While I’m waiting for the crowdfunding campaign for my darkroom timer project to reach its completion (7 days to go), I’ve been busy with a few other projects. One of them you’ll find here in this article: an LED conversion to my friend‘s Durst Laborator 1200 enlarger.
Apple discontinues its photo printing service, recommends third-party apps instead
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If you’re using Apple’s Photo Print Products service, there is little time left to place your orders. Apple is soon to discontinue its photo printing service, and the final orders must be placed by the end of September.
Print your photos: they are meant to last
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My mom was a florist. She used to say you can always tell a florist by their thumb. Each floral stalk must be cut prior to refrigeration and cut again when incorporated into a design, so if the inside of the thumb is rough and slightly discolored, with tiny slices lining the soft padding, like a hundred tiny paper cuts, you’re talking to a florist.
This tiny case lets you print photos directly from your iPhone
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For all those who want to bring together the instant printing of Polaroid and modern-age mobile photography, Prynt has launched an interesting gadget. It’s called Prynt Pocket, and it allows you to print the photos directly from your iPhone. It’s a small and simple phone case, but it stores 10 sheets of inkless sticker film. Together with the iOS app, it allows you to play and even bring together printed photos and the videos.
Waving or drowning? What’s the situation with Kickstarter / photo printing service Flag?
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Do you recall Flag? The app that wanted to take your photos and print them for free, funded by advertising on the reverse of the photo? If you do remember it, it’s likely that you were one of its Kickstarter backers. If you don’t, you’re forgiven. January 2014, when Flag launched its first Kickstarter campaign, was a while back. And it hasn’t exactly been delivering on its intended business model of ad-supported photos for free, and disrupting the photo-printing industry, since then, either.
So why am I writing about it, you might ask? The company hasn’t delivered anything and three Kickstarter campaigns and an unsuccessful Shark Tank pitch later it drifts on in a zombie-like state of unfulfilled promises, disgruntled backers, and belligerent entrepreneurs. Think of it as a cautionary tale.
If I want to print a photo, what size does it need to be?
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I took the photo just down there from the deck of the ferry that took me from Auckland to the Coromandel Peninsular in New Zealand. My camera was in my lap and in one split second, everything came together to create that image. It looks almost as if I’ve shopped in the cruise liner, doesn’t it? I was travelling alone, and minding my own business, but two older couples struck up a conversation with me.
It was the camera that they noticed. We spoke about all sorts, but what I recall specifically from the conversation was one of women mentioning that she’d tried to have one of her photos printed by an online print company in New Zealand, but hadn’t been able to manage it. Whenever she uploaded it, the image was red-flagged for being too small. She wasn’t really sure what she was doing wrong, or what size her image needed to be so that she could print it.
Almost five years on from that February day and it occurs to me that between ppi, dpi, pixels, and megapixels, people are probably still confused by minimum image sizes for printing. This is especially so, given that smartphone photos are regularly saved at 72ppi, but printers prefer 300ppi. I decided, therefore, to go straight to the printers’ works and ask a selection of companies what their preferred sizes were for printing wall art (so that’s canvas or acrylic or any other type of medium that you hang on your wall) sized 20 by 30cm (8″ by 10″, roughly A4) and 40 by 60cm (20″ by 24″, roughly A2). Here’s what I learned.
How To Save Old Photos That Are Stuck Together
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If you’ve been around long enough to be printing photos, and even longer to be storing them in shoe boxes, you must have had that frustrating experience when two (or more) photos got stuck together. It feels as if there were super-glued and any attempt to apply force to separate them will result in damaging the photos.
wikiHow shares a great tip to separate those photos, simply soak them in warm water:[Read More…]
Restoring and Digitizing Old Photos Using a Smartphone
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I was going through some old photos of my family overseas. My dad’s kept them in a hard brown briefcase since before I was born, and we decided to find a way for them to be able to be cherished more freely. I wanted to share a few tips I noted down along the way as I was restoring those photos. And you don’t need an elaborate setup. Grab your phones, guys.
Poll: Do You Print Photographs Any More?
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I was looking at The Burning House – it is a project that visually documents what people will take out of their homes, if they caught fire. The ‘What would you take if your house was on fire?’ question is one of the more interesting questions a person can be asked as it make them think about what physical items are really important to them. In fact, this is probably a good way to see what’s important to you as a person, not jsut physically but also emotionally.
Anyhow, looking through the project, I noticed how many people noted either single photos of significance. Some noted old photos with (or of) a good friend, or a photo of a family relative.
More people, however, noted photo albums: family albums, childhood albums and wedding albums begin high on the stats. (I did not run the numbers via an excel sheet, but this was a very strong impression that I got).[Read More…]
DIY – Continuous Ink Systems
by 4 CommentsSome how, back in February of 2006, I found out about Continuous Ink Systems (CIS) and begin my search. I came across a man selling what I deemed to be a good system to try on E-Bay, and through a few emails, discovered he lived just up the street from me. I bought my first CIS from him within a week.
A CIS supplies “phony” cartridges with ink continuously from large reservoirs out side the printer with silicon tubing. The average home printer cartridge holds only 8-15ml of ink, and the CIS I bought comes pre loaded with 100ml of ink in each color container. That’s a lot of cartridges worth of ink![Read More…]
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