Digital photography & design software forum: Saving great memories to a digital photo frame --need help

Your question raises two separate issues, those being the frame itself and, in your case, conversion of the images from traditional photography (prints, slides and/or negatives) to digital images. As an aside, I'd add that it is WAY too late to be doing this as a gift for this Christmas, at least one that will be completed.

Lets discuss the frame first.

First comment, I'd simply rule out, out of hand, any frame that has a "widescreen shape". I can't understand where the manufacturer's heads are at on this issue (well, I kind of do know where ....) but photographs simply are not taken in "widescreen" mode.

Second, I'd go for a fairly large frame, 8" (absolute minimum, and preferably 10" ... as a MINIMUM) to 15". A 15" frame will cost $200 to $250, so size definitely gets pricy.

Not all frames are created equal, by a longshot. Some of them are, well, just plain crappy. Issues include viewing angle (some are TERRIBLE), contrast/brightness/color rendition, how the frame deals with images that don't fit the screen (God help you if it "stretches" ("distorts" would be a better word) images to force a fit), how the frame deals with portrait vs. landscape orientation, etc. Features are big factor ... some frames will play videos with sound, or music to accompany a slide show. Some frames come with a remote control. Some frames have internal memory only, some have no internal memory and use card slots for everything, and some have both internal memory and card slots. Some frames have other functions, like "clock", for example.

I don't want to recommend specific brands or models, but the best way to evaluate a frame is to take your own memory card in and see how your pictures look on the frame. But this isn't always possible or permitted.

Other factors include the type, size and weight of the power supply, the thickness of the frame, it's aesthetics, etc. Again, you have to do some evaluation of frames, because, as I said at the outset, they are NOT all created equal.

Now, as to the photos:

First, If you have the original film (negatives or slides), the conversion should ideally be done from those rather than from prints. There are two options there, doing it yourself or having it done. This subject has been discussed before on this web site, and I would refer you back to finding those. When a large number of photos are involved, there is no way to do this that is cheap, fast and low-risk (the "risk" here is sending your photot to a service that sends them to some 3rd world country for processing and they are never seen or heard from again .... it happens). If you do it yourself, you will spend hundreds to possibly over a thousand dollars on equipment that can do it well, and probably hundreds of hours doing the scans. If you have it done you will spend anywere from 15-cents to $1.49 per image, the media will be out of your posession for weeks (sometimes months), there is risk of loss, and the quality may or may not be good. Just one note, if you are doing it yourself, the only equipment that really does this (scanning film) well are film scanners made by Nikon and also some Epson flatbed scanners. Lots of other scanners (most of them, probably) can, nominally scan film, but none of them do a job comparable to the Nikon and Epson products. But all of these solutions are $300 to over $1,000 for the hardware.

If you are going to work from actual print photographs, most good scanners can do this, the quality varies with the quality of the scanner and, to be honest about it, very few people really know how to use a scanner .... how to use things like histograms to set things like brightness, contrast and gamma to really get the best quality out of an image (this applies to all scanners including film scanners). Also, it's not fast ... if you do this well, it's going to take at least a couple (and probably an average of 5) minutes per image. That doesn't sound like much if you only have a few to do, but if you have thosands of images (and just 50 rolls of film turns into thousands of images), it becomes a big deal.

One point also worth mentioning is that if you are doing this only for the digital photo frame, you really are after, surprisingly, a low-resolution image. Most rectangular frames are 800x600 or 1024x768, and both of those resolutions are well under one megapixel. But if you are doing it as part of a general archiving of your family photos, then you want to create 6 to 10 megapixel images of the entire film image, which will also not be the same shape as the photo frame. What I did in a situation similar to yours was take the archived high resolution images and "resample" an 800x600 "crop" from the 6 to 10 megapixel image. These cropped images "fit" the frame perfectly (e.g. the photo was now exactly the same shape as the digital photo frame), and it also took up relatively little storage (30 of the full size images would have filled the frame's internal memory, but by doing this the frame would hold over 1,000 images in the same memory). But, again, it was a lot of work.

If you are going to use a service for scanning film, the one I would probably recommend is scancafe. I don't have a specific recommendation on print scanning services. Ideally I'd get the image conversions done first so that you can put the digital images on a card that you use to test frames that you are looking at, but at this point that all but rules out having this in time for this Christmas.

Make a great gift. I would look for one that reads a standard memory card such as a SD card. I would save photos from my computer to the SD Card and insert it into the digital photo frame for the gift recipient. I would then make updates to the photos stored on the memory card. That way the gift receipient can enjoy the photos without having to do the technical duties.

Most cameras have a small memory card about 1 gig in size. I don't know too much about digital frames, but my family just got one. I know that the one we have can read that memory card just like a flash drive. It is great and easy. You just put all the pictures you want onto a card like this and sync it up.

Here is a link to an image of the card I am talking about.
http://www.letsgodigital.org/images/producten/1501/testrapport/nikon-coolpix-p5000_5A.jpg

I bought my husband a digital frame Last year for Christmas it was one that consumer reports said was good. It was a Smart Parts frame. It had software with it that you could scan your pictures to your computer then drag and drop to a sd/mmc/ms/xd or cf(compactflash) cards. I've also, this christmas picked out pictures through the years of the kids at Christmas and put them on a usb flashdrive. All I did was scan the pictures and draged and droped and they came out the size needed for the fram of course none of the pictures were over the regular size you get at the store and some were smaller but they all turned out good on the frame.

You don't need the photos to be particularly hi res for the photo frame, for them to look good. Experiment with a few until you get the right combination of image quality and file size and you should be able to put a great collection together that will perform very well, especially with a quality photo frame. Save them as progessive jpegs.
I used to use a Photoshop plug in called ProJpeg (I think), that produced excellent results very easily and impressively small file sizes. I'm sure there are others that work as well. At that time Photoshop didn't perform as well as it does today on shrinking file size while maintaining image quality.
I have a middle of the road scanner (an Epson Perfection 1670) which is several years old but produces good results for the type of work you want it to do.

Good luck - and on behalf of your Mom, thanks for being a great kid.

Ive never owned a digital photo frame, but I do know a rule of thumb is to never buy one with resolution less than 640 x 480 pixels, regardless of price. And I know many models are out there that store the images on a digital camera memory card and my HP desktop has slots for 9 different brands of memory cards (as do some digital photo frames) so finding one compatible with your camera and/or computer is the first step.

I do know a bit more about scanning old photos and cropping and cleaning them up in Photoshop. I dont see where Photoshopping images would send digital frames into paralysis because once they are stored on the memory card, they are just images. Just like images that have not been Photoshopped. Its getting the photos to the Photoshop thats your biggest challenge in the chore of scanning your photographs.

Because you always seem to pick up trash when scanning photographs, the first thing youll want to do is make sure the glass of your scanner is thoroughly cleaned with a glass cleaner and soft cotton cloth (never paper!) And your photographs should be gently wiped clean with a lint free anti-static cloth, like the ones used to clean lenses. A final wiping of the scanners glass with the cloth is also a good idea as to keep your photographs from wanting to float away on the glass from static.

Youll probably still have to clean them up but taking your time in Photoshop and working the various enhancements, you can often do wonders in improving the color, contrast, etc. of a photograph and repair physical damage from the orginal. And youll want to resize the images to a size no larger than your photo frame will allow before saving them to the memory card, that way you will save space on your card. And you should be able to hold lots of images on even a simple memory card.

So shop around for model with decent resolution, a compatible memory device and battery power capability so your mother can cherish her memories on the wall, in her lap and most of all, in her heart for years to come.

Sorry to hear about your father.

You will have probably already thought of this but why not just keep things simple and put the collection of photographs in a nice photo album for your mom?

This would be a lovely gift maybe for your mom as well?

I know a few people who have digital photo frames and all of them complain about them, pictures stop or stick when scrolling, not very good picture quality for the price they paid, and they were not cheap ones I will add.

I think there is nothing has nice has having precious photographs in an album and looking through them, at least when they are in an album you have a hard copy of them!

I do a bit of digital photography, but I still get my pictures that I wouldn't want to lose printed out, I do not trust memory cards or optical media has a reliable backup media.

The screen size, resolution and aspect ratios are the most important factors for you to consider. Digital photo frames come in many different screen sizes ranging from 6.5 to 12. Try to find one with at least an 8 frame. There are three resolutions: 800480, 800600 and 640480. The larger frames usually have the highest resolutions. Try to buy the one with the highest as your pictures will look much better. If you are saving the photos in Photoshop, you should match the image size aspect ratio to the picture frame you buy. There are three aspects, 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9 ( widescreen ratio). If you save your image in 4:3 (most cameras use this) aspect ratio, the 16:9 widescreen frame will distort them. Last, save your pictures in 72 dpi. This is the resolution that most photo frames use. If you can find one with a higher dpi such as 125, save your pics in that. Hope this helps!

Looking for digi frame for a grandma as well. One that could that sit on a kitchen counter...moderate capacity...easy for us to set-up and for Grandma to enjoy. Please include some recomendations's for us.

One of my sons purchased a Kodak Frame for me last year and I not only loaded a couple of hundred pics on it but kodak has a free site (that other companies according a the NY Times Tech article) charge a monthly fee. I have my frame on constantly (wireless) I can have a slide show from the Kodak web site of photos I have uploaded or others that I have in internal memory.

The job wou want to acomplish need: a scanner, any image processor, a computer, one or more digital frames.

You already have everything, exept, maybe, the digital frame, that you need.

So, you just scan all the photos that you want. Save them in a non-lossy format for now. The best choice, for me, would be PNG. Good compression and keep all the original informations of the picture.

Load them in Photoshop, or your prefered image processor, and do all your cleaning and other optimisations, and optionaly some cropping. Save in another folder so that you can keep the original scans in case you need them later.

Once you are hapy with the results, convert the final images to JPG. This will give you a big size saving. For the black & white non-colorised ones, the GIF format can also be used. Then, upload the JPGs to the digital frame.

Be sure to carefully read the frame's instructions. You don't want to upload a picture in an unsuported format. For example, if the frame don't support GIF, don't use that format.



EXTREMELY IMPORTENT!

Whatever frame you chose, be sure to disable the Windows autoplay feature BEFORE you connect the frame for the first time and FORMAT the storage of the frame before you do anything else. Some digital frames may contain some virus set to exploit the autoplay funtionality to infect your computer.



It only leave the choice of frame.

That's the thing that I can't help you with, as I don't own any. Look for size, style, storage capacity and autonomy. Be sure to read the instructions.

That is a wonderful thing to do for your mom.
1. Consider where it will go and how far the viewer will be to decide on a size. (Ours is a long way so I got a large 15" one. It is in a high niche so I put a lead weight on the support so I could tip it down instead of the normal up). Also compare screen size versus total size, many have a LOT of border(s) around the screen. Select a color and frame style. Our box shows "birch framing with a nice brown wood color" however, BLACK would be a better description. Check the actual item.
2. Check on the usable viewing angle from side to side and up and down vs intended use. Pay more attention to the vertical.
3. They can be a large BLACK area when off, so it is nice to have one that can be programed to turn on and off each day. A remote is also
very usefull, especially if you are older and have difficulty getting up and down.
4. Compare pixels displayed, many do not have high resolution. For scenery you will want a lot of pixels. Ours works well at 1024 x 768 resolution. Also you probably want a 4X6 aspect ratio for older photos; many digital cameras shoot in a 3X4 aspect ratio. I haven't found much information on color fidelity.
5. Internal memory is nice, but the ability to put in SD or USB chips with special subjects (people, holidays, Hawaii, France, etc.) is also nice.

Getting one at a brick and mortar store where you can take it back if you have problems could be important. Ours turns off reliably as scheduled, but turning on is problamitic.
I have not had any problems including 'Photoshopped images". I would scan them with a lot of detail in case you ever want to make paper copies, although you only need 100-200K file size. Make sure the images are rotated so the top is up. Our SmartParts unit came with software that will quickly resize the digital images so a lot will fit in the internal memory. Keep a backup copy of the images.

I think she will enjoy this a great deal, but make it so she can also enjoy it while watching TV commercials, or reading, etc, besides on her lap. You might be able to hang it on a wall (trailing a power cord).

Roger Deal

i've never bought a digital picture frame before but one of my parents is disabled. i put pictures on their computer but my dad rarely uses the computer anymore. a didgital picture frame is a dern good idea.

you have got me thinking about a big one (at least a foot wide or so).
it should hold LOTS of pictures and be able to stretch, tile, and center just like a pc desktop.

that is a really cool idea. thanks alot. i know what to get my folks for Christmas.

Actually, you can send pictures "wirelessly" across the country using a Ceiva picture frame (ceiva.com). They use a subscription plan model. You can manage your relatives pictures from their website. You can upload pictures, group pictures by folders, provide the local news, weather, sports also. I have had one for my parents and myself for many years. My family loves them!

i am an amatuer speller......i mean photographer and my hard drive is FULL of photos. How much storage space do these things have? do they work with a card or what?