The local high-end photo processing lab in my community shut down last month. Professional photographers had been taking their pictures to that lab for over thirty years, but the owners could no longer keep their doors open due to a lack of skilled personnel. Now, several hundred professional photographers in my area have to send their work to the next nearest metropolis for processing.
With developments in digital technology over the past several years, however, many photographers may consider eliminating their need for laboratory development altogether as they turn to digital cameras. These cameras produce pictures that can be processed and edited on a personal computer without all the smelly chemicals.
While the convenience of digital photography means we save both time and money, the ease of capturing digital pictures and saving them in an electronic storage device leads to an entirely different problem. How do we share and display our scanned images?
It’s not just the photographs we take that contribute to the display problem. Besides documenting the present, family historians document the past by photographing tombstones, plots of land, buildings, mementos, and paper records. (I even have pictures of grass patches where tombstones should have been.) Family historians scan old photographs and source documents to turn them into digital images.
What is the family supposed to thumb through when they admire your digital photos of the old family homestead or your scanned picture of great-grandfather Joachim?
Printing digital images onto photo-quality paper is one option, but it seems counterintuitive. You’re still faced with the storage and handling problems that come with photographs taken on a film camera. However, there are several options for the electronic display of images—both those you snap and those you scan. Following is a review of some popular methods of showing off your digital pictures.
Picture This
Most of us with digital cameras or scanners have e-mailed the resulting images to family members over the Internet. These file attachments to our e-mail messages are often quite large and take time to download if the recipient’s Internet connection is not a speedy one.
Another alternative to sending images to others is to host them on a Web site and then invite others to visit it. This puts the storage burden on the Web site. By simply sending out the URL (Web address) of the electronic images, others can view your scanned images through their Web browsers.
Some genealogy software developers have recognized family historians’ penchant for sharing images and have included imaging software in their genealogy programs. Sierra’s Generations Grande Suite 8.0 includes Snapshot™ Express, which allows a user with a digital camera or scanner to organize his or her electronic photo albums or to create photo slide shows that can be shared on a Web site or as an e-mail attachment.
Step Away from the Computer
The common ways of sharing digital images require a computer to view the images. Obviously, you can’t view an electronic image if you don’t have an electronic screen to display it. Since most software for editing, organizing, or otherwise manipulating electronic images is designed to be used on computers, it can be challenging to share electronic images with those who are not computer users.
But some technology companies are working on solutions for sharing electronic images without depending on computers. For example, Iomega Corporation, well known for its Zip drives, has introduced Fotoshow Digital Image Center for televisions. This gadget is essentially a zip drive that accepts Compact Flash, SmartMedia, and IBM MicroDrive digital camera memory cards. It allows users to take pictures with a digital camera, plug the memory card into the Fotoshow box, and display the digital images on a television screen. Users can then copy the images from the camera’s memory card to the zip drive on the Fotoshow, edit or arrange the images using the imaging software on the box, and share the zip disk with friends and relatives who may view them on their own Fotoshow. No personal computer need intervene between the taking and displaying of digital pictures.
The Fotoshow box is also a fully functional zip drive with a USB connection for a PC, so users can download scanned images as well. And anyone with a zip drive may view the pictures on his or her computer. Fotoshow retails for about $300.
Digital Picture Frames
The Digi-Frame Digital Picture Frame also bypasses the need for a computer to display digital images. The picture frames come in two sizes: a 5.6-inch display screen for about $600 and a 3.9-inch display screen for about $400. Both have interchangeable, snap-on, external frames to match any décor. The product can take either SmartMedia or Compact Flash memory cards from a digital camera.
With Digi-Frame, users can display digital images in the kitchen, living room, den, or any other place with an electrical outlet. (The smaller digital picture frame also utilizes batteries.) I have a Digi-Frame in my office that runs various slide shows of my family, the household pets, and our ancestors. Of course, if the user must connect the Digi-Frame to a computer, the product comes with a PC- or Mac-compatible cable to do just that. Scanned, e-mailed, or other "non-snapped" pictures can be uploaded to memory cards in the Digi-Frame.
Digital picture frames have been taken a step further with the Ceiva digital picture frame . This is really a small Internet appliance that is also an image display system. Ceiva’s digital frame connects to a standard phone line and can dial up any one of more than 3,000 local phone numbers in the United States to connect to the Ceiva network. To use the Ceiva frame, users must subscribe to the Ceiva network for about $50 a year. A subscriber can then upload or download pictures using his or her Ceiva frame and send them to others. The frame is a simple, two-button device marketed for individuals who don’t own a computer. It costs $250, plus the subscription fee.
Finally, some digital camera makers are also moving into the display market. Sony's CyberFrame uses the Memory Stick media from the company's digital camera. The Sony's digital picture frame has speakers so that MPEG movies can be displayed. With a price tag of $900, though, the CyberFrame is not aimed at the home-user market.
Images from the Past
Don't you wish you had pictures of all your ancestors? Don't you wish you had them stored in something more sturdy than a shoebox? The increased popularity of digital photography creates new challenges for the family historian. Our expanding collections of digital images take up a lot of digital storage space. Beyond that, the display of digital images–whether snapped or scanned–can be problematic.
Vendors are beginning to respond to the display problem by creating digital displays that don’t require a computer connection. Unfortunately, scanned images of paper-based photographs still require a computer for easy display. Our choices for the digital display of images are increasing, but for now, we have only a few options other than computer-based display, and these options tend to be expensive.
Mark Howells is a Certified Information Systems Auditor and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional. He hosts the Norfolk-L genealogy mailing list and is chairman of the Internet Branch of the Norfolk Family History Society.
Return to the Ancestry Magazine March/April 2001 Table of Contents.
Ancestry Magazine
