Photo Friendly Gifts

The holidays offer us the opportunity to spend time with the people who mean the most to us. But if you’re anything like me, the idea of braving the local malls doesn’t fill you with anything remotely resembling yuletide cheer.

Online services, such as Dale Laboratories and Imagexperts, make it easy to obtain prints without stepping out the front door. By using a computer and the Inter-net, we can quickly upload pictures to share online and also order prints and special items.

Rather than just handing over a print as a gift, how about delivering it complete with a matte and frame? Kodak Gallery, for example, not only produces a quality enlargement of a photograph, but also offers a matte using photo-friendly materials and a frame of your choice at a modest additional cost.

Greeting Cards
Of course, holidays are a big time for sending greeting cards. Instead of purchasing them at your local store, use an online lab like Mpix to create them using your own photographs. This can be as simple as a group photo of your family or you can be more creative. Besides trying to get the cat to hold still wearing a stocking (mine was never very cooperative), you can enhance your images using your favorite image-editing software to create an interesting collage.

I personally like sending what I consider to be the best picture that I took during the past year. What’s the point of a great photograph if you’re the only one who gets to appreciate it? I’ve often received responses from people who said they kept the card displayed long after the holiday was over.

Holiday cards aren’t the only kind of cards, however. If you have someone who has become involved in the poker craze, you could order a set of playing cards from Kodak Gallery imprinted with one of your photographs, be it a portrait, scenic or close-up image, providing both a standard deck and a great topic of conversation. A sports fan might love to receive a personalized trading card with a picture of himself or herself or a favorite family member.

And while we’re on the topic of cards, you might want to mail them with a post-age stamp displaying one of your images. PhotoStamps.com creates personalized stamps using your images that are genuine licensed postage for use on any letter. Much like the personalized photo books, the service provides simple online software to create a stamp using an assortment of templates.

Photo Books and Calendars
If you want to give more than a single print, many labs now offer fully bound photo books. Services such as MyPublisher produce custom hardcover or softcover books with images specifically chosen by you. These can include captions and comments. With a little creativity, you can make the book reflect the activities of your family during the past year or focus on a newborn child’s first days.

With easy-to-use software, you lay out the images on flexible templates created by the service, offering a fun and exciting way to create a personalized photo book and a memorable gift.

Labs such as PhotoWorks offer a traditional yearlong calendar, which can help keep you and your family in each other’s thoughts throughout the year. Each month features a unique, personalized image. I have a friend who sends me a calendar every year with photographs reflecting a particular theme. Last year, the theme was affection, and the photos were of people and animals displaying affection. I look forward to seeing this year’s theme.

Useful Items
Other everyday items can be imprinted with photographs. For the person on your list who enjoys a cup of joe in the morning, provide him
or her with a personalized coffee mug from Snapfish or Shutterfly. Someone who enjoys spending time in the kitchen baking might enjoy having an apron with a picture of you and others enjoying one of his or her treats.

You can go even further. Services such as Shooters print your images on a wall clock or even a wristwatch. That way you’re never far from your loved ones’ thoughts as they get to look at you whenever they check the time.

Refrigerator magnets, napkin holders, T-shirts, buttons and even tote bags with your photographs are all possible from a variety of online and walk-in labs.

Making the Most of It
All these products are possible using cameras with even a modest resolution of 3 megapixels. If you use an online service, the process obviously will go faster with a speedier Internet connection; for those with dial-up, it will simply take longer to upload images.

It’s easy to choose a favorite snapshot to imprint on these gifts, but it’s also a wonderful time to think creatively. Playing with your image-editing application, you can make your photographs look like paintings or convert them to black-and-white. After converting an image to black-and-white, it’s also fun and easy to use a paint tool and color palette to give your photograph a special look.

By combining your passion for photography with these services, you’ll be able to give a memorable gift to that special someone without the stress of the holiday rush. That’s because these gifts can be sent directly to them, with some services offering the option of gift wrapping. More importantly, you’ll be using your creativity to produce a lot of joy, which is what the holidays are all about.