Digital EnhancementBrings Your PhotosTo Life (NAPSA)—Instead of stuffing photos of the family’s trick-ortreaters and football stars into a drawerthis year, savvy moms and dads are using their home computers to create digital photo albums, makingit easier than everto organize and retrieve photos. New software programs make it simple to line up years of school photos anddo tonsof creative projects—from making personalized cards and invitations to creating Halloween window decorations with pictures of the family’s scariest ghouls. Creating digital photo albums is the latest evolution in a long tradition of collecting and organizing personal mementos. This hobby tracks back to the “commonplace books” that intellectuals of the 1700s used to save quotes and phrases. These were followed by “friendship books” in the 1800s, which younggirls used as diaries and journals, and later, with the Industrial Revolution, the availability of die-cut scraps made it easy to cut edges and frames for photos and other memorabilia. Today’s digital imaging software can be used to store and preserve digital images or to enhance existing photos. In fact, photos taken with traditional film can be digitized by a photofinisher and saved onto a CD. With KODAK Picture CD, customers can take home not just an envelope of prints, but a CD of photos that they can open and archive on a home computer. What’s so great about digital photo albums? First, it’s easy to enhance photos like a professional. Today’s software makes it simple to correct red eye, adjust contrast, reduce graininess as well as crop photos. Users can make as many copies as they like and change text or other background elements in the album. Manydigital imaging software programs offer theme ideas for scrapbooks and album pages as well as templates for creating personalized greeting cards, stickers, calendars and borders, all of which can be e-mailed, printed and shared just like traditional scrapbooks. How To’s for a Digital Photo Album: Pick a theme—Digital photo album themescan rangefrom children’s achievements, fo weddings,to friendship journals, to hobbies, and personal journeys. e If you're going fo print your albums, investin an affordable inkjetprinter or use services from online photofinishers such as Ofoto.com orhigh quality graphics shops andoffice supply stores. Think beyond albums—Explore software programsthat allow youto create slide shows, make your owninvitations and greeting cards or create animated pictures offriends and family. Lookfor software and Web servicesthat are designed for novices. Recommended titles include: Ulead Photo Express My ScrapbookEdition and Biography Software's FamilyWrite.com. @ The boundaries are limitless— once they've mastered organizing digital photos, many people begin creating 3-D images and adding animation, video and audio to photo files. Using digital imaging software also makes it easy to protect belongings. Insurance companies advise homeowners to catalog their possessions as do lawyers and estate planners. Inexpensive programs, such as SAFE from Red Queen Software, guide users through creating a pictorial inventory of all their possessions. Digital software is available in varying levels of complexity and there are several brands to choose from. Many companies marktheir software programs with the “KODAKPicture Friendly” logo so that consumers can identify products that work well with digital cameras, Picture CDs, inkjet media and online services from Kodak. Most products with this mark are geared towards beginner and intermediate computer users. To learn more, you can check out craft magazines and Websites, stop by local photofinishers and photo stores or visit www.kodak.com.
