Other new products include frames, borders on prints, assembled albums (from Art Leather), and foamcore mounting of your prints. And many people are happy to see mixed paper types available on one order. Previously you would have to make separate orders for Glossy, Lustre, Metallic or B&W.

Sending your images to an online printing service can save you some money compared to using local printers. Plus you’ll have a larger variety of services available than your local superstore photo lab. The small shipping charge you’ll pay is likely less than the cost of gas to drive back and forth to your local lab.

Visit the Mpix website for further info

The company is called Artist Showcase and they do Plaque Mounts. They take your supplied photo and pressure mount and laminate it onto MDF board. The edges are beveled and colored to your specifications. It’s a beautiful and unique finished product.

A variety of laminate finishes are available: Satin, Linen, Canvas and others. Your print is UV protected and sealed from moisture and damage. Spill a soda on it, wipe it off and it’s good as new.

Check out the Artist Showcase website to see the different mounting styles available and pricing for each. I like the look of the Box Mount and the Plaque on Plaque as it adds more dimensionality.

If you live in the Denver area you can go see them yourself. Otherwise, you can send them your prints and have them ship the finished Plaque Mount to you. It really is a nice way to display your photographic artwork.

DPI

Stands for Dots Per Inch and goes back to the printing and publishing world. This is where the absolute of "… and you gotta have 300 DPI to make a decent print" fallacy comes from. (Beside the fact that when referring to digital images you should be using PPI!)

In our digital photography world, DPI is a term used to refer to film and print scanners, and inkjet printer, resolution. In scanners, it’s how many dots (actually pixels) are rendered in the final image file per inch of original. 35mm film scanned at 2000 DPI gives you a 2000×3000 pixel file. A 4×6 print scanned at 600 DPI results in a 2400×3600 pixel image.

In inkjet printers DPI is the number of dots of ink laid down per inch of printing paper. You may see different numbers for the horizontal and vertical numbers. Don’t worry. I’ve read a few articles that claim the human eye can’t distinguish difference in anything past 2000 DPI.

PPI

Used to refer to digital files going to print as 4×6s or 8×10s, Pixels Per Inch is no more than a reference number. It tells you how many pixels of your image are being used per inch of print. Again, simple math.

How many do you need? What’s the perfect PPI? Only you can decide. It’s rather subjective. Most people will try to keep between 200 and 300 PPI. In larger sized prints (16×20 and bigger) you can easily get away with 150 PPI and they look fine.

Ever see a billboard up close? They get printed at 10-20 PPI, but we view them from such a distance that it looks great.

Now here is something to wrap your head around. Imagine a 6 mp image at 2000×3000 pixels is printing to a 10×15. That’s 200 PPI. Your inkjet printer prints at 2400 DPI. That means each pixel is represented with 12 dots of ink. Is that enough fine detail for your liking?

Make some test prints for yourself and find your "level of tolerance" for your camera. You may find 150-200 PPI perfectly acceptable. My D70 has produced nice 16×20 prints and that’s my level. Everyone has a different perception and you need only find yours instead of accepting someone else’s.

Just do me one favor. Use the terms DPI and PPI properly. Thanks!

Need ideas for a Photo Book? Try these on for size.

• A "yearbook" of sorts. Gather photos of your kids from 2007 and put together a "This is Your Life" kind of homage.
• Have you printed your holiday photos yet? Why not put together a story book of the festivities and send the second one to Mom, Dad, Grandma or whoever.
• Make a Travelogue Book from one of your vacation trips from last year.

Printing 100 images and putting them in an album will cost at least $30-40. For half that you can create a marvelous book for yourself AND get another copy for nuthin’. What are you waiting for?

Go to the MyPublisher website and grab their BookMaker software.

dotPhoto.com is offering 10 cent 4×6 prints TODAY Only 12/31/07. Dash on over there and you can get great quality for a great price. If you wait until tomorrow you’ll pay their standard price of 12 cents, which ain’t too shabby either.

Deal number two was announced in the last few days. Snapfish, which is owned by HP, has reduced their standard price on 4×6’s to 9 cents. Yeah, 9 cents! I don’t know how they can do them so cheap and still make a profit.

Both companies also offer 20 or more free prints (dotphoto gives 50) for new signups.

One of the benefits of online printing is you can have them shipped anywhere you want. Do a batch for each relative or family and have them delivered right to their door.

If you have a Canon printer, buy Canon paper. Epson user? Use their photo papers. HP got your money? You guessed it: feed that thing HP paper.

Each manufacturer designs the paper and ink as matching products. You’ll get the most accurate color and longest print life by using inkjet papers specific to your printer and inkset.

If the manufacturer doesn’t offer a Canvas or Watercolor or other cool papers, don’t despair. Companies like Ilford, Red River, and Legion / Moab make all kinds of cool papers (I really like the Red River Linen) that are equally as compatible as the manufacturers stuff. And they have ICC profiles you can download so you get nice prints.

Make sure that you buy papers that are specific to your printer model. Some websites, like Red River, actually list by printer model which of their papers work. You don’t want to have a $50 box of inkjet paper become useless because you didn’t check it out first.

If it’s offered, buy a Sample Pack of paper to try out some of their stock. Or just buy a small package of 8×10 paper. You may find you like Moab Entrada better than Red River Aurora Fine Art, but you’ll have to try them out to see.

Don’t go crazy testing every single paper out there. Try a few and find your favorites. Then setup presets in your editing software (or in the print driver, as Epson lets you do) to simplify your print sessions.

There’s a whole new world of textured and fine art papers out there. Try a few and expand your printing options.

No photo buddies? Lots of local photographers have special deals this time of year to take a family portrait for your photo greeting cards. Shooting this yourself is a bit difficult since you have to use a self timer or remote device and run a lot.

This weekend many families are coming together for some kind of turkey fest. Wouldn’t it be a great time to take a family photo?

Outdoor photos are quite popular here in Colorado, especially if you can get a nice snow scene in the background. If you have a favorite park, beach, mountain, lake, stream etc you frequent, these are great places to shoot the photos at.

Some folks are lucky enough to have a nice setting in their own backyard. Or you may want to gather around the recently setup Christmas tree. Be sure to check out your local city’s downtown area. A good photo spot could be built for you already.

Lots of photo labs do greeting cards, and most of them deliver within a few days. Your local Ritz and Wolf Camera stores would be my first choice, even though Wal-Mart and other stores do them too. Better image quality will impress your friends (and make you look better too). If you want to make your own cards, check out Photographers Edge. They sell standard horizontal or vertical cards that you slip a 4×6 print into. Nice stuff and reasonably priced.

And virtually all the online labs do them too. The important thing is to get the photo done soon before you get all flustered with holiday doings.

I guess they picked the name because of the builtin handle and addon battery. You can make prints, Dash somewhere else and shoot and make more prints. Since it prints in just over 40 seconds, that adds to the meaning too.

The Picturemate Dash also sports a 3.6 inch swiveling LCD (ooohhhh!), memory card slots, Pictbridge connection capability, and a USB connection for hooking directly to your computer. Automatic picture enhancement and controls for Redeye, B&W and Sepia, brightness and color are built in. You can even add various frames to your photos.

So, why would you want one of these? The prints cost only 25 cents each (when you buy the 150 print pak) and they’re in your hand in a minute. Yes, instant gratification is a good thing. Sure it costs more. Anything you want fast costs more.

Want one of these printers? Go grab one here.

You can create custom sized mats, use the included number and letter cutouts, and even create digital mats with multiple openings (up to 40!). Being able to exactly match the colors in your image means you get a perfectly coordinated mat.

After printing the 2 sample images available on their website I was even more impressed. Go grab them and print them out for yourself. You’ll be amazed at how real they look.

When you weigh the cost of QuickMats3 against custom matting 10 prints it’s quite reasonable. Imagine how much you could save over the entire year? Since the product comes with a 60 page manual and 24 video tutorials you’ll be up and running in no time.

You can get a free subscription to After Capture magazine at their website.

One of the key things he stressed during his presentation was his goal as a photographer: Create images that evoke an emotional response from the viewer. Through previsualization he sees the final image in his mind. Then comes the task of selecting the right exposure, angle to shoot from, and lighting, to make that image come alive. The end results, as you’ll see on his site, are breathtaking.

To create an emotional response from the viewer, there should first be an emotional response from the photographer. The scene should somehow move you. Maybe it reminds you of a time from your childhood. Maybe it reminds you of your wedding day or a milestone birthday. Capturing an image of that feeling is your goal.

Compositional strength is essential to your successful photo. Use the rule of thirds, leading lines, S curves, dynamic symmetry, and any other tool in your bag. Choose the right subject matter and present it in a new and creative way. Tell a story with that single image by including (or excluding) certain elements. Use color to your advantage; bold singular color, color contrasts, color harmonies, or remove all color and revert to B&W. Think about how this image will pull that emotion from the viewer.

Lastly, crop your images to complete them. Many of Jeff’s images are long and thin, or square, or just not the standard 8×10 or 11×14. Don’t get locked in to the standard dimensions. Use what works compositionally. When framing your photos you can always have a mat cut to any dimension needed.

Don’t ruin a photo by constricting it to a standard dimension. Let it spread out and breathe. Let it unfold and evoke that emotional response.