Best Digital Photo Organizer?

 What do you use?

Preserve special moments with much more than just a photo! Turn your digital video clips into paper flipclips to carry with you, send and share!        

Prices start at $8.99 per book and if you register now and refer 3 friends you get a free book. My plan is to check it out and update you on the results.Let me know if you used it — did you like the results? 

Here are other online services:

• Convert it: This service is free at the moment. Doesn’t seem to have a file size limit. Very clean interface and easy to use. No registration required.
• Media-Convert: This is also a free service with a 150mb file size limit. The interface is cluttered, but still easy to use.
• Hey!Watch: Encode video files using this online service. You have to register and the price is 10c per encoding credit. I’m not sure what that means. Webware has a good write up on Hey!Watch.

And finally Lifehacker.com writes about lots of other file conversion utilities.

• CD SpinDoctor, ~$40.
• Final Vinyl, ~$40 includes iMic product.
• Audacity, free.
• Garage Band (part of iLife ’08, ~$80).

Another option is: Audio Hijack Pro, ~$32.

I’ve digitize a number of old audio cassettes recordings my dad made in the ’60′s. They are now in iTunes and I can share it with my family and my children. Great stuff!

What do you use to import old cassettes and LPs?

You can buy commercial programs, e.g.,

• Quicktime Pro, including MPEG-2 playback ($29.99 – available for Mac and Windows). Seamless support for import and export of different video formats using Quicktime.
• Flip4Mac (WMV Player Pro) is another Mac option ($29 for the download and $49).

After reading the following Apple Discussions message I opted for a free program called, MPEG Streamclip. So far I’ve been able to convert AVI, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2 video files. The great thing is that you can also do this in batch mode! MPEG Streamclip is available for both Mac and Windows.

Here are the steps that I follow:

1. Located your old video files. You can search for .avi, and .mpg files. (If they are still on tapes, well then you’ll have to wait for a future post.)
2. Add these files to MPEG Streamclip’s batch list. Use menu path: List->Batch List. Select the files you want to convert. Set the options. I exported all my files to DV format.
3. After the files are converted, I import them into iMovie ’08. Use menu path: File->Import movies…
4. Now you can edited your files and enjoy them in iTunes, on youtube, on your .Mac web gallery, or on your AppleTV.
5. As a last step I usually archive my old video files.

1. Launch iPhoto on your Mac. I used my MacBook Pro.
2. Click on the ‘Card’ icon at the bottom of the app.
3. Select a theme. Drag-and-drop photos onto the card. Write a message.
4. Click on ‘Buy Card’ and following the buying instructions. We ordered 50 double-sided postcards @ a total cost of $62 (.99c per card + shipping/tax).
5. I picked standard shipping and it took 3 business days to be delivered with Fedex ground.
6. The cards are nicely wrapped and you also get an envelope for each card. They shipped it in a very sturdy box.

Summary: Quick and easy to create a beautiful custom Christmas card. Not too expensive. A similar card at Walmart is .84c per card. Quick delivery. I will use this service again and can highly recommend it.

PCMag recently reviewed iLife ’08 and give it a 4/5.

What service did you use this year?

1. Slide Duplicator

Bottom Line: If you’re digitizing slides for computer slide shows, DVDs for TV viewing, or for posting on the web, a slide duper might suffice. But, if you want the possibility of making prints from your duped slides, pass on the duplicator and consider a film scanner.

PRO Inexpensive and relatively fast.

CON Images not sharp enough for big prints.

2. Film Scanner

Bottom Line: From an image quality standpoint, film scanners are your best bet. They make little sense, however, if you don’t need the resolution or have a limited number of slides to digitize and won’t be using the scanner again. If this is you, consider a slide duping house.

PRO Extensive control over resolution and image quality.

CON Cost of the scanner may be high.

3. Slide Duping House

Bottom Line: While sending slides out for duping is, from a labor standpoint, the easiest way to bring your slides into the digital era, it’s probably also the most expensive.

PRO Little labor on your part.

CON Can take weeks, is expensive, and affords you little control over the image quality.

On PopPhoto.com you will also find a few more interesting articles including:

• Scanning Film Made Easy — guide to flatbed scanners and dedicated film scanners,
• Scanning made cheap and easy — a few options to scan old film and negatives, and
• Get Your Old Slides and Negatives onto a Scanner! — a few tips on DIY scanning.

Finally, you can start by reading a book like, “Scanning Negatives and Slides” or “Mastering Digital Scanning with Slides, Film, and Transparencies”.

I am interested in your experiences scanning slides or film.

The service is currently in beta and they offer 4 pricing options: Beta (free), Basic ($14.99 per year), Professional ($49.99 per year), and Business ($149.99 per year). You can also request a custom plan.

Quick initial review:

• I created a beta account and the process is quick and easy. A Windows-like (not they I know it too well) file manager is launched after you log in. If you are familiar with Windows File Manager then this should be a nice feature. I’m not, so I don’t like it that much.
• It’s easy to upload files.
• At the moment (not sure if this will change) you can only share your files with other Digitalbucket members. You can publish a photo by right-clicking on a file(s). Digitalbucket then generates a URL that you can share (e-mail) with others, however this is not the most friendly way to share you photos.
• It tried it with both Safari and Firefox on a Mac and it worked without any problems.
• And surprisingly they use Picnic and not Snipshot for the photo editing. It takes about 5-10 seconds to load the photo into Picnic. I also experienced a number of strange errors.

Summary: Powerful file handling capabilities, and Windows-like file manager interface make this less attractive for casual users. I don’t recommend this as a photo sharing site for most casual users.

• Google’s PicasaWeb,
• Flickr,
• Zoto,
• Zooomr,
• SmugMug,
• Photobucket,
• Facebook, and
• MySpace.

Here is his conclusion (also read the comments for more sites):

It’s very hard to pick a clear winner, so instead, I’ll award a few prizes here. Best of breed goes to SmugMug, and not by a little. SmugMug is everything a real photo hosting site should be, including a plethora of management and privacy tools. The cost is its only, but very legitimate, drawback.Most accessible goes to Picasa Web Albums. It’s just drop dead simple, but at the expense of features. Tags are really a non-starter, privacy is non-existent, and there is no community around it. But if you just want a simple app — internet accessible photo albums with photos within them — Picasa Web Albums may be for you.Lastly, the most powerful free experience is easily Flickr. At 200 photos, you’re barely able to show all of Aunt Mable’s 94th birthday, but with the huge, dedicated community there’s always “stuff to do,” and with an affordable yearly price-tag, Flickr may be the best choice for most of the tech-savvy, and even non-tech-savvy enthusiasts.