Showing posts with label Photograph. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Photograph. Show all posts

06 July 2009

Creating Photo Books From Scanned Photos

Scanned rhino, not taken with a camera but lai...Image via Wikipedia

By Pete Fontaine

Permanently protecting your precious photographs is probably reason enough for sending them to a photo scanning service. Its the responsible thing to do. You can share complete copies with your family members and it stops your images from the everyday deterioration that will eventually ruin your photographs. But once the work has been done you can have fun with them.

You can use your newly scanned images to craft spectacular photo books and other photo specialties. Many online photo publishing sites offer free creation software, and you can use photos stored on your hard drive to produce personalized mugs, calendars, and t-shirts. The better photo specialty sites are not intrusive and don't ask for information about you until you descide to order.

When a South Florida girls high school soccer team recently used an online photo specialty company to put the picture of an injured team leader on t-shirts for the entire team there wasn't a dry eye on the field. This affordable gesture was truly a moment to remember.

An office manager had all of the people in the office submit unique photos of themselves. Using a photo specialty company she produced personalized photo mugs for each of the individuals and hung them on a rack in the lunch room. The mugs generated endless discussion about childhood, hobbies, and 1980's attire. Not only could everyone easily identify their own mug, they learned things about their coworkers they might not have otherwise.

One family was so touched by the photo presentation that the funeral parlor had put together for their Grandfather's funeral that they decided to use the digitized images to create small photo books with some of the really special, one of kind photos. They then sent copies out to loved ones. Everyone agreed it was a really special way to remember someone.

A group of Pre-K moms put together a photo book that included all of the kids, the teachers, and the staff. They took photos of the kids playing outside, sitting for stories, and nap time. Kids posed with their teachers, friends, and favorite books and toys. As time goes by and memories fade, these kids will be able to see where their education began. Some of the children may end up being friends for life.

One cheerleading squad recently put together a photobook that included images of all of their activities and photos of the different teams that they cheered for. They made them available to anyone who was interested and they immediately became a hit with players, families, and fans. These inexpensive keepsakes did not replace the yearbook, but the cheering squad enjoyed complete editorial control. Someone even suggested using them as a fund raiser in the future.

Make sure to use a photo specialty provider that provides an automatic layout feature. This will allow you to preview unlimited layouts and easily rotate pictures in and out of your pages or items. Better providers allow you to use a photo as the background of a page, and you can preview quickly right from your computer without waiting to send and receive over the internet, a huge time saver.

So get your photos scanned to protect them from loss, damage, and destruction. And once you've included them in your digital photo collection you will be able to let your creative side run wild designing your favorite photo specialties easily and inexpensively online.

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16 May 2009

Improve Your Online Art Sales

This photograph of an invite for the Cranach e...Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

by Leigh-Ann Lemire

When researching online, I found many entries that gave advice for pricing art that mentioned you should go to Etsy and eBay to find comparable art and price yours the same way. This is a pretty good rule to follow but there are things to consider when pricing your art so that you make a profit.

Within your price, you need to include replacing the materials that you used otherwise you will not be able to make more art to sell. Additionally, you need to tack on another five percent so that you can get extra supplies to grow your art business. Your talent, skills and time that went into creating your art should also be taken into consideration. You are very valuable!

To boost your sales, write a detailed explanation about your piece of art. Be specific about the manner in which you created the work, the supplies that you utilized and interesting things about the piece or what happened when you were creating it.

What is the story about that piece of art that you created? How did you get inspired to do it? Weave a tale and it will enable you to sell more art online.

The most important point to know when selling your art online is - take great pictures. Taking great pictures tells a story that words alone cannot convey. It isn't hard to take great pictures of your art. To do so, place your creation on a black matte material on a flat surface such as the floor or a table. Then climb up a step ladder and take the picture from above.

Take many pictures, take close-ups of different parts of the artwork and be sure to include the full piece as well. Crop your pictures so that each one is the same width size so that the pictures line up neatly within the description.

You want to go for professionalism in your description, so photographs that align are one key point to keep in. Having photos the are different widths from tiny to huge looks unprofessional. Maintain consistency on the width to create professionalism.

As a note, the height can be different as long as the width is the same. The width should be between 400 - 500 pixels wide but no more. Doing so creates some white space around the photographs which makes viewing on a computer screen easy on the eye which means more likelihood that a person will be interested enough to read your description and look at your pictures.

The finishing touch of your online sales copy to sell your art should be to speak about the benefits of owning the painting to the potential buyer. After-all, you didn't do the piece of art for yourself, you did it for an audience. Don't focus on only speaking about yourself, write as if you are speaking to a single person.

You want your art to be owned by the person that it communicates the best to - so speak about the benefits of ownership such as pride, that it's original and no one else has one like it, it's signed, the colors are a perfect accent to a home or office and so on. Think of as many reasons you can that a person would want an original painting and add the info to your description.

A good idea is to add a short bio about you and your works. Make it two or three sentences maximum. This give your potential buyers more confidence in you.

To give an overall professional appearance to you text and picture presentation, create short paragraphs of no more than 4 sentences. Doing so makes the entire presentation more easy to read because of the amount of white space.

Have a great time selling your artistic creations and may you prosper.

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