ZoomAlbum said that as consumers rapidly shift from film cameras
to digital, one of the biggest challenges facing the industry is
making it as easy to get a print from a digital camera as it is from
a film camera. Today it remains that the primary way people share
and enjoy photographs is through prints, albums and
scrapbooks.
"With film cameras, consumers are used to
shooting a roll, dropping it off at the 24-hour pick-up, and saying,
'I'll take one or two prints.' It was drop-dead simple to make
prints that you could instantly share, archive or organize in a
scrapbook or album to look at later," said Doug Rowan, CEO of
ZoomAlbum Inc., who is regarded as pioneer and leading driver of
digital imaging and content management.
Rowan
said that the great thing about digital cameras is you can take many
more pictures than with a film camera. Unfortunately, once you get
to 500-1,000 digital images, it gets pretty hard to organize,
catalog, and create a "digital shoebox" to easily and quickly find
the pictures you want.
If you could create a "digital shoe
box" you would still face two major problems: - How do I find the
picture I want? - How can I be sure that the digital shoebox will
last over time?
Relying on hard disks or CDs or DVDs as the
best storage option for the digital shoebox is risky. Digital, while
a superb storage media, also lays a trap: many consumers believe
that digital images will last and stay unchanged forever. This is
false. For the safety and protection of their images, consumers
should assume that every hard disk will fail; and that almost all
CD-ROMS or DVDs will have a life of less than ten years.
"If
you want a picture to be around for future generations: you should
print it on archival paper. Then you can scrapbook it, because with
scrapbooking you can tell a story and not just have a collection of
photos," said Rowan.
One way to solve this problem is to
provide consumers with an easy way to scrapbook their digital images
in a printed photo format that:
- Offers a seamless
way to sort, choose and arrange images for easy printing on photo
paper that fits into an Inkjet printer - Provides formatted,
high-quality glossy photographic prints that can be folded and fit
into an album cover with simple adhesive - Uses a protective hard
cover to safeguard photos from the damaging effects of light and the
wear and tear of handling.
Rowan also offers this piece of
advice: "When making the print decision, consumers must take care to
choose carefully and select the right printer, printer paper and the
ink to ensure long-life. Use photo albums to tell a story, as
opposed to creating ones that just have photos matted down; and try
to add text, so that the person in the photo is 'talking' and the
album itself tells a story."
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