The Digital Photo AlbumI'm very new to this, and IT IS SCARY." If digital photography is new to you, this entire concept might take some getting used to. An easy way to think of it is in terms of the older style photo album. Before digital photography, all the output was printed on some form of photo paper. As paper, we were limited in how we displayed and stored it. Then came digital photography. Obviously, everything changed. The digital photo album is one of the new terms following the advent of digital cameras. What it means is, any digital storage media that is used to format and view digital photographs can be considered to be a photo album, albeit a digital kind. Often, some type of software is used to take the existing image files and display them in an easy to view manner. If digital photography is new to you, the entire concept of a digital album will take some getting used to. It's probably easiest to think of it as the electronic version of your old style photo album. Why do we even need this new method? Digital Choices: CDs and DVDsBackgroundBack in the "old days" of computers (around the year 2000), the size of available hard drives for your PC was relatively small. If you had 400-500 MB ("megabytes") of storage, you were in good shape. Why? Because the programs to run everything on your PC didn't need more than 30 MB, and documents were the primary item stored on the hard drive. Relatively speaking, documents are very small (being roughly 1/100th the size of 1 typical digital image file). Bottom line, everything easily fit on your hard drive, with room to spare. The digital album was not really needed yet. As the popularity of digital cameras increased (along with the size of digital image files), computer storage had to keep pace. After all, it wouldn't be too practical to fill up your entire PC after one day of picture-taking, would it? Therefore, storage for the PC increased and began to be measured in GB ("gigabytes;" 1GB = 1,000 MB). The good news is today, PCs are typically available with hard drive storage ranging from 40 - 300 GB, so take as many digital photos as you want - your Photo Album will save the day. Let's say that you might want to show your images to others... by either doing so in person, or by sending them a copy to view on their own. To take advantage of alternative light-weight options, the the Digital Photo Album was born. The digital photo album is actually a generic term that encompasses all digital storage media (CDs and DVDs). In addition, the term also includes the huge number of software programs available for organizing and displaying your image files that are stored on the CD or DVD. One CD can hold roughly 650 MB of data (approximately 150 - 700 digital image files, depending on the resolution and compression of the files). You can see how convenient it would be to create a digital photo album with the 300 images taken at your parent's anniversary party and mail it to your sick aunt who couldn't attend. The costs for doing about whatever you want with a digital photo album are ridiculously low. You can buy blank CDs for about 10 cents apiece; purchase a mailer for and pay postage for less than $1.00. The best source (combination of price and quality) I have found for CDs and DVDs is
SuperMediaStore.
Fortunately, both are pretty common (primarily due to the popularity of the digital album) and can be ordered for a new PC, installed in an existing PC, or even purchased as external devices that are connected to a PC. There are also stand-alone devices that don't even require a PC (but remember, this section is only "semi-technical" so I'll abstain from walking down that techno trail). In a way, that's like asking your neighbor who owns both a car and a motorcycle, which one should they drive. The answer is: "It depends." Both serve a purpose and make sense, in specific circumstances. Personally, I use both types when creating my digital photo album... for different purposes. In broad-brush terms, there are 2 primary factors that determine which digital photo album media to use (assuming you have both a CD and DVD burner)... The first factor is an economic and convenience issue. If you want to store or send 400 MB of files, then using a CD to make a digital photo album is a no-brainer. Conversely, if you want to store or send a digital photo album requiring 4.1 GB of data, the DVD is the obvious choice. The "economic and convenience" issues pertain to that middle ground where 800 MB to 2.5 GB of storage is needed. Then you need to ask yourself questions like: "Would I rather burn 3 CDs that cost about 30 cents, or create 1 DVD digital photo album that costs about 50 cents?" Strictly economic and convenience. But, if viewing and enjoying them (or allowing others to do so) is your goal, then I strongly suggest using one of the many software programs available today that make viewing a pleasure (and the digital photo album so popular). There are many products on the market today that take photographs and put them into an electronic format for viewing. In addition, there are numerous on line sites which will store and organize your photographs for you, allowing others to view and share them. Some programs are capable of providing very elaborate multi-media shows. Usually, a DVD is required for that type of digital photo album. If your head is swimming, take it slowly. Know that whatever your digital photo album needs are, there are probably several solutions that can address it.
|
