Archive for December, 2008

How to Avoid Mom’s Brussels Sprouts This Christmas – ScanDigital iReport Review

Monday, December 15th, 2008

One of our customers, Gwen Arthur, recently wrote about her experience for the CNN iReport.

After Gwen’s mom took out the old shoeboxes of photos again this Thanksgiving, she realized how tragic it was to see her family’s deteriorating memories. So this holiday season, she decided to give her mom a sentimental gift by converting all of their old memories into digital format with ScanDigital. Gwen Arthur wrote about her experience using our service in ‘How to Avoid Mom’s Brussels Sprouts This Christmas’ on iReport.com.

Read her review below: How to Avoid Mom’s Brussels Sprouts This Christmas – by Gwen Arthur

Over Thanksgiving, like every year, mom busted out with the old shoeboxes of family photos collected through the years. Lots were dog-eared and faded, showing their age as much as the hairdos and clothes we were wearing in the pictures. It was tragic to think our special memories were fading away! I immediately thought there has to be something we can do to properly preserve our precious memories before they fade as badly as grandma’s recollections.

That’s when I did some digging and came across a fantastic new company called ScanDigital, www.scandigital.com. According to their site, ScanDigital professionally scans, crops and color-corrects slides, photos, videotapes, reel-to-reel films, scrapbooks and photo albums then uploads them onto a password-protected online gallery for sharing, organizing and long-term preservation. Originals are returned along with a CD or DVD.

With the holidays quickly approaching during such uncertain times, I’d thought long and hard about meaningful, easy and cost-effective gift ideas for my family and close friends. I was looking for the perfect sentimental gift, especially for mom, so I gave ScanDigital a shot and things went as smoothly as advertised.

They did all of the work for me and the turn-around time was great! The website automatically generated a UPS label for shipping to their LA headquarters. All I had to do was print out the label and ship the photos and tapes. I could even track the process of my order with their online tracking system. Compared to the sneaking around to get photos and videos from my mom’s house, ScanDigital was a snap.

While I was waiting to get my digital images back, I spread the word about ScanDigital to my friends in ‘tornado alley’ as well as to my LA-based friend Karen, who, with the most recent fires, had a bit of a wake up call about the importance of preserving photos and documents in a potential disaster zone. The bonus for her is that ScanDigital even offers a pick-up and delivery services for those in the LA area.

This Christmas day, I am looking forward to the look on my mom’s face as I break out the old home videos and pictures of Christmas’ past. This time we’ll be watching on the TV from the DVDs from ScanDigital. When we’re done and I show her how to log on to my ScanDigital account and show her the photos in the online gallery, I’ll probably spend the rest of the day in the kitchen. Usually mom cooks but I bet my surprisingly tech-savvy mom spends the rest of her day in front of the computer. Wait – this is good! She won’t be able to make her Brussels sprouts, another one of her less-appealing traditions.

Hmmm … I wonder if I can send ScanDigital her box of recipes, minus a few.

Merry Christmas!

Posted in Organizational, ScanDigital, business, negative scanning | No Comments »

We’re on Twitter! Follow Us.

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Some of you may be familiar with Twitter, in fact, some of you may be addicted to Twitter.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the service, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.  For companies, it is a great way to exchange information with their customer bases and distribute updates or other interesting pieces of news.

Here is a short video which explains the service and how it works:

Following us is easy.  Simply set up an account at Twitter or log into an existing account.  You can find some of our key team members at:

Anderson Schoenrock, CEO & Co-Founder
Twitter: www.twitter.com/AndersonSD

Pamela Weiss, Director of PR / Marketing
Twitter: www.twitter.com/PamelaSD

So come follow us and we’ll follow you back.  We always love to hear from our customers!

Posted in Organizational, ScanDigital, Social Web, business, technology | No Comments »

ScanDigital Takes Manhattan

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time, but I wanted to share with everyone our experience from NYC at the end of October.  I spent a week in New York with Pamela Weiss our head of marketing/PR and Matt Stone our VP, Operations.  The original impetus for the trip was the PhotoPlus Expo trade show and then we extended the trip a bit to accomplish other meetings as well.

It was an exciting and fast paced trip, but we returned with new ideas, new customers and new connections.  We also had a ton of fun and enjoyed being in the city along the way.  Just an all around successful week.

We decided to take a red-eye in order to not lose a day with the West to East coast.  We had enjoyed a comfortable flight on the new VirginAmerica airline (I’d recommend giving them a try) and arrived in NYC’s JFK airport at 5:30 AM, grabbed our bags and headed off to our hotel.  After dropping off our bags, we went to the Javits Center to set up our booth for the show.  We completed set up by 8:30 AM and had about 3 hours to kill before we could access our hotel rooms.

Quick thinking, I decided we’d all go to my favorite breakfast spot from my NYC days, the Crooked Tree Creperie on St. Marks between 1st Avenue and Avenue A.  We arrived to learn they were closed which became a theme of the trip – three attempts, three strikes.

So we grabbed breakfast and a diner close by and headed back to the hotel.  Then we waited…and waited…and waited some more for our rooms to open up.

We were all pretty worn out, Matt and I decided to hang out in the lobby and Pamela decided to fight the drowsiness with caffeine.  Which resulted in a highly caffeinated Pamela snapping photos of an exhausted Matt and I in the lobby.  Here is some of her finer work:

Finally we checked in and settled in.  A great businessman once told me success is all about shoe leather, meaning you just have to get out and work those leather soles for revenues.  Matt and I agree, but only wanted to work the bottom leather if the top leather was looking great.  So we hit Grand Central Station for a shine:

With newly shined shoes, during the first evening in NYC, I had the pleasure of attending the Inc. Magazine reception for their 30 under 30 list, due to our July feature in their Start Up issue.  It was great to meet the Inc. team in person and I met so many great young entrepreneurs.

The next day we began the PhotoPlus Expo show.  Our booth turned out great and we had an opportunity to speak with a meet many existing customers and reach so many potential customers.  We always gain so much be being on the tradeshow floor speaking directly with our customers.  Running an online business, it is so easy to be trapped behind the computer, but so important to be out greeting customers and talking about our business.  The show lasted three days and was well attended.

Here is a great shot of our booth:

After our first day at the show, I wanted Matt and Pamela to experience Duke’s – a terrific BBQ restaurant on the east side.  It was a staple of my diet for more than two years in NYC and I was thrilled to return.  Matt didn’t hold back ordering their Sampler Platter, which basically was five kinds of meat on one plate.  Sides were served on a second plate and everything is washed down with the house beer – Pabst Blue Ribbon (which is elegantly served in a bucket).  This photo says it all:

After three days on our feet, we celebrated another successful ScanDigital tradeshow at my favorite restaurant – Blue Water Grill:

Pamela and I stayed in NYC for two more days after the show to meet with members of the press and tell the ScanDigital story.  The highlight for me was the afternoon we spent at the Hearst Tower.  The Tower was completed in 2005 after I had moved to Los Angeles, so I had never seen the building.  I must say it is now in my top 5 buildings in the world.  I was amazed and Pamela quickly was tired of hearing me rave about the buildings outstanding architecture.  The building was designed by Sir Norman Foster, was the first Gold LEED certified skyscraper in NYC.  I’ll let you read about it here if you’re interested, but one quick fact – using an exoskeloton design they saved the use of over 2,000 tons of steel…Amazing!

Overall it was a fun, exciting and successful NYC trip for the ScanDigital team!

Check out a 30 second slideshow here:

Posted in ScanDigital, business, digital photography, negative scanning, photos | No Comments »

JPEG vs. TIFF

Friday, December 5th, 2008

This week, while the rest of the office is going to be placing bets on our bi-annual Digi-Bowl ‘O8 (fun is mandatory), we’re going to be talking about file formats! It’s all terribly exciting I know, but it’s better to be able to make informed decisions about digital images so that you know what are working with how companies (like ScanDigital for one *ahem*) are processing your photos once scanned.

There are two major players in the world of digital images that you will have a choice between– JPEG and TIFF.  Certainly there are plenty of other formats, but those are typically only used in specific circumstances.  Now first and foremost, I know that you have friends who bought really expensive cameras and paid for full versions of the newest version of Adobe Photoshop, and these friends will tell you that .TIFF is far superior and that you have to use it if you want your pictures to look anywhere near as good as film instead of a giant mess of pixilated poo. Well, maybe they don’t use that exact wording, but I know you have sophisticated photo friends because I do too.

The primary difference between TIFF and JPEG is that .tiff is a “loseless” format whereas .jpeg is “lossy”, meaning that .tiff does not lose information on saving where .jpeg does. I realize that this makes it look like a clear cut case for .tiff but there are many many more factors to consider. No small aspect of this is file size– a .jpeg file can be under half the size of a .tiff file with little to no perceptible quality loss. This size difference quickly adds up to a huge amount of space if you are working with a large number of images. Also you can drastically minimize quality loss in .jpeg images by making sure that you continually save it at the highest quality settings. It makes sense that if you save the .jpeg at 50% quality then change something and save it at 50% again you will basically be cutting it in half every time and therefore lose more and more information from the image. However if you save the image at 100% each time, then you are protecting the integrity of the image.

A good article to take a look at, which demonstrates the differences is by Ken Rockwell and can be found here. Rockwell’s article is about .JPEG vs .RAW files, but the principles are basically the same because RAW is a loseless format like .TIFF is.

The most basic guide is that 99% of our customers will be able to do everything that they want with .JPEG images and have beautiful results. For professionals who simply need a high quality scan, and do not want us editing their image in anyway because they will be doing that themselves, we are happy to offer .TIFF format.

Posted in digital photography | No Comments »

Try These Seven Tips For Better Holiday Photos – Simple Tricks for More Memorable Holiday Snapshots

Monday, December 1st, 2008

I came across this article this weekend from ABC News.com and wanted to share it with everyone.
By KIM KOMANDO
Nov. 29, 2008
I bet you’re planning to take plenty of family photos this holiday season. Will you take the same ole washed out pictures? Will your kids once more look like little devils with their red eyes? Or do you want to knock the family’s socks off?

OK. No one is going to lose their socks over Christmas photos, but you can still take wonderful Yule pictures. Spend a little time with your camera’s manual and these tips. You might actually impress your friends and family.

Take Photos Outside

Indoor lighting can trick your camera. Low-light photos appear overly warm and yellowish. Flash washes out subjects and causes a cold, bluish tint.

So, take your photos outside when possible. Morning or late afternoon light is the most flattering. Then, use the camera’s flash to eliminate shadows on subjects’ faces.

To capture Christmas lights, shoot in the evening before it gets dark. This will help you properly expose your photographs. You’ll see both the lights and your subject clearly.

Snow can interfere with your light meter. I recommend you visit Phoenix at Christmas to avoid the snow! Perhaps that isn’t practical. If not, overexpose your shots a couple of steps. Take several exposures to improve chances of a good shot. Better yet, frame your photos to minimize the snow.

A polarizing filter will eliminate glare from eyeglasses. Or, ask your subjects to remove their glasses.

Fill the Frame

Distracting backgrounds are the bane of many photographs. So, fill the frame with your subject. This draws viewers’ eyes to the subject.

Of course, you’ll want to capture some of the background. So, use background (or foreground) elements to frame your subject.

Shoot in Aperture Mode

Many people don’t pay attention to aperture, or lens opening, size, but doing so will greatly improve your shots. I recommend using your camera’s aperture-priority mode for your photos.

You can adjust the size of the lens opening for effect. Use a small aperture (large f-stop) for photos at the dinner table. Guests seated far away will appear just as clear as those seated nearer.

Large apertures (small f-stop) blur the foreground and background, creating a narrow focus range. Distracting backgrounds are minimized. You can capture Christmas lights for a pleasingly blurry background.

Take candid photos

Use continuous (or burst) mode to capture the kids opening gifts. That way, you won’t miss a single candid moment. If possible, use a tripod and set the camera to take pictures periodically. Some newer cameras incorporate intervalometer functions for taking shots at timed intervals. Otherwise, you’ll need an intervalometer. Remotes for advanced cameras sometimes include intervalometers. Expect to pay upward of $100.

Keep portraits simple

Talk to your subjects while you photograph them. This will help them relax. Your photographs will reveal your subject’s personality.

Don’t be afraid to get on the ground. Shoot kids at eye level. You’ll get natural shots with a better perspective of facial expressions.

Leave a camera on a tripod and photograph guests as they arrive. Guests can also take self-portraits throughout the day. Keep the background simple yet festive.

Plan group photos

A little planning does wonders for group shots. Start by scouting out a location where your guests will fit. Make sure the background isn’t distracting.

Take group photos early on in the celebrations. Your guests will look their best.

Put tall people in the back or in the middle of a single row. Start shooting while your subjects arrange themselves for more relaxed photos. Use continuous mode to take plenty of photos.

If you want to be in the photo, use a remote shutter release. You can take multiple photos easily. Make sure the remote isn’t visible in the shot.

Don’t forget before and after shots

Take plenty of pictures throughout the day. This increases your chance of getting good ones. And take pictures before and after the celebrations. These shots will add to your memories.

Finally, don’t spend too much time behind the camera. Take time to enjoy the holiday!

Find the article here: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GadgetGuide/Story?id=6355601&page=1

Kim Komando hosts the nation’s largest talk radio show about computers and the Internet. To get the podcast or find the station nearest you, visit: www.komando.com/listen. To subscribe to Kim’s free e-mail newsletters, sign up at: www.komando.com/newsletters. Contact her at gnstech@gns.gannett.com.

Posted in Photo Tips | 2 Comments »