I love my digital camera equipment. It took a while of adjustment, but I can now see its strengths and minuses and work with them. However, one thing has remained the same. Most of my photos never see the light of day. In the past several years I have made prints from exactly six photos, only four of which are actually on my wall. While I haven’t found a solution for my laziness. I have good news for those who identify. Make a book.
A friend recently showed me her trip to Paris in a book she made on iPhoto, the Mac software that comes standard on all Mac computers. In a nutshell the book looks great. She had control to create custom layouts, choosing styles and colors and photo placement and it comes with a beautiful dust jacket. I was completely impressed.
The following evening, I jumped on iPhoto to see how easy it was. From the “Events” page, choose an event (group the photos you want) and click on the book icon on bottom of iPhoto. Future bookmakers can choose “Autoflow” and allow Mac to create the book from start to finish, or create it themselves.
Overall my book took a couple of hours to make, which included photo selection, original text, indecision, and uploading. Now I have to wait 3-4 business days for it to arrive. I can’t wait. Prices start at about $30 for a bound hard cover with additional pages, tax and shipping extra. Mine cost $51.75 delivered and soon my coffee table will adorn my own photos, not someone else’s.
A word of warning, using photos with smaller file sizes may cause an error icon to show (a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark in the middle) pointing out the picture quality may not be good enough. Of course, I always recommend setting your digital camera to the highest setting for large files sizes (or RAW for expert users).
I can’t agree with you more. I have thousands upon thousands of digital photos that lie dormant in my computer. It’s like they want to burst out but it requires a bit of extra steps and time to take the RAW files into Lightroom (my preferred software), pick the best, make any adjustments, export to jpg., tiff or other file types, then go to print through an online lab (no printer at home). More or less, it’s a few steps, which feel like unnecessary interference that results in pure frustration and leads to laziness – just have to change my ways and find a process that works!
The more I hear about Mac’s, I’m convinced I’ll be getting one next time around. Great post ! For Eric: I shoot RAW; have a look at Silkypix. I process all my shots daily, even if it takes all night-long. Awesome program !
Hey Michael,
I switched to mac a couple of years ago and have never regretted the choice. I have also started using Aperature a little more and so far so good (the upgraded version of iPhoto.