Vacation Photos

Monday, March 1, 2004

Get the Most Out of Vacation Photos (NAPSA)—The travel season is in full swing and, as in years past, Americans are filling up cars, boarding planes and hitting the rails to reach relaxing destinations at the four corners of the country and the world. This year, however, along with the right clothes and a good paperback, Americans are more and more leaving film cameras at home and packing a digital camera for their trips. In fact, InfoTrends Research Group recently reported that “digital cameras will nearly replace film cameras by 2008.” This dramatic increasein digital camera ownership and use isn’t surprising due to improving image quality, decreasing camera prices and the amazing sharing functionality digital now affords. In the past, pictures were snapped throughout a vacation but trapped in the cameraon film until the family arrived home, dropped thefilm off at the drug store and waited for prints to arrive days later. Now services like Snapfish (www.snapfish.com) make it possible for users to upload images taken that day and share them with family and friends back home immediately and for free. Once images have been uploaded to the site, Snapfish won't add to the high cost of your vacation, allowing you to order film-quality digital camera prints on Kodak paper for as low as 19 cents. While youre at it, you can even choose from dozens of seasonal and other themed photo borders, including beach, seashell andfall foliage designs. This year more Americans will leave film cameras at home and take digital cameras. Theyalso offer a bunchof great photo products for vacationers, including Photo Postcards personalized with your pictures. Imagine, before you’ve even returned home, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and neighborswill have already received personalized postcards of you and the family, hiking, biking or lounging at the pool. Online photo services offer desktop photo software as well, the most compelling being Snapfish PhotoShow Express, a $29.99 value offered for free. This software makes it easy for summertravelers to manage and show images on their desktop as well as augment and edit images for sharing and printing. It also raises the bar by offering a suite of production tools for creating and sharing multimedia slide shows that are music and special effect enabled. Nowfireworks can explode over your pictures to theme music. Digital cameras and online imaging services will really help you get more out of summer vaca- tion photos this year. If you haven’t already, it might be time to dive in.