Parlay your photos into cards and calendars
Use image-editing software and Websites to turn your digital photos into handcrafted greeting cards and other holiday gifts.
- — 08 January, 2010 09:58
Size It Up
You can print greeting cards of any size, as long as the paper for the project can fit in your printer (and in the envelopes that you plan to use). The easiest kind of card to make is the single-fold variety: Take--basically, a sheet of paper folded down the middle and opened like a book. To make this kind of card, you'll need to print one side of the paper, and then feed it through the printer a second time and print it again.
For this example, let's print on 4-by-6-inch photo paper. When folded into a 4-by-3-inch rectangle, a card of this size fits nicely into small envelopes that are available at any office supply store.
![<h2>Share Photos Online </h2><br><br>When I think of the holidays, one of my strongest memories is of my mom addressing and mailing box after box of holiday cards, stuffing each one with various photos of the family. These days, it's a lot easier to share your photos on the Web, via one of the many popular photo-sharing sites. <br><br>I regularly use Flickr for this purpose. You can visit [[xref:http://www.flickr.com/photos/davejoh/|my personal Flickr site|davejoh on Flickr]] or the official [[xref:http://www.flickr.com/photos/10994713@N05/|Digital Focus Hot Pic winners gallery|Digital Focus Hot Pic winners gallery]] to see examples of photos I've posted online. I love Flickr because there are no limits on how many images you can store on the site, or on what how large a photo you can save. (If you use the free version of Flickr, however, you can upload no more than 100MB in a given month.)<br><br>To share photos with friends or family, first upload them to Flickr, and then let people know how to get to your Flickr page. Once there, they can click the All Sizes button above a photo to get to the download page.](http://cdn.goodgearguide.com.au/dimg/50x50/dimg/m_img_23075.jpg)
![<h2>Round Up the Year With a Calendar </h2><br><br>I love traditions--turkey at Thanksgiving, hanging up the stockings on Christmas Eve after the kids are in bed, that sort of thing. Another tradition in the Johnson house: I create a custom calendar packed with photos from the year's various activities and events, and give one to my parents. They love it, and it's easy to do. <br><br>Most photo-printing and photo-sharing sites have some sort of calendar creation feature. My favorites include the tools at [[xref:http://www.costcophotocenter.com/|Costco Photo Center|Costco Photo Center]], [[xref:http://www.kodakgallery.com/CalOverview.jsp|Kodak Gallery|Kodak Gallery]], [[xref:http://www.lulu.com/en/products/calendars/?cid=en_home_publish|Lulu|Lulu]], [[xref:http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars|Shutterfly|Shutterfly]], and [[xref:http://www2.snapfish.com/storecalendars#top|Snapfish|Snapfish]]. <br><br>Making a calendar at any of these sites is easy. But before you dive into the calendar template on a photo-sharing site, let me offer some practical tips to help you along.](http://cdn.goodgearguide.com.au/dimg/50x50/dimg/m_img_23079.jpg)
![<h2>Post Your Photos in the Clouds </h2><br><br>If you like the idea of storing photos on the Internet so that certain people can get to them, but you don't want just anyone to be able to browse the photos, you can make suitble arrangements by using the photo-sharing site's privacy mode. Flickr, for example, lets you mark your photos as private, which limits access to people you specify. <br><br>Alternatively, you can store your pictures at an online storage service. Think of these services as virtual hard drives that you can access whenever and wherever you have an Internet connection. You can give access to this storage location to anyone you wish, thereby sharing high-resolution, print-quality photos with friends and family without having to send files through e-mail. [[xref:http://skydrive.live.com/|Microsoft's SkyDrive|Microsoft's SkyDrive]] is a superb example of this sort of "cloud storage." <br><br>After you obtain a free Windows Live account, you can store up to 25GB of files--music, photos, documents, whatever--and share them with anyone you choose. Another option is a service called [[xref:https://www.dropbox.com/|Dropbox|Dropbox]]. Dropbox limits you to 2GB of free storage (you can pay a subscription fee for more space), but a small app lets you drag and drop files to Dropbox from your Windows folders, as if it were a location on your own hard drive. In contrast, you need to use a Web browser to upload files to SkyDrive.](http://cdn.goodgearguide.com.au/dimg/50x50/dimg/m_img_23077.jpg)
![<h2>Pick Your Pictures </h2><br><br>Most calendar templates accommodate one picture per month, so you'll need at least a dozen unique images to produce a basic calendar. If you choose a more flexible template, you can create a collage of photos on some pages, in which case you might want to have several dozen photos ready to go. Copy all of them to a single folder--perhaps on your desktop--so you don't have to scurry around looking for photos as you build your calendar. Collecting them in one spot is also a convenient way to ensure that they look good together. <br><br>When I create my annual holiday calendar, I try to find photos from the previous year that reflect the seasons. Snowscapes and frozen lakes decorate the winter months; sunflowers and puppies appear in spring. I use back-to-school photos in the fall, and, of course, the preceding year's holiday pictures in November and December. <br><br>In general, it's a good idea to edit your photos first--straightening crooked photos, cropping them for maximum impact, and adjusting colors and sharpness. If you need some pointers, check out my past columns discussing [[xref:http://www.pcworld.com/article/163432/five_common_photo_mistakes.html|five common photo mistakes|Five common photo mistakes]] and [[xref:http://www.pcworld.com/article/141983/four_essential_photo_editing_tricks.html|four essential photo-editing tricks|Four essential photo-editing tricks]]. You can use your favorite photo editor, or you can work with the online editing tools at the Website you select for making the calendar.](http://cdn.goodgearguide.com.au/dimg/50x50/dimg/m_img_23080.jpg)
When we were kids, our friends and family exchanged holiday cards decorated with artwork and messages thoughtfully provided by Hallmark. It wasn't as though we lacked the creativity to make our own cards; we simply didn't own our own printing press. But these days, you can use your digital photo collection and a photo-editing program to create high-quality customized cards for everyone on your mailing list.
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