Online Digital Photographic Processing

Weeks used to pass between the moment of taking a picture to being able to show that snap to friends; in the age of Facebook, Pinterest and Flickr, it only takes a few seconds. More and more pictures spread faster and faster. Critics fear that good shots will be lost in the flood of images and not be preserved for future generations. 

Pictures, books and music in digital format can be distributed cheaply and quickly, but when it comes to presenting digital goods as a gift one is literally empty-handed. The printed image, as a canvas, gallery poster or photo book is therefore still very popular indeed. But during the run-up to Christmas and the New Year it is the printed photo calendar which tops the list of gift ideas.

The advantages of the printed image are clear to the eye Those who assemble an annual selection of the best pictures in a photo book will still be able to enjoy colourful memories of the most beautiful moments decades later. Calendars with space for pictures for each of the twelve months and a photograph for the cover page only require selecting the most interesting pictures of the year once. Thus photo books and photo calendars help to avoid loosing good pictures in the flood of digital images, giving them the special place they deserve.

Something unique to unwrap, touch and display

Creative and personal gifts, which show the recipient the effort spent in selecting or designing such a display of affection, are consistently receiving greater esteem than gifts bought off the shelf.

FotoInsight webshop offers photo calendars on silk-matt or glossy print paper or photographic paper, in various sizes up to A2, as desk top or wall calendars or personal organiser with weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual calendar templates. They make ideal gifts as individual family, birthday, kitchen or decorative calendars. At prices between £10 and £35 there is a photo calendar model for everyone and every use e at http://fotoinsight.co.uk/photo-calendars.html.

Cambridge. 14 March 2011. - FotoInsight broadens its range of photo books with shine. Unlike some glossy photobooks simply produced on glossy paper, FotoInsight’s new hi-gloss is achieved by applying a protective coating to the photo book pages. In an additional step at the end of the print process a PU varnish will be heat-treated, achieving an even, durable hi-gloss finish, producing brilliant, shiny colours.



The individual design and order process follows the same familiar steps as already known from FotoInsight’s Designer software. The high gloss finish is available in the glossy photobook formats Panorama and XL. The extra cost for the hi-gloss finish on the 26 page A4 Panorama photo book is £6.20. 

Hi-gloss photo books are available in the formats Large Panorama (about A4) and XL (about 12” x 12”) with 26 to 154 pages (in increments of 8 pages). Every FotoInsight photobook is printed on paper produced under the guidelines for sustainable forestry.



Bespoke photobooks are as durable as coffee table photo books from book shops. All materials used are subject to extensive testing and are guaranteed by their manufacturers to last 100 years. The glossy finish not only looks better, it also protects the photobook pages’ surface.



FotoInsight’s Managing Director Klaas Brumann comments on the new high gloss photobooks: “In addition to printed photo books and photo albums on photographic paper all produced at market leading print resolution of 300 dpi, FotoInsight offers now the hi-gloss finish on the most popular photo book formats. Ideal for anyone in search of a glossy, coffee table style photobook. Among hundreds of sizes and formats with different finishes and page numbers ranging form 26 to 154 pages per book there is a photo book format for every budget and occasion.”

Even Larger Books with own Photographs

The leading players in the imaging industry's fastest growing segment - Photo Books - are getting ready to showcase their latest developments. FotoInsight announces a upgrade to its "Designer" software and new, even larger Photo Books.

To provide space in which the favourite photographs can shine, photo book services like FotoInsight Ltd are constantly improving their software and their range. So far, most books printed with own photographs are limited to less than 100 pages. With the upcoming version 4 of FotoInsight Designer its photo books can feature up to 130 pages for the first time. After introducing the XL Photo Books (12"x12" / 30x30 cm) last year the software upgrade will add a new XXL Photobook format (H12"x16" / H30xW42 cm) in stylish faux leather and with a traditional screw bound. In the new XXL format landscapes can be spread over 80 cm wide double pages. For this, FotoInsight is increasing the print resolution to 360 dpi.

The software upgrade announced for the UK Retail Imaging Show has finally been launched. The clever 'Assistant' in the FotoInsight Designer photo book software will then be able to design a 130 page extra large photo book in under three minutes, For this the application automatically lays out the pages with the chosen images and can put these in order of date, file name or event.

When designing a photobook page by page hundreds of templates in the free software help to position images. A "Help Grid" can be turned on in the application's editor window to provide optical guiding in positioning photographs and text. The size of the grid can be changed and the application can make pictures stick to the grid lines. An even finer positioning can be achieved by zooming into the editor.

Any picture can go without, with a standard or an individual frame to set the photo apart from the background or layered images. Text can be written on any part of any page or it can be copied and pasted from a word processor or other application. This ensures that names and dates can be recorded and the text of for example a wedding speech can live on for future generations.

Repeat Orders

Once the photo book of a holiday or party arrives everyone is cheering and many want their own copy. With the new release arrives what many regular FotoInsight customers have been asking for: the re-ordering option. During six weeks after an order a photo book can be re-ordered without having to upload the layout again. Photobooks ordered by the 16th of December should be delivered in time for Christmas.

The Managing Director of FotoInsight Klaas Brumann comments: "The larger formats XL and the new XXL provide the space to preserve the favourite pictures from holidays and events in shiny quality. Books can be accessed at any time. Unlike videos and images on digital media there will never be compatibility problems with future digital standards. With your FotoInsight Photobook simply turn the pages and enjoy, now and in a hundred years."

For journalists:

For questions or if you would like to test the FotoInsight Photo Book Service as a journalist please contact us at tel. +44 (0)208 1449369 or email pr (at) fotoinsight.co.uk . FotoInsight also offer vouchers and software for reader offers.

Contact

FotoInsight Ltd.
Cambridge, CB4 1ZP, UK
Skype fotoinside
Tel. +44 208 1449369
Email: pr (at) fotoinsight.co.uk

Agfa, Fuji and Kodak have become household names providing branded products to billions of consumers throughout the past century, but photo processing from conventional film rolls is down about 20% this year. The photo processing industry employs tens of thousand of people in the USA, Japan and Europe and blue chips like Kodak have been rapidly disinvesting from their central labs into other fields like medical imaging, shedding thousands of jobs in their photo labs. In Europe, some of the larger central photo processing companies keep their revenues stable in two ways: Catering for digital photography through POS and online channels, which is up by about 80% over last year (digital accounts for over 20% of all photo development) and with new products like photo calendar printing , photobooks (a new printed photo album), photo mugs, shirts, and other photo gift ideas. Demand for calendars from digital photos was up 1300% in Q4 2005 over the previous year.

The trend towards photo gifts increases the shift in seasonality for the industry. The main season for photo processing used to be the end of the summer school holidays, when people wanted to finally reveal what was on their film roll. With digital photography people have already seen the images several times before processing them and can wait to pick the ones to print, placing their orders between September and December together with a photo book for their partner and a photo calendar or other photo gift for granny. Unlike off the shelf gifts, individual gifts from own photos can only be processed on demand. Photo labs are increasingly seeing the need to install capacity largely underused for nine month of the year and to work 24/7 on the labour intensive photo gifts during the run up to Christmas. With European labour laws making this costly and difficult Europe’s largest independent central lab has put its eyes on Ukrainian. The next stage of the shift in photo printing might see personalized gifts from digital photos being produced in countries with low labour costs and the flexibility to employ a temporary work force during the Christmas season. Goods would need to be shipped back rapidly to where the first world digital consumer demands them.

But it could also happen that people start making more of the photo gifts at home again. For this gift shopping season 1-More is releasing a new version of its popular PhotoCalendar software for PC. Such applications make it easy to create complete, personalized, high quality photo calendar using the summer holiday pics and takes only minutes. Interested users might want to create an art calendar edited with their own digital pictures. PhotoCalendar can also be used to design and print anything from a single page to a thirteen months calendar. There is no better, individual and creative gift for beloved ones.

Many easy-to-use features make the photo calendar output original pieces of art. Applications like 1-More PhotoCalendar help the creative process with many pre-made layouts and the option to add clipart in frames. The registered version allows selecting different typefaces and colors for all parts of the calendar. The order of the objects can be freely defined and image titles and descriptions added. New in this latest release are special filters for professional effects.

1-More PhotoCalendar software can scale calendars to the format supported by the printer, lowering the hurdles to home printing.

Calendars edited in 1-More PhotoCalendar can start on any date of the year, making it a great tool to create gift calendars all year round. The very romantic let the calendar start or end on a special day of the month (this may extend the calendar to thirteen pages; e.g. from Sept. 20th, 2006 to Sept. 19th, 2007), making it the utmost personal present.

The great think about processing or printing photos is that all those digital treasures languishing on hard drives could finally see the light of day with the easy to use PhotoCalendar software. Getting nicely laid out, perfectly printed photo calendars to decorate a wall or desk is easy and set to become the latest must-have application for the creative computer user. Once the user has downloaded the PhotoCalendar applet from the 1-more.com website and installed it, the software guides the user through the calendar creation process. Digital images on a hard drive, CD, or camera are easily accessed. The layout, photo editing and framing tools are self explanatory with clearly laid out icons. A limited version of the application described can be downloaded and used free of charge, the full application for use with own photos costs only $19.- as a download from http://www.1-more-photocalendar.com, where the full version can be unlocked immediately to ensure that gift calendars can be edited and printed in time. Managing Director Michael Bartos and ads: “1-more.com specializes in easy to use creative photographic software. The new release of PhotoCalendar is set to resolve many people’s headaches over presents for friends and family.”

The judgment is open whether central photo labs can compete against domestic craft when it comes to getting personal presents ready for the season. For certain, today’s consumer has more choice than ever.

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