You can do so much more with your pictures than just burning them to CD or storing them on your PC. In the second part of our feature on amazing things to do with your digital photos, Wayne Williams reveals 10 more ingenious ways of getting the most from your pictures
11 Put your photos on a calendar
Snapfish www.snapfish.co.uk
It’s a little early to be thinking about Christmas just yet, but a personalised wall calendar containing 12 of your favourite 2006 images will make a great present. Snapfish sells an 11.7" x 8.25" calendar for £14.99. Customising it is simply a case of uploading your photographs and assigning each one to a month.
12 Build a photo mosaic
Centarsia www.abundantmedia.com/centarsia
A photo mosaic is one large image made up of lots of tiny, separate images. Probably the most famous example is the movie poster for The Truman Show. Centarsia’s program is free and there are additional image tilesets available to download.
13 Make your own passport photos
Epassport www.epassportphoto.com
If the current picture in your passport makes you look like a pasty-faced convict with a hangover, you may wish to use ePassportPhoto for the next one. Get someone to take a decent shot of you against a white (or off-white) background and then upload it at ePassportPhoto. Follow the instructions to produce a series of valid, fully biometrics-compatible images.
14 Add cartoon captions
Captioner http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr/captioner.php
If you’ve ever taken a photo that was just crying out to have speech or thought bubbles added, try the captioner at. Upload your picture, or point the site in the direction of an image on Flickr, type in your captions, then drag and drop them on to the picture.
15 Resize your images online
Pixoh http://pixoh.com
Pixoh is a basic online image-editing service. It doesn’t have that many features available to use at the moment (although plenty are planned for the future), but it does let you upload, crop, rotate and resize very large images - up to 10 MB, or 5000x5000 pixels. Best of all, you don’t need to register to be able to use it.
16 Edit your photos online
Phixr www.phixr.com
Like Pixoh, Phixr is an online image-editing tool. You do need to sign up to use it, but it’s free and you don’t have to give an email address. It offers all the usual editing tools, along with more advanced options for removing redeye or turning pictures into oil paintings or charcoal drawings.
17 Compress your pictures
Spinwave www.spinwave.com
If you want to email your photos to friends or upload them to a website, you ideally need to reduce their file size. Jpeg Cruncher Pro from Spinwave shrinks images without destroying the picture quality. The full version sells for $49.95 (about £28) although there is a 15-day trial version available and you can also try it out by uploading and crunching images on the site.
18 Produce a photo CD
Picasa www.picasa.com
Picasa has a built-in option for creating and burning professional-looking photo CDs. To make a disc, open the folder containing the images and then click the Gift CD button at the top of the screen. A two-step menu will appear at the bottom. From here you add extra images, specify photo sizes, name the CD and burn it. The finished disc includes a slideshow viewer and a copy of Picasa.
19 Colourise black and white images
Recolored www.recolored.com
Adding colour to old black and white photographs used to be a painstaking job, often producing poor and obviously fake results at the end of it. Recolored turns mono shots into colour images in a matter of minutes and involves nothing more taxing than drawing a few lines to mark the areas where you want the colour to go. It costs £16.99 although there’s a free 21-day trial.
20 Build a DVD slideshow
MySharedPhotos www.mysharedphotos.com
Show off your digital photos by turning them into an entertaining slideshow you can watch on TV. The free MySharedPhotos Uploader has a built-in DVD-creation tool with a wide choice of menu styles and transitions. It can even burn the finished disc for you.
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