorned with stickers, stamps and cut-out trinkets. The bad news is that these scrapbooks, as great as they are, still can’t tell the whole story. Fast forward to today. The latest trend in photo presentation is digital storytelling stories.

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What are digital storytelling stories? These are basically multi-media displays that tell a story using pictures, sound, text and graphics. They are easy to create at a free online photo album site. Digital storytelling stories are a great way to share your family memories, kind of like a multi-media scrapbook. Imagine a scrapbook that talks! In the “old days” families were less busy and actually got together with extended relatives for more than just the occasional holiday celebration. Often they would get out the scrapbooks and reminisce as one family member explained what was going on in each picture. With digital storytelling stories, the online “scrapbook” does all the talking. It can be sent to relatives around the world and they can hear your voice or the voice of each person in the photos explaining the set-up

Digital storytelling stories are a fun and creative way to store, arrange and share your precious memories with others and/or enjoy them yourself. They take scrapbooking to a whole new level and provide a lot more opportunity for creative expression. Another great advantage of digital storytelling stories over traditional scrapbooking is that there is no mess. Beyond that, your digital storytelling stories are backed up so they are safe. Actually, they are safer than traditional scrapbooks because they aren’t subject to fire, flood or theft. Your pictures won’t fade, crack or rip and you can use your images over and over again.

Telling stories through photographs isn’t a new idea at a free online photo album site, but digital storytelling stories are a great new way to express the stories of your life. Preserving your memories and creating new ones with digital storytelling is an exciting hobby and gives you a way to create something of value that can last forever. Your stories can be about real life events like a wedding, the birth of a child or a high-school graduation. Or you might want to turn them into a creative work of fiction. Either way, the creative options are unlimited and you can let your mind run free.

Scrapbooking is a great hobby and creating digital storytelling stories is like taking scrapbooking to a whole new level. It’s like scrapbooking on steroids. This certainly ain’t your Mama’s scrapbook anymore.

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What are Digital Storytelling Stories?

October 24, 2008 at 5:43 pm · Filed under blog ·Tagged ,

Digital storytelling stories are stories that are created by using photographs, music, graphics and voice recordings. This is a relatively new way to express creativity and tell a story. The digital storytelling stories you create can be fiction, educational in nature or just a great way to display your own photographs. These digital storytelling stories become useful when you like to go on family trips each year and take a million pictures. You can take each trip and make it into a digital storytelling story, and look back at the wonderful time you had spending time together. You can also tell your stories with spoke words using audio photo sharing.

How Do You Create Digital Storytelling Stories?
There are many tools both online and off that can be used to create digital storytelling stories. A simple example would be a PowerPoint presentation that includes music and a narrative. There are several other free programs available for download on the internet and some websites where you can simply create your digital storytelling stories online.

What are the important elements of digital storytelling stories?
As with any type of story, there are certain elements that are required to make it compelling. First you need a topic. The topic of digital storytelling stories could be about almost anything. A story that can be told in anywhere from a couple of minutes to about ten minutes at most is best. The story needs to have a definitive beginning, middle and end.

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The other important elements of digital storytelling stories are the pictures, words and sounds that are used. The pictures should almost be able to tell the stories themselves and the words should give further illumination and detail. Music should be used, as it is in movies, to evoke the emotions.

Why should you create digital storytelling stories?
This is where digital storytelling stories get really fun. They can be about almost anything. Often they are used to convey a particular point of view through the use of a story. An example would be a story about global warming and the importance of reducing pollution in the air. Other times they can be used to educate. An example would be a story about proper tooth care that showed how to brush and floss properly.

Fiction stories are also a fun use of digital storytelling stories. You could use a book and the illustrations would each be a frame of the story. Sound effects and music could be added with the narrative to make the story come alive. Another option would be to have “actors” play out the scenes in your story and to take digital photographs of the action.

As mentioned above, family vacations and other fun family events such as birthdays or holidays make great topics for digital storytelling stories. This is a great way to preserve family memories and they are a lot more interesting to watch than an old fashioned slide show or 8mm home movie!

Summary
Digital Storytelling stories are a fun way to combine traditional storytelling with modern technology in order to truly engage the viewer. Audio photo sharing can help enhance the experience. Stories may be true or fiction and can employ various graphics, words and music. They are a great tool for preserving memories, educating people or just plain good entertainment.

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Digital Storytelling Makes Learning Fun

October 24, 2008 at 3:53 pm · Filed under blog ·Tagged ,

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Educators around the globe are catching the latest craze in learning technology by using digital storytelling in their classrooms.  Schools have long been on the forefront of multimedia learning experiences, but they have come a long way since the slideshows and filmstrips of the past.  Digital storytelling, along with audio photo sharing, helps teachers to bring a topic to life and can be customized to a teacher’s teaching style and preference.  Every topic from art to ancient history can be enhanced with digital storytelling stories.  Students can see and hear a variety of media that all come together to form the digital storytelling stories experience.

These short pictorial/video/music/narrative stories have a way of hitting an emotional chord with the students that view them.  Even when using the same words and pictures in the text book, something about the way they are organized together and narrated makes the information more meaningful and easier for them to understand.  Since a variety of elements are included such as text, graphics, pictures, movie clips, music and narration, students of all learning styles can appreciate and understand the content.  Visual learners can see the story, auditory learners can hear the story, and kinesthetic learners benefit from the merging elements and the music that adds the emotion.  They also benefit from the brevity of the digital storytelling stories which are usually between two and ten minutes long.
Another great way that teachers are taking advantage of digital storytelling stories is by having the students create them.

When students use digital storytelling and audio photo sharing, they will immerse themselves in pictures, videos and other media about their topic in order to choose the pictures and clips they are going to use.  They will also find music that fits the theme of their story.  By the time they finish their project they will have seen and heard the information in it dozens of times and due to the hands-on work involved it will have sunk deep into their memories.  Classmates could each do a different topic or report such as a different country and then take turns presenting their stories to the class.  Now they have learned both by doing and viewing digital storytelling stories.

Reading textbooks day after day can get boring and difficult to keep up with.  Reports can be burdensome and many times students are just cutting and pasting or copying from a book.  Using a multi-media format such as digital storytelling helps bring a topic to life and making learning fun again.  Doing reports as digital storytelling stories is exciting and fun and students are all too willing to immerse themselves in a topic in order to find the right clips, pictures and words to use to create a story that expresses what they have learned.  There is such a limited window of opportunity to influence a child’s mind in school and it is so important to incorporate any healthy means of getting them to really absorb information.  The great part about using digital storytelling stories to teach them is that in addition to the students enjoying learning more, the teachers enjoy their jobs again, too.

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