As consumers rapidly shift from film cameras todigital, one of the biggest challenges facing the industry is making it aseasy to get a print from a digitalcamera as it is from a film camera. Today it remains that the primaryway people share and enjoy photographs is through prints, albums andscrapbooks.

"With film cameras, consumers are used to shooting a roll, dropping it offat the 24-hour pick-up, and saying, 'I'll take one or two prints.' It wasdrop-dead simple to make prints that you could instantly share, archive ororganize in a scrapbook or album to look at later," says Doug Rowan, CEO ofZoomAlbum, Inc, and known throughout the industry as a pioneer and leadingdriver of digital imaging and content management through stints as CEO atCorbis (www.corbis.com), Image Solutions Corporation, Impli, Inc., and AXSOptical Technology Resources.

The great thing about digital cameras is you can take many more picturesthan with a film camera. Unfortunately, once you get to 500-1,000 digitalimages, it gets pretty hard to organize, catalog, and create a "digitalshoebox" to easily and quickly find the pictures you want.

If you could create a "digital shoe box" you would still face two major problems:

-- How do I find the picture I want?-- How can I be sure that the digital shoebox will last over time?

Relying on hard disks or CDs or DVDs as the best storage option for thedigital shoebox is risky. Digital, while a superb storage media, also laysa trap: many consumers believe that digital images will last and stayunchanged forever. This is false. For the safety and protection of theirimages, consumers should assume that every hard disk will fail; and thatalmost all CD-ROMS or DVDs will have a life of less than ten years.

Continues Rowan, "If you want a picture to be around for futuregenerations: you should print it on archival paper. Then you can scrapbookit, because with scrapbooking you can tell a story and not just have acollection of photos."

One way to solve this problem is to provide consumers with an easy way toscrapbook their digital images in aprinted photo format that:

-- Offers a seamless way to sort, choose and arrange images for easy printing on photo paper that fits into an Inkjet printer-- Provides formatted, high-quality glossy photographic prints that can be folded and fit into an album cover with simple adhesive-- Uses a protective hard cover to safeguard photos from the damaging effects of light and the wear and tear of handling. Rowan also offers this piece of advice: "When making the print decision,consumers must take care to choose carefully and select the right printer,printer paper and the ink to ensure long-life. Use photo albums to tell astory, as opposed to creating ones that just have photos matted down; andtry to add text, so that the person in the photo is 'talking' and the albumitself tells a story."

Highlighted Links ZoomAlbum

Martin Levy

About ZoomAlbum, Inc.

ZoomAlbums™ (www.zoomalbum.com) are an exciting and patented new way toturn digital images into handmade,professional-looking albums of twelve glossy photos. These high-qualitylittle albums fit right into the palm of your hand. All you need is a PCand Inkjet color printer. ZoomAlbum supplies everything else (software,photo sheets, album covers) to create charming and lasting keepsakes. Youcan even print your own personalized covers.

ZoomAlbum photo sheets come with easy-to-follow instructions that walk youthrough a folding routine that produces, with the help of forgivingadhesive backing, a booklet of twelve, durable and high-quality photographs. The software is simpleand you can insert text captions, rotate, flip, zoom and crop photos. Thehardest part is deciding on the 12 images.

CONTACT:Martin LevyEmail Contactwww.martinlevypr.com206.851.7256

SOURCE: ZoomAlbum

Source: marketwire