Shutterfly Tips and Tricks

I have been doing a huge project on Shutterfly for a friend.  We are getting all of her pictures put into annual "yearbooks" (something I do for myself as well).  People keep asking me if I am learning new tricks about Shutterfly as I do this work.  One thing that I have definitely seen that Shutterfly has improved is the ability you have to customize almost anything to the way you want it.

One thing that always used to frustrate me was that if you had a picture that was particularly wide, it was hard to find Shutterfly templates that would work for that picture.  You had two choices...cut off some of the people at the ends, or duplicate and crop the picture and put it on two pages side by side.  Here is an example (the blue page below) of a picture where I had to cut some of the people out of the picture:

 So I recently learned a way to address this problem, at least for most pictures.  Let us assume that you want to use a template from Shutterfly like this one, which has a portrait orientation, but the picture you want to use is a landscape orientation:

 When you add the picture, it will probably cut someone off no matter how much you try to re-center the picture.

 So, with the improvements to Shutterfly, now you can choose the "Customize page" selection on the very bottom left.  This will transform your page into editable sections, almost all of which can be stretched, re-sized, moved, or deleted altogether.

 You will want to grab the frame of the picture and drag it out to the right until the picture includes all that you want to include.  This may mean you have to relocate it or move the text box, but that is also easy to do in the "Customize page" mode.

You can quickly move the parts around until you like them, then click "Continue" and you will be in business with a page that is exactly the way you want it!

Shutterfly has really added a lot of nice features since they first revolutionized the photo album world.  Be sure to try some of the new features on your next book!

Color Restoration

Usually when I am scanning old pictures for people I will come across photos that just look like junk...they are so blurry or overexposed or whatever that I think it not worth it to scan them.  I don't want to charge people for something that has obviously no value.  But recently I've decided that you just can't judge an old picture by the way it looks.  Here are two examples of photos that I recently scanned and used "Color Restoration" on.  While the edited projects are by no means award-winning photos, they are definitely a big improvement over the originals.  And you can definitely see details in the picture that might make these photos valuable to someone who is looking for memories of a particular relative.  So, before you throw something out consider giving it one try on the digital scanner!  Most scanners offer color restoration as an option.

Here is the first one.  I did a tiny bit of editing on the man because there was some kind of sticker on his face but other than that this is purely the result of the color restoration.  Nice, don't you think?

Here is the second one.  I really didn't think this had any chance of working.

 Again, the finished product certainly has problems, but if this were my aunt and uncle or my grandparents I would be glad to have this picture.  You can really see her expression, and you can tell that it is clearly a celebration outside.

I hope this is inspiring you to go to the attic or the closet and start working your way through those boxes of old pictures you have stuck in the back.  There may be some real photographic treasures in there somewhere!

Stephanie

Restoring Old Photos through simple editing

Everyone has old photos that have been handed down through the generations.  Unfortunately, they are usually not in very good shape and therefore don't get shared and enjoyed as they should.  Luckily for us, today's photo editing software can really take those old pictures and make them something that can be shared and enjoyed by many.  Here are some examples that I've worked on.

As you can see in the first image, this picture was a very, very small image that had actually been folded in half (see the crease) and even written on in a pen (hard to see but it is right at the top).  After scanning, enhancing, and doing a little retouching, the bottom image is not perfect but it is certainly good enough to get a very clear picture and memory of this happy couple on their wedding day.

This next example is a picture that I thought was all in one color, kind of a sepia tone.  When I scanned it and enhanced it, I found out that there was actually color in the picture!

I think it is amazing how good the second version looks  See the green leaves!

This third example is probably most typical of the old snapshots that people have in their filing cabinets and closets.  It was very gray and hard to distinguish one object from another.

Again, some basic scanning, enhancement, and a few other adjustments and you can really see the fine details in this picture.  Look how clear the windows are, and you can really see each individual fish on the line.

Make a commitment to find those most prized family pictures and get them scanned and repaired so that you can share them on Facebook or in a family album or through email with your relatives.  Everyone will be glad you did!

Get Organized!

Get Organized - 2013 Edition :)
A new year is a great time to get started on that HUGE project of getting your photos organized!  There are a lot of different things you can tackle:

• Start putting your old prints into envelopes identified by year or by other meaningful label (Smith Family, Halloween through the years, etc.)
• Have your most treasured old photographs scanned and restored
• Go through your digital photo library and delete all the bad photos that you will never use
• Put your digital photos into folders by date/event
• Make a photo album (via Shutterfly or Snapfish) of a key event (vacation, party, etc.)
• Make a photo yearbook for last year, using the "best" pictures of the year

One of the best tips I can give you is to be organized from the beginning with your pictures (no, its not too late to start this!)  Starting today, each time you download pictures you can

1. Go through them and delete the bad ones or the duplicates
2. Label the file with the date and the name of the event (2013_01_12_Skating Party)
3. Put a star or a flag or some type of identifying mark on the absolute best pictures...the ones that you will want to include in an album at the end of the year

Happy Organizing and Happy New Year!