Make Poster-Sized Photo Prints

The typical photo print is only 5 by 7 inches. Learn to print your photos bigger.

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This Week's Hot Pic: "I Dare You," by Ian Hendry, Memphis, Tennessee

Ian writes: "We were swimming at a local lake when I saw that all of the kids were jumping off the upper level of a dock. I coaxed my wife into it (she's always been something of a daredevil) and then I snapped this photo from below as she went over me into the water."

Ian used a Nikon D100 with a fast 1/2500 second shutter speed to capture this scene.

See all the Hot Pic of the Week photos online.

As we all know from fast-food menus and SUV commercials, bigger is always better. But the typical photo print is only 5 by 7 or 8 by 10 inches. Isn't there a way to print your photos bigger?

There sure is. You can make your prints not just bigger, but actually gigantanormous--as my kids might say. How does 20 by 30 inches strike you? How about even bigger, like 3 or 4 feet on a side? No problem. We've talked about photo printing in general, back in November 2002 and in April 2004, for example.

This week let's discuss a few poster printing techniques that'll let your photos dominate a room.

How Big Is too Big?

Before you start creating posters, you should consider how many pixels your photo needs to make a good print.

You probably already know the rule of thumb about having 200 or 300 pixels for each inch of print, and that's a good starting point. But keep in mind that you'll be looking at posters from farther away than you'd typically view a 5 by 7 photo. That means you can skimp on pixels and still get great results. Indeed, you can take a 6-megapixel photo (usually 2400 by 3000 pixels) and get stunning results when you print it at 20 by 30 inches. That's about 100 pixels per inch.

Go Online

For superb framing-quality posters, look no further than online printing sites like my two favorites Shutterfly and Snapfish.

Most online printing sites offer the standard array of print sizes, as well as posters such as 16 by 20 and 20 by 30 inches. I've made numerous poster-sized prints this way, and the quality is quite good. The prints are delivered in a poster tube and come on heavy photo stock that mounts nicely in a frame.

Do It Yourself

Another popular approach is to create a large photo from a bunch of smaller tiles. In other words, you divide your photo into a grid pattern, and each segment of the grid is printed on ordinary 8-by-10 or 8.5-by-11-inch paper. The advantage of this process is twofold. Not only can you do this on your home printer, without sending your image off to a printing service, but you can make your photos pretty much any size. It all depends upon how big or small you make your grid lines.

There are several Web sites and free utilities that can help you slice up your photos for poster printing. Check out Block Posters, for example. Just upload any JPEG file (maximum file size is 1MB) and specify how many pages wide and high you'd like the final product to be. Each page of your poster appears in a downloadable PDF document.

After you print your poster tiles, you'll need to trim off the white edges and then assemble your finished product


http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/129755

Make a Stop-Motion Movie in 30 Minutes or Less

Use your digital camera to create a movie.

I grew up loving classic stop-motion animation--stuff like Gumby cartoons and classic Ray Harryhausen movies like Clash of the Titans. And over the years, I've tinkered with making my own. The problem? Stop-motion animation takes a long time. It's a slow process composed of setting up a shot, taking a single frame, moving your subject a teeny little bit, and then taking another photo--over and over and over again, once for each frame of film. It takes years to make a stop-motion film (just ask Tim Burton, who makes movies like The Corpse Bride and The Nightmare Before Christmas).

So my challenge to you this week and next: Make a complete stop motion animation in a half hour. Of course, our 30-minute production will have a pretty short run time. The movie I made--just to prove it could be done--runs an impressive 11 seconds. Even so, it tells a story. Want to try? Just grab any digital camera and keep reading.

Your first step in stop-motion filmmaking is to make sure you have a story. It doesn't have to be fancy or complicated. In fact, the shorter your story and the simpler your idea, the better it will fit into our 10- or 15-second film.

For inspiration, I looked around my desk for props. I immediately saw the toy dinosaur that my son gave me for Christmas. There was also a small astronaut figurine, origin unknown (though I suspect it was a gift from a coworker during my Air Force days, long ago).

The story? Dinosaur sees astronaut. Dinosaur chases astronaut. Dinosaur catches up to astronaut off-screen, where it appears that the ancient reptile has a person-sized snack. Then, a surprise ending that will hopefully elicit a small chuckle.

The next step is to film your movie. It's absolutely essential to mount your digital camera on a tripod so the viewer's position doesn't change from shot to shot. Set up the tripod a few feet away from the tabletop or desk where you will be filming, and arrange your characters in their first positions (that's some theater jargon for you).

To get your small props in focus, it can help to start by prefocusing the scene on your main subject (press the shutter release halfway) and then set the camera to manual focus mode. When you switch to manual, the focus will stay locked on your prefocus setting. All your subsequent shots will keep that focus, even if you move your props in and out of the camera's focus zone. This technique should work for most cameras, but some point-and-shoot models might not keep their focus setting from shot to shot, so you'll need to experiment.

If you have a remote trigger--a little gadget that plugs into your camera and lets you take the picture without touching the shutter release--use it. Even better, some digital cameras work with an infrared remote that does the same thing. These gadgets help you take successive photos without handling the camera, which could disturb the framing or create a blurry shot.

Once you take the first shot, it's just a matter of moving one or more elements in the scene--slightly--and taking another photo. Remember that how much you move your subject will contribute to the impression of velocity and acceleration in the final film. If you want to create the impression that a car is accelerating, for instance, move your toy car in tiny increments for the first few frames, then successively larger increments after that. It'll appear to speed up and zip away. Make your movements too big, though, and it'll just look jerky.

How many shots should you take? That depends upon how smooth you want your final film to be. Cinema relies on 24 frames per second, but TV uses 30. We're trying to make a quick-and-dirty film on a PC, so we can get by with fewer frames than that. Plan on shooting about 8 or 10 frames per second, so you'll need something in the neighborhood of 100 frames for a 10-second movie.

Like any good stop-motion Saturday morning serial, I'm going to leave you with a dramatic cliffhanger. So far, we've shot all the individual frames, and now need to assemble them into a continuous film on the PC. Can it be done easily? For free? Tune in next week to find out.

Here's a hint: The answer to both of those questions is "yes."

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This Week's Hot Pic: "Baseball Heaven," by Timothy Poole, Indianapolis

Timothy writes: "I took this photo at the new Busch Stadium in St. Louis. During one of the later innings, I wiggled my way through the aisles to get directly behind the catcher. As you can see, it was a picture perfect day for baseball with the downtown skyline in the background."

http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/129192

Here's how to finish up your masterpiece.

Peter Jackson's epic remake of King Kong was pretty good, as far as that sort of thing goes. The movie includes every conceivable special effect; it represents a sincere homage to the original source material; and it features surprisingly good acting from over-the-top Tenacious D rocker Jack Black. I render all these opinions with the caveat that I am just a tech journalist, and not an official movie reviewer, so my opinions should not be used to make actual film rental decisions.

So the new King Kong has it all, right? Not quite. It lacks the charm that only a movie made with stop-motion animation can claim. I love the jerky, other-worldly quality of movies made by shooting a frame at a time.

Last week we started working on our own stop-motion movie--a quick and dirty film that takes 30 minutes to make, start to finish. This week, let's pick up where we left off.

Now that you've finished shooting your film, and your camera is filled with around 100 photos, it's time to take your the footage and assemble it into a short movie. There are a lot of programs you can use for this sort of thing. Any video editing program should work, for example. I've tried Adobe Premiere Elements, and it works great. But most folks wouldn't want to buy a video editor just for this purpose. Is there a free way to put your movie together?

You bet. I made my own film, Danny Dinosaur Versus Arnie the Astronaut, using Windows Movie Maker, Microsoft's free video program that comes with Windows XP and Windows Vista. It's also available from the PC World Downloads library.

Open Movie Maker and start a new project by choosing File, New Project. Then import the photos by choosing File, Import Media Items (or File, Import into Collections in some versions of Movie Maker). Navigate to the folder that has your images, and select them.

Now you should see the hundred or so photos from your stop-motion project. Before you go any further, it's time to configure Movie Maker so each photo appears on screen for about an eighth of a second. Choose Tools, Options from the menu, and then click on the Advanced tab. You'll see that the Picture duration is currently set to a large number--probably about 5 seconds. Throttle that down to 0.125 and then click OK.

Believe it or not, we're almost done. Select all of your photos. The easiest way to do that is to click on one of them, release, and then press Ctrl-A on your keyboard. Then just drag the whole slew of photos down to the storyboard at the bottom of the screen.

That's pretty much it. To view your movie, click the Play button and watch your creation unfold.

You can save your film and share it with friends. Choose File, Publish Movie, then choose E-mail (Save, Movie File in some versions of Movie Maker) You should end up with a pretty compact film (Danny Dinosaur Versus Arnie the Astronaut clocked in at just over 1MB). Want to see my creation? Download the zipped file and view it on your PC.

A couple of caveats, though: It's a large download (1.4MB); and I admit, the video is a little rough. You'll see my hand moving around on the table, which my daughter helpfully described as "distracting." But my goal was to make a short stop-motion film in 30 minutes, start to finish, and so I'm willing to accept a few warts.

Try this project yourself and then tell me about your experience.

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This Week's Hot Pic: "Sunburst Diver," by Kevin Marnet, San Diego

Kevin writes: "I took this photo using a Nikonos IV underwater camera while on a dive trip in Honduras. I used a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second and an f/5.6 aperture to capture the sun's rays sharply. It's a shot of my friend rising to the surface to board the boat, which you can see in the background."

Hot Pic of the Month: Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For February, we chose "Rainy Savannah," by Jule Boyer, from Palm Harbor, Florida.

Congratulations to Jule and to everyone else who won a Hot Pic of the Week last month. Keep those entries coming!

http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/129198

2007 Photo Marketing Association

Wrap-Up

The annual Photo Marketing Association convention is a gathering of photo retailers, imaging geeks and manufacturers touting their latest gear. Although most of the show floor is dedicated to things the average consumer couldn’t care less about, DigitalTrends dutifully walked the aisles to uncover items of interest. Here goes:

Without question the new Canon EOS-1D Mark III was the camera hit of the show. This D-SLR is amazing—even when you consider its $4500 price (due April). This beefy camera shoots an astounding 10 frames per second—and these are 10-megapixel images. I handled this digital camera and when you’re in continuous mode, the shutter moves in a dazzling blur. Granted not too many “normal” photographers are going to buy it (it’s more for pro sports shooters and photo journalists). Still many of the advances in this camera will trickle down to D-SLRs that are much more affordable. You can go to the Canon site to read about all of the tech advances for the Mark III but keep your eye on the new Digic III processor already found in many new Canon point-and-shoot cameras. Most likely it’ll show in a new Digital Rebel later this year and an updated version of the EOS 30D. For sure they won’t have the two Digic III processors found in the Mark III to handle the massive flow of data. The camera also has a better CMOS imager, a brighter viewfinder. ISO 6400, 19-point AF, a battery rated for 2200 shots and a Live View that lets you see a still subject on the LCD screen. This is not anything like the Live View found on Olympus and Panasonic D-SLRs and it’s geared for still lifes. Even if you don’t buy this camera, go to a retailer and ask for a demo; you’ll flip at the response of this truly cutting-edge digital camera.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III

The D-SLR wave rolls on. At PMA, Nikon unveiled an upgrade for the recently reviewed D40. The new D40x is a 10-megapixel camera with a frame rate of 3 fps compared to 2.5 fps and 6.1MP of the D40. You’ll pay for the privilege as the D40x costs $729 for the body alone versus $599 for the D40 kit with an 18-55mm lens. A D40x kit hits $799. We’ll try to get our hands on it to see if it’s worth the extra green but we liked the D40 and it’s basically the same camera with the added improvements.

Nikon D40

Olympus added two more Evolt D-SLRs, the E-410 and E-510. These 10MP D-SLRs use the Four Thirds lens system along with Panasonic and Leica cameras. The E-410 will cost $699 body only, $799 with a 14-42mm lens which is actually 28-84mm due to the 2x digital factor. The E-510 has mechanical image stabilization and costs $799 body only, $899 with a kit lens. They have dual slots (xD and CF), a new image processor TruePic III along with Live View that lets you frame your image on the LCD in real time.

Olympus E410

Sony teased convention goers with mock-ups of its new alpha D-SLRs; expect announcements later this year. Olympus also did the same with a new pro D-SLR, a replacement for the E-1.

Pentax showed off its K10D recently review by DT, while Samsung--which primarily sells rebadged Pentax D-SLRs with Schneider lenses instead of Pentax--hinted it would have new models later this year with more of it own engineering.

Pentax K10D

Smile for the camera—One of the most prevalent new features for point-and-shoot cameras is Face Detection. FujiFilm started the trend with its “fd” cameras and now almost every manufacturer has it including Canon, Nikon, Pentax and others. Basically what face detection does is optimize the camera for shooting a human face. Depending on the model it adjusts auto focus, exposure and flash to get a good shot. Some can handle nine faces in one frame.
Cure the shakes…Image Stabilization got a lot of play as well. Dear readers, be forewarned not all IS is the same. Some companies boost the ISO and shutter speed, others use software to try and eliminate the shakes after you’ve taken a shot. As far as I’m concerned, there is only one to look for—optical image stabilization that actually moves the lens elements to counter hand movement. Many companies do this including Canon, Sony and Panasonic with its MEGA OIS. Please read the fine print before you buy.

Maximum Megapixels. As we reported in our review of the D40, you don’t need a zillion pixels to capture a nice image you can blowup for printing or cropping. Still companies feel they have to introduce more and more. Witness the new Sony CyberShot DSC-W200, the first point-and-shoot digicams with a 12MP sensor! Again, we won’t dare comment on picture quality—especially the amount of digital noise—but we’re on the list and will let you know as soon as we get one ($399, May). That said, 7MP is the pretty much the floor in 2007 and you can move up from there.

Camcorder Update. CES is the big show for home video maker introductions and there was really nothing new to report other than to tell you the new Sony HDR-UX5 that was on display here brings high-definition home recording below a grand. Also at CES JVC unveiled the first camcorder that records true 1920 x 1080I video (all others record 1440 x 1080). The GZ-HD7 ($1,799, due April) was practically under glass in January but at PMA pre-production models were available for show-and-tell. This is loaded camcorder that records up to 13 hours of true HD video on a built-in 60GB HDD. It’s very slick has a lot of potential. Speaking of high-def many cameras touted the fact the can output HD-level images to your HDTV in the appropriate 16:9 aspect ratio (Sony, Canon et al).

JVC GZ-HD7

Wherefore Wireless—A couple of years ago, experts thought cameras and Wi-Fi were the perfect marriage like Siegfried and Roy. Wrong. Sony was the only company to introduce a new Wi-Fi camera at PMA (the DSC-G1, $600, due June) that is primarily geared for peer-to-peer image sharing with someone else with a G1. It’s also compatible with Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)-enabled devices in your home. Got many of those? This is really going to fly —wrong! Still it has a nice 3.5-inch screen. Just before the show Nikon unveiled the 7.2MP S50c ($349) with more traditional Wi-Fi connectivity so you can email multiple images to multiple recipients at four size including full-resolution (a first). Plus you upload 2GB to a free Nikon server with no time limits (another first). And that’s about it for wireless.

Sony DSG-G1

Nice thinking—HP’s new R837 has built-in blemish removal to remove acne on your portraits. Also the same camera has red-eye removal for pets—I have two fluffy cats at home that will be perfect to try this one out.

HP R837


http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/feature/74

Make a Digital Pinhole Camera

Go retro with a super-low-tech digital camera trick.

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This Week's Hot Pic: "Lake Austin," by David Keenan, Austin, Texas

David says: "I took this photograph near a popular Austin restaurant with my Konica Hexar RF rangefinder camera. I was struck by the row of multicolor light bulbs, the water, and the setting sun in the distance.

"I scanned the transparency using a Nikon 5000 scanner and then edited it in Photoshop CS2. I converted a layer to monochrome and tinted it slightly using a warming filter. Then I used the history brush to recover the colored light bulbs.

"The whole idea of this particular image unfolded as I worked with it. The original full color image was pretty, but the idea of something more vintage while retaining the color of the bulbs came to me gradually as I worked on it."

Starting with the May Hot Pic of the Month, I've decided to let you pick the winner--after all, why should I have all the fun?

The poll is now open. From now till Sunday, June 3, you can view a slide show of our five Hot Pic winners for May. After you check out the contestants, click the "Vote for This Entry" link on any of the pages to cast your vote. I'll announce the winner in my June 5 newsletter.

At the risk of dating myself, I feel compelled to say that when I was a kid, I did all the things budding geeks were supposed to do. For example, I made a crystal radio (a simple radio that doesn't need a battery) and a pinhole camera. A pinhole camera is perhaps the simplest kind of photographic device, because it uses no lens. A tiny pinhole in a well-sealed cardboard box is all you need to capture an image on film.

You can experience some of this excitement by making your own lens-free digital camera. For the best results, you need a digital SLR (so you can remove the lens), a body cap (the cover that screws onto the camera body when there's no lens attached), some heavy foil, and electrical tape. Ready to play along?

Drill Some Holes

To begin with, you'll need to make a hole in the camera's body cap. I don't suggest poking a hole in your only cap, so stop into your local camera shop and get a spare or two. They cost about $3 each, and it's always handy to have an extra in case you need to remove the lens for more than few moments.

The size of the hole isn't especially important. I drilled a 5/32-inch hole in the center of the cap using an ordinary household drill--after removing the body cap from the camera first, of course.

Next, you need to make a smaller hole in some heavy foil--this is the real pinhole. A foil pie tin works great for this. Cut a small circle out of the tin that will fit inside the back of the body cap and then use a thin, sharp pin to make a tiny hole in the metal.

When you're done, use some electrical tape to position the pie tin on the body cap so the two holes line up, with the small hole in the center of the circle.

Take Some Pictures

Now remove the lens from your camera and screw on the body cap. You've just made a pinhole camera: Instead of expensive, multi-element, precision optics, your camera now works on the low-tech principle that an extremely small hole will cause a relatively sharp image to resolve on the sensor.

From here it's all about experimenting. You'll almost certainly want to use a tripod, because you'll need long shutter speeds. Set your camera to its manual exposure mode and start with a 1-second exposure. Check your results and go up from there; I found a 15-second exposure was good outdoors at midday for my particular pinhole, like this sun dial snapshot.

Teaching Tool

Why do this? Well, it's fun, and it's a completely unexpected way to use your digital camera.

In addition, your pinhole camera is a good prop to use for teaching kids about the basic physics of photography. Try making several foil body cap inserts with different-sized holes. You can demonstrate how the smaller the hole, the sharper the image--but also the darker the preview, and the longer the necessary exposure. An infinitely small hole would give you perfectly focused results, but the exposure time would be lengthy, since only one photon of light could get through to the sensor at a time.

Try It With a Point and Shoot

If you have a point-and-shoot camera with a removable lens cap, you can still try this experiment. The results won't be as authentic because you can't remove your lens, and the resulting photos will always be somewhat blurry. You'll need to drill the hole in a spare lens cap. When you take the pictures, set your lens to the longest telephoto setting available, then use your camera's manual focus mode to focus on infinity for the most authentic pinhole effect.

http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/132090