Sharing Your Digital Pictures

You've bought your digital camera and learned to take excellent photos, so by now you should have a ton of great shots of your daughter's first soccer game and the view from your kitchen window. The next step is to share those pictures with friends and family. In this issue of Sapphire Wire, we'll look at three different ways to share your pictures.

Electronic Sharing

Since your pictures are already in digital format, this is the easiest and cheapest way to share what's going on in your life. You can simply send them by email or upload them to a website such as PhotoBucket? (free, and allows you to link to your pictures from elsewhere on the web) or WebShots?. If your camera produces high-quality pictures, you might need to resize them before you share them--your camera probably came with software that will do this. This is especially handy for people who want to share pictures with those who live far away. On the other hand, it's a poor choice if your grandpa in Maine doesn't have a computer, much less know what the internet buzz is all about.

Home Printing

The ability to print your pictures at home has its ups and downs. It's absolutely wonderful that you can print your own photos in minutes without leaving your house, but you often end up with grainy pictures that smear when touched by water. I have more than a couple of pictures given to my by well-meaning friends that are almost worthless because of bad print quality or a drop of rain. However, it's not impossible to produce framing-quality prints at home if you follow a few simple guidelines.

Start with a good printer. There is no absolute best printer for photos, although I've found that HP makes excellent printers. It depends greatly on how you intend to use it. Decide how much money you want to spend and then look at print samples produced on the printers under consideration. Ask around and read reviews. The more you expect from the printer, the more time you should spend in the research process.
Buy photo-quality paper. Legend has it that you should match the photo paper to the brand of printer you own. I happen to think this sounds suspiciously like a ploy to sell more products to the consumer than to help the consumer print better photos, so I'm not terribly concerned with matching brands. Here's the part that stings--as a general rule, the more you spend on your paper, the better your pictures will look. I like to have several different grades of photo paper on hand, and I only use the most expensive stuff for things where I know that the quality is really important or when I want to show off a little. Kodak makes an affordable double-sided glossy paper that's suitable for many applications--and as a bonus, you won't accidentally print your photo on the wrong side.
Make sure your ink cartridge isn't empty or very low. There are usually three or more colors in separate chambers inside the cartridge. If one of those colors runs low, this will negatively affect the colors which use it as part of the mix. I once had a series of blue-faced people after a cartridge went bad--not a good look for any of them.
This might not be a popular opinion right now, but you will probably get better pictures if you don't use the refill kits. Yes, I know that printer ink is more expensive than champagne. It's ridiculous and the printer manufacturers should be ashamed of themselves--but that still doesn't mean that the refills will give you consistently good results. To reduce ink costs, I have been known to put in a refilled cartridge when I'm printing something where the quality doesn't matter as much. Keep in mind that the cartridge stored outside of the printer may dry up if you try this, though.

Printing Services

Something else that's popular right now is to have your digital pictures printed by someone else. This typically costs a little more than doing it yourself, but it's extremely easy and the quality tends to be better. There are several places who will do this for you. Shutterfly, which charges 22-29 cents per picture, plus shipping, is quite popular, as is Kodak's Ofoto at 29 cents a piece plus shipping. WalMart has a kiosk in their stores for the people who don't like to order online--or you can even upload photos online and pick them up at your local store one hour later for 24 cents each.

Whichever way you choose, your family and friends will be thrilled at the beautiful pictures you're sending them, and you'll have a record of the most important things in your life. Make sure you back up your digital photos periodically to safeguard against a computer crash, and the memories will last even longer.