Have you tried Canvas Photo Printing ?

This week I’m eventually getting around to enlarging and framing my daughter’s first year pictures.  Well, I was going to get some of them framed but the cost of getting large format frames has been putting me off.  So for a lot of pictures I’ve opted instead for getting canvas prints from photos from the past year of her life.  The funny thing is this is actually working out really inexpensive!

Canvas Photo Printing

Many people don’t realize that you can get canvas prints from photos that you already have on your hard drive.  Thanks to wonderful digital printing technology , these personalized piece of art can be yours with a few clicks of the mouse. For my prints I’ve opted to use Canvas People . I’m always cautious about getting prints made online – I guess it comes from my background in printing and extremely high standards!  Canvas People are actually giving away a free Canvas print this month so it’s a great way to try out their quality with no risk.

Advantages of Canvas Prints

Go Big!

One of the best things about canvas prints from photos is that you can go really big with your picture without having to worry about  having to buy and hang a big expensive frame.  Canvases are so lightweight that can be hung on virtually any wall.

Pieces of Art

The canvas wraps around the frame, (sometimes known as a gallery wrap) and gives a wonderful professional finish. They have a look of an oil painting and also have a special protective coating to protect from dust and dirt.

Unique and personalized

Canvas prints make wonderful unique and personalized gifts for those hard to buy for people in your life.

Tips for Canvas Photo Printing

• I think that canvas photo printing works best for extreme close up shots of kids (think big blue eyes popping off the canvas) and landscape or travel photos.  These types of pictures really lend themselves to this format.
• Make sure your colors are vibrant and rich.  In my experience, Canvas prints tend to make colors look a little less vibrant, so it’s important that your pictures not washed out to begin with.
• Make sure you upload a high resolution shot.  Going big means you’ll need lots of pixels so make sure your saving your image in the highest quality
• Crop carefully – as the canvas will wrap around the frame, make sure that you allow for this when uploading your image.  The software that Canvas People use gives you a great visual on where your image will go around the edges.
• When your enlarging pictures for display on your wall remember that you probably need to get them enlarged bigger than you think you need to.  This is especially true for Canvas Prints because you wont have the added size of a mat and a frame molding in your finished product.
• Make groups or themes of prints that go together.  Putting together a triptych (3 pics of the same subject) or several picts of the same theme is a great way of displaying your pictures and canvas prints are an idea way to showcase this kind of work.
• Consider using Black and White/ Sepia for a different feel for your Canvas Prints.  Use a software program such as Photoshop Elements to achieve this look.

I hope I’ve inspired you to try out some Canvas Prints from photos that you have sitting on your hard drive.  Why not check out Canvas People for yourself and get a free canvas print of your own to get you started!

Happy Snapping!

The eternal quest for the best Digital SLR Camera Bag

So I’ve got the diaperbag, I’ve got the laptop, I’ve got my purse and I’ve got my Digital SLR camera bag.  How on earth am I going to get all of this plus my 18 month old on a transatlantic flight to Ireland this summer?  Well, careful packing will get me so far but the ever changing regulations on baggage allowance are so tight I’ve decided that I’m treating myself to a new digital SLR camera bag from Crumpler.

I’m going all out and going to splurge on the 8 Million Dollar Home bag which has room for a full size Digital SLR, big zoom lens, my laptop and loads more extra space.  I love the Crumpler range of camera bags mainly because they don’t look like a camera bag!  They have a whole variety of shapes and sizes so there’s bound to be one in there to fit your requirements not to mention style.

As the name suggests, the 8 million dollar home does not come cheap but when you’ve spent serious money on your gear it’s worth spending a little extra on a good quality bag to haul it around in.

Plus these bags are really comfortable to wear and if you’ve ever used a bag that’s not comfortable you’ll know what a pain it is – Frustrating and can sometimes put you off taking your camera with you.  Not Good!

The same can also be said if your DSLR camera bag is difficult to access, to close or just doesn’t have enough room from everything.  These bags have heaps of space and lots of dividers inside so you can customize the interior to suit your needs.  The outside is made of a water resistant Nylon which will be great in the lovely Irish weather!

It looks like I will meet the handluggage requirements on my flight after all as my new Crumpler digital SLR Camera bag even has room for a few diapers and a sippy cup!

Happy Snapping

PS You can find the complete range of Crumpler Cags here .  They have every size, shape and almost every color!

Check out Digital Frame HQ

So you’ve figured out how to use your camera.  You know how to make your pictures pretty using Photoshop.  Now what do you do with all your photos? Share them of course!  And where best to share your pictures then in your living room using one of the latest Digital Frames?  I’ve recently discovered a wonderful resource for buying digital frames -  www.digitalframehq.com It really has a wonderful selection of frames at every price point from all the big manufacturers such as Sony, Kodak and Hewlett Packard.

The website is so easy to use  – you can choose your frame based on size, brand or price.  You can check out a really great image of the product your interested in too.

And one of my favorite things about Digital Frame HQ is their Learning Center which is a section of their website devoted to explaining all about their products and how best to use them.  You can find out how to get your images onto your frame,  wireless frames and how to set up your frame.  Pretty cool stuff!

So don’t forget to check Digital Frame HQ here and do your pictures justice and frame those bad boys in a digital frame!

Happy snapping

Picture Gift Ideas for Mom

So I’ve eventually started my Christmas shopping this year and I’ve been scouring the internet for pressies. One of my sticking points every year is gift ideas for Mom. Being a photographer one of my “go-to” gifts for her is always of course Pictures!  She is usually inundated with photos of recent times and loves to look at them on her laptop, but we have heaps of old pictures that just sit upstairs in boxes and albums gathering dust.  It’s a shame that these pictures are now mostly forgotten. So when I found this idea by ScanDigital I was impressed.

How about getting them all together on a brand new digital photoframe?  All you have to do is ship off your old pics, negatives, slides, whatever you have to ScanDigital and they upload everything to a digital frame and send you everything back plus the preloaded frame and a DVD of all the images.

Perfect gift idea for Mom who has it all and it saves you from having to show her how to put stuff on the frame herself.  I also love the idea of putting old pics on display.  In this digital age they are  always forgotten about.

So get together some of your old pics and visit the ScanDigital website for more information.

But don’t delay! Deadline is December 14th!

Happy Snapping

The Best Santa Picture without even leaving home

Most of you know that I’m the proud mom of a baby girl and this year I’m anticipating that Christmas will be even more fun than usual, having her around. I know I really should go and stand in line at the mall so she can get her first Santa picture but that doesn’t sound so appealing. So, since Santa will be paying us a visit this year I thought I would capture the event on camera on Christmas Eve.

How so I hear you say? You’ll never catch Santa in the act!

Well, thanks to a new website called Capture the Magic you can!  These guys help you get a picture of Santa in your very own living room.  You could even get a picture of him talking to the dog.

Set up your camera on Christmas Eve before the little ones head to bed and in the morning you have the proof of the pudding to show that the big man himself made an appearance.

Thrill your kids this Christmas! Catch Santa in YOUR house!

Scanning made Easy!

If your are like me you have boxes and boxes of old family photos stacked up in the attic, which are just gathering dust! This has recently become an issue in my house when I wanted to compare my new daughter’s pictures with my own baby photos and I was faced with a daunting climb into the attic only to find I’d have to wade through boxes and boxes before finding any gems. Wouldn’t it have been easier to do a quick search on my laptop? Absolutley but who wants to spend hours on end scanning all those pictures at home? The thought of it makes me break out in a cold sweat!

Then I came across ScanDigital. They offer a fab service where you just ship off a box of pics and they do the rest, sending you back your precious originals, a CD and an online webalbum so you can share with the rest of the family! Check them out by clicking the link below and use the following coupon code for an even better deal! Coupon Code: 1835157191