personalisedphotoalbums

Christmas is coming, pressie time.

2011-11-19T12:53:00.001-08:00

We've been so busy scanning photos it's almost slipped my mind that Christmas will soon be on us. What can a humble photo album creator give? Well, you could go for hardware. Howabout low cost digital photoframe keyrings? Or a USB memory stick, or a storage card for a more expensive photoframe? Today's digital photoframes offer features unimaginable just a year or two ago. I've been asked to make suggestions for low cost gifts, maybe for kids to create. Well, how about creating a slideshow? Plenty of software available, free, to give you the power and these days even a basic scanner will yield an acceptable result. The results can be provided on a CD, so perhaps one show would make a great gift for several people. A simple print in an attractive frame? Create a photo album for someone on Facebook?

Tiny Projectors from Apple?

2011-08-06T02:51:00.000-07:00

Prints are good, everyone likes albums, most people are getting to like computer displays and digital photoframes.

TV sets are universally understood. But if you need a really big image, as a friend did for his 60th birthday party, nothing beats projecting an image on a wall. Even schools have them hanging down from the ceiling and you just plug in your laptop, away you go. Giant sized school photos from eons ago.

You can even get tiny portable devices working on the same basis, great for mobile sales personnel or maybe taking to granny to show the latest digital images. They're called pico projectors, 3M make a great unit.

Apple? No, at least not yet, but perhaps soon given that they've nabbed the domain Applepico. Watch that space.

Screaming Streaming Viewing

2011-08-01T04:46:00.000-07:00

Our businesses cover a spread of broadly analogue to digital conversions, we have a CD ripping service focused on London clients, another CD ripping offering for more distant music lovers and a photo scanning service. We keep the web sites distinct for several reasons, but much of the behind the scenes technology overlaps. As time goes by the solutions for enjoying sound and vision are coming together. One word is emerging in this congruence - streaming.

Many of our clients are getting into volume issues. High quality slide scanning generate massive files and clients are asking us to scan thousands of slides. In the last month we've ripped CD collections for three clients each of whom had in excess of 500 CDs and another batch of scanned photos took up four DVDs, just under 15 Gb of jpgs. With a PC in the study, you in the living room, how do you access your photo albums?

In these volumes it simply isn't realistic to burn a collection of albums to DVD, then stack the DVDs next to the TV so you can access your images. A much better way, at reasonable cost, is to use a device to send (or stream) data files from your PC via your home network to your TV set. The leading device is this sector is probably Apple TV but there are many other units available including an excellent little box from Sony. They will stream photos, music and videos through your network. You can also access remote services, for example with Apple TV you can buy / hire movies from the iTunes Music Store, the Sony option allows access to a subscription based service Lovefilm here in the UK. In America Netflix is massively popular.

Economically the Apple TV box, at around £90, is highly cost effective. A tub of 50 DVDs in my local High Street can set you back anything from £16 to £30 so you don't have to avoid burning many DVDs to justify the box, and that's not allowing any value for your time. Additionally Apple TV will always stream the latest version of your file complete with any edits, which is better than having to re-burn DVDs.

Digital Photo Frames Enhanced

2011-07-27T04:17:00.000-07:00

Just love my photo frame, stick some images of the memory card and away it goes. I loved it when we first got it three or four years ago and still enjoy the albums we have on it. I know from feedback from our photo scanning service clients that they love their digital photo frames too.

I haven't felt the need to upgrade the frame we have, it's made by Philips by the way, even though you can now get wi-fi addressable units. Until today when I saw this mentioned on Kodak's Facebook page. The new Kodak Pulse is email addressable.

Yes, it has its own email address. Brilliant.

That must make it dead easy to add photos but .... and this is the brilliance .... you can have photos emailed to you by friends, both from a conventional computer or from a phone. It's a great idea - your kids holiday snaps on screen immediately, family events as they happen from mobile phones, or just the odd surprise.

Suddenly photo frames take a big leap forward.

Free Photo Scanning Even More Free

2011-03-31T23:59:00.001-07:00

Just a quickie - our free photo scanning service will now return your photos free too. That makes our free scanning service entirely free of any charge from us.

Photos are Not Documents, So there.

2011-03-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

I got into photo scanning with 1Scan via a simple job for a longstanding client. It was a straightforward task of scanning what turned out to be nearly 100 photos. I did it all on an Epson flatbed scanner. Then we won a really big job, or so I thought, just over 800 images. Same approach, it took nearly two weeks of brain numbing activity.

I spent a couple of years torn between the massive market for bulk scanning and the time it takes to scan. So I sympathise with those who ask if there's a better way than a flatbed scanner. If you have more than a handful of snaps, regardless of how much time you have on your hands, scanning one by one will drive you out of your mind.

Like me, you'll hit upon document scanners. Maybe, you'll say to yourself, this is the answer to bulk photo scanning. Well it's not. Photos aren't documents, and I'll explain why. First, most text is produced on rather flimsy paper (compared to the light card photos are printed on). 80 gsm paper bends nicely so look closely at the paper path a document scanner imposes and check that those priceless family snaps will bend that way. Chances are they will not. That excludes several products from people such as Epson.

Second there's so much more data on a photo compared with a sheet of A4. Yes, I know these days people slip in charts and graphs in their documents but for most of the time the scanner only needs to deal accurately with black and white. By contrast an image spans millions of colours, if you don't get them accurately your scan is worthless. From personal experience I can tell you document scanners just can't capture large amounts of colour accurately.

Thirdly, text dots don't match photo dpi. Look at the spec of a scanner - if its pitched at text chances are it will do a respectable job at low resolution. OCR is that good. Same resolution on a photo is just a disaster. Even when you up the published resolution you'll find a document scanner rated at 300 dpi will not match a photo scanner at the same resolution.

When we set up our free photo scanningg service we needed to get speed along with quality. Save yourself the bother of checking, there's only one game in town and that's Kodak. A straight paper path, reliable feeder unit, high resolution, special software just for photo scanning, they have the range of products which will address the unique demands of batch photo scanning.

Photobooks? Photo books? Whatever - they're yours.

2011-03-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

One of the most popular applications of the photos we scan is creating photobooks. So just over a year ago we set up a link to enable our clients to download software to create and then print photobooks (or is it photo books?). The service was popular, so this year we wanted to continue to offer the service with an even better supplier.

So we set about location a new supplier, and we found one, in photobox. We've used them before for great prints from scans, and they're one of the suppliers we offer via our free photo scanning service. We, and our clients, just love the quality of the photos they print, and their speed of delivery. As an added bonus they offer a wide range of other photo gifts too.

More about our photo books - take a look.

Jeff Underwood
1Scan.co.uk

Negative Scanning - A Positive View

2011-02-13T00:36:00.000-08:00

As you will know, I operate a photo scanning service. We can scan photo prints, slides and negatives in virtually all sizes right up to those really old A4 sized negatives. One of the questions we're asked most frequently is should a client have photos or negatives scanned?

Not an easy choice.

Photo scanning is much quicker (for us) and so cheaper for you. Often, particularly with old images, our client only has the print. If a print is dull and faded we can go some way to restore its former glory and we get very positive feedback from clients. If you have an interest in Historypin then we'd expect your photo scanning needs to be for prints.

Negative scanning takes much longer, inevitably the cost is greater. Thanks to the features of our advanced Nikon and Epson scanners we can go much further to restore faded images, reduce grain and thanks to the wonders of Digital ICE remove dust and scratches. The data file we supply will probably be a better way of delivering the maximum detail from the image, giving you the option to produce bigger prints.

So which should you go for? Well, in pure technical terms, have the negatives scanned every time. But if your budget is constrained, or you only have the print, don't feel you're going to get a vastly inferior result.

Jeff Underwood
1Scan.co.uk

Photo Scanning Free?

2010-10-21T00:37:00.000-07:00

We operate two photo scanning services, one of which is our free photo scanning offering. Whixh is right for you?

If you're scanning photos its hard to argue against free. Our service creates an online album for you and you can share this anyway you please. It is password protected, so no prying eyes. If friends and relatives want copies of any of the images they can order and pay for them. We know from experience how "Oh could I just have a couple of prints" soon adds up to a heavy personal bill and organisational headache.

However if you know you want a digital copy of a complete set of images, and you're happy to manage family distribution and access, paying upfront is going to be a better option. It is also the business format most people are used to and expect.

Although our two services are different as business models, what's the same is the way in which we scan, restore colour, save your images. Done by the same people, on the same equipment, at the same technical specification. So free or paid for - you really do have a choice.

Photo Security

2010-09-01T02:18:00.000-07:00

As a photo scanning service we take security very seriously. Locally we back up all our files but we're finding clients are asking how they can backup their albums too. Here are two methods.

The first is an all singing all dancing online photo album service. You can use it to both backup and share your images, plus add a host of other goodies like getting your photos printed, put onto gifts such as T shirts and so on. Reasonably priced, in US dollars, check out Zenfolio.com - we think its great.

Second, an automatic backup service with a great unlimited storage capacity. Runs on Mac and PC, billed at a dirt cheap $5 per month, UK users supported too. Automatic software. Worth taking a look for the quality of the website if nothing else. Backblaze - snappy name too.

35mm Slide Scanner Amnesty from 1Scan

2010-07-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

We also operate a photo scanning service, and I'm tired of all the calls I get from people who have been persuaded to buy cheap 35mm scanners. On the face of it they're a great idea - take the guts from a digital camera, stick a slide or negative holder underneath, add a light source and wham, a whole new market opens up. Cheap, simple slide scanning.

Sure, some people are happy with these units. I suspect they're people who have no idea how good a scan can be (in part that's my problem). But I worry that some people will conclude that our scans will also be blotchy, poorly saturated, with bleached out highlights. Other people ing is, deeply disappointed with the results they're getting. What, they ask, can they do to make decent scans?

Well the short answer is there's nothing you can do. They simply aren't up to the task. You can't use any software or tweaking to put into an image file data that was never there because the scanner is too puny to capture it. Best to give up and try another tack.

That's where 1Scan comes in with our 35mm Slide Scanner Amnesty. Simply send your old horrid unit to us, we'll scan your 35mm slides, 35mm negatives or prints and credit you with the cost of your scanner against our services. You get proper, high quality scans at 4000 dpi, with Digital ICE to remove dust and scratches and you get some value back for a sorry purchase.

Photo Scanning for Photobooks

2010-05-11T01:33:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of months our photo scanning service has taken a big step forward, we've added a facility to deliver photobooks. Not sure if that shouldn't be photo books, but you know what I mean.

We don't actually make the photo books ourselves, this is done by a great traditional book publisher - Blisset's - in West London. There's a link on our site that let's you download the software you need to create your books, then you simply upload the data file which is the key ingredients for your book. A few days later your book arrives through the post. It's simple and you'll love the results.

One or two people have jumped to the photobooks section and asked how they can go about getting their photos scanned. Simple - just send the photos to us at 1Scan and we'll take care of the details. the address is:-
1Scan
27 Brentwood Place
Brentwood
CM15 9DN

Photo Albums? Photoalbums?

2010-05-07T00:27:00.000-07:00

Checking with Google yesterday I was surprised that what I would call photoalbums they want to correct to photo albums. Either way, the topic of conversation was how do you make the whole task easier.

This was prompted by a call to the photo scanning service we operate. My "top tip" was to select first the photos you want to use and put them into a separate folder. Then you play with how those images are ordered and displayed, safe from having to think about seeking out other photos.

Free Photo Scanning - The Movie

2010-02-02T14:21:00.000-08:00

Our new service is now up and running offering free photo scanning along with a free online photo album. We're pleased to say it is proving popular, but its hardly easy to persuade people to utilize a service that is free. "What's the catch?"

So to explain how we're able to offer scanning at no charge we've made a very amateur video showing our Kodak s1220 in operation. We want to get across to people that we have ample capacity to get their images out of the analogue straight jacket and into the wonderful world of digital.

Free Photo Scanning

2009-12-09T01:08:00.000-08:00

Very quietly we let it launch - our free photo scanning service - under the highly predictable name of freephotoscanning.com so now we're up and away.

We've even had some clients, which was a surprise. Being focussed on getting business via search engines it takes time to get a site up above the noise and into the top 10, but we came in instantly at number 9 and from that a few brave souls have dipped a toe in the water. What's been nice is to get some feedback from these early folk, and I've been surprised.

We went with the free online photoalbum as a delivery method for scanned images. We thought the scanning service, the free element, would be the attraction but for these early clients the attraction has been getting the album and the slideshow.

So there we are, proof of how much people appreciate online photoalbums.

Free Photo Scanning

2009-11-23T03:59:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple of months we've been working to bring together an idea that started bubbling over a year ago. Free photo scanning.

I'm pleased to say its now come together and freephotoscanning.com is live and running. In essence what we're doing is creating an online photoalbum for each of our clients. This was a key element of the service so a lot of work was done to find the best way to deliver these albums. Finally we settled on Zenfolio. They offer not just online albums but they are a gateway to a great range of photo gifts.

We scan our clients photos or even kids paintings / drawings, anything up to A4 size. For this we're using our trusty Kodak s1220 scanner. The results are great, it handles colour or monochrome, in any variety of sizes. The Kodak software is also good at restoring faded colours, often a problem with old photos. We then upload the photos to each clients personal album, then send a link to the client explaining how they can access the album. this includes details of the account password.

Take a look at our new website - www.freephotoscanning.com - let us know what you think.

Free Photo Scanning

2009-09-23T02:47:00.000-07:00

We're in the final stages of introducing a new and radically different photo scanning service. What's the difference?

Simply this - it will be free.

Yes, it's a free photo scanning service. If you'd like to register your interest in using our new service visit www.freephotoscanning.com

5 Reasons to Scan Your Photos

2009-09-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

These days, many people believe that everything about photography is digitised. But we tend to forget about those photos that were taken with a regular camera or those taken before the rise of digital photography. For those people that have prints of photos that they want to protect and preserve, it’s worth considering getting your photos professionally scanned, and here’s 5 reasons why we think you should:

ONE: Send & Share Them
Sharing your happiest memories with others is a wonderful way to stay connected, even from across the globe. When you scan your photos onto a disc, you can easily send them to your friends and family around the world. You can choose to send them by disc or via email, because once you’ve scanned your photographs, there are no limits on how you share your memories with others, you can send as few or as many as you like!

TWO: Protect & Preserve Them
Over the years, the technology involved in developing negatives into prints has changed dramatically. Photos hold their colour and contrast better than ever, but in time, they too will fade just like older photographs. If you want to prevent losing your precious memories, then scanning your photos will protect and preserve them forever. Preserve the past for future generations by scanning your photographs.

THREE: Surprise Them
There’s nothing like surprising a loved one with a book of memories. These days, you can easily and inexpensively create a photo-book online using digitised photos that are then professionally printed in a presentation book. Scan all your photos onto a disc, create the book, have it professionally printed and you’ve got a really unique gift to surprise them on that special occasion.

FOUR: Upload Them
Genealogy has never been as popular as it is today. People all over the world are spending a great deal of time researching their family history and creating online family trees. If you’re interested in the past, then imagine the impact of using period photos as part of your family tree website. Create a visual family tree using your photos by scanning them and uploading them onto your website, allowing family members all over the world to view your very special family tree.

FIVE: Remember Them
It’s a sad reminder of our mortality when someone we love passes away. However, if you want to remember someone special, there’s no more fitting tribute than to include some favourite photos of the departed at the funeral or wake. Choose a selection of the best photographs, get them professionally scanned and then have them reprinted in various sizes. Often, family members will wish to retain a special keepsake of their loved one and once you’ve scanned the photos, you can help with the grieving process by easily providing them with copies of those photographs.

Get your precious memories digitised to preserve and share them, with scanning from as little 10p per photo and snappy turnaround times, make 1Scan your first stop.

There's more ...

2009-05-05T03:19:00.001-07:00

We had a few days in New York, of course I took hundreds of photos. Trying to put them into an album, mainly to show my daughter who at the moment is in Switzerland.

Looking at the photos they needed some sort of "punctuation", some images that clearly marked the end of one section and the beginning of the next. After a little head scratching I went back to my day job (www.1scan.co.uk) and dug around at the bottom of my rucksack. I found the programme for the basketball game we'd seen, the entry tickets to the Rockefeller Tower (one of the best attractions in NY), the MTA ticket vouchers, a compliments slip from the hotel, a restaurant receipt and some odd bits. So I scanned the sensible stuff and slotted it in.

So, the cover of the basketball programme clearly tells when and where of our evening, the MTA card marks the end of that and signals the beginning of a days sightseeing, and so on.

Maybe you have some odds and ends that could work as markers in your albums? All it takes is a few minutes with even the most basic scanner (300 dpi is adequate).

President Obama Endorses Personalised Photo Album for Queen

2009-04-03T04:27:00.001-07:00

Here in London we've been playing host to the G20 Summit so our papers have been packed with the good and great - Barack Obama being in the lead by a long way. Although it wasn't an official State Visit the President and his wife were invited to Buckingham Palace to meet our Queen and Prince Philip.

It's polite and customary to give a small gift when people visit Her Majesty. So what do you buy the woman who has everything? Well the richest woman in the world was given an iPod. Not bad, but this iPod was special and not just because it was given by President Obama to the Queen.

No, this iPod contained photos of the Queen on her last visit to America. Yes it was a fancy personalised photoalbum. Her Majesty, the palace has said, was greatly appreciative of the President's kindness.

Photoframe Compared With DVD

2009-03-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the easiest questions turn out to be the hardest to answer, so when a client asked the difference between a DVD with a slideshow and a photoframe I was a bit floored. Where do you start ....

Well, a photoframe shows digital image data files, typically jpgs. Not so with a slideshow DVD, that may start with a jpg but the burn process converts it into a format compatible with a TV screen.

Menu structure? Transitions? Running order? All of this is user defined and controlled when you set up your slideshow. You can achieve many of these features on your photoframe by accessing controls from a main menu. You might feel it gives you greater flexibility.

Music? Every TV will play a slideshow soundtrack but this is available on few photoframes. Personally, I think music lifts a slideshow significantly.

Personalisation? Not via a cheap plastic DVD, but the price of photoframe food including USB memory sticks is falling. Think of each dinky memory card as a digital photoalbum. As with traditional photo albums remember to label it, after a while they all look the same and it's annoying to have to put five or six into the photoframe to find the set of photos you want.

1Scan uses Kodak Scanner

2009-03-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

One of my commercial interests is a photo scanning service called 1Scan. Towards the end of last year we decided to expand our service from slides and negatives plus some prints, to cover high volume photo scanning. Having scoured the market for a good, high speed scanner we went with Kodak's s1220.

And I'm very glad we did, it's just great. Not only do we love it but so too do our clients. I was pleased when the chance came up for us to do a press release with our new best friends at Kodak. Yesterday the release went out and I was pleased to find out via Google Alerts that it had been picked up by various electronic press release services.

You can see first that came to my attention here.

Ecademy Cold Turkey

2009-03-16T02:37:00.000-07:00

For nearly three years I was a paid up member of social networking site ecademy.com. But no longer, today is the first day of the rest of my life.

OK, that's overstating it but I cancelled my membership. Why? Well, nothing against ecademy but it stopped being helpful. When I began I was mainly interested in getting a good Google ranking and ecademy helped. Lately Google have significantly marked down the effectiveness of social network sites such as ecademy and the weighting they give for backlinks.

My personal and business interests drifted towards images, scanning, photo albums etc and that's a very minor area of ecademy which is mainly populated by marketing gurus, personal development coaches, SEO experts (rapidly leaving) and the usual cast of oddballs. Ecademy just stopped being relevant.

And I felt I was becoming addicted. I had the page open in Safari and I found myself commenting on ecademy blog posts in which I really had no great expertise, and not a lot to add.

I'm concentrating on photo, slide and negative scanning via 1Scan.co.uk and also personalised-photoalbums.com (which should be self explanatory).

Affinity Groups

2009-03-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

Had a call today at 1Scan.co.uk, from a young lady with a clever fund raising idea. She runs a youth group and needs to raise funds. She's putting out a call for photos from past members which will be scanned (by us) then put into a personalised photo album, a multi yearbook.

Having spoken to a few ex-members she thinks she can see each book for twice the production cost, and has a target of 150 copies.

It's a great idea, I think she'll do well with this one.

Welcome

2009-03-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

Some years ago I started a photo scanning service called 1Scan. It took a while to get going but now I'm pleased to say 1Scan is a thriving business converting photos, slides and negatives into great digital photos.

At the beginning I thought that was it, that going from an old print or 35mm slide to a digital jpg or tiff was enough. Then I got talking to my clients and found out why they came to 1Scan. The scanning, for them, is just the first step. They were taking their digital images and doing something else, or at least they wanted. What they wanted to achieve was a personalised photo album.

Often, they didn't know how. So here I am, four years later, looking to carry the message beyond the narrow realm of just making images digital, into creating the end product, the digital photo album. The hows as well as the whys.

Any comments?