Framed - The Display of Digital Pictures

A version of this article first appeared in the March/April 2001 issue of Ancestry Magazine

By Mark Howells

Shutter Shudder

Our local high-end photo processing lab shut down last month. Professional photographers had been taking their pictures to this lab for over 30 years. The now-closed lab had processed my wedding pictures and other special family photos. They could no longer keep their doors open due to a lack of skilled personnel. Several hundred professional photographers in my area will now have to send their work to the next nearest metropolis for processing. Many will considering eliminating their need for laboratory development entirely by turning to digital cameras. These cameras produce pictures which can be processed and edited on a personal computer without smelly chemicals.

Over 7.5 million digital cameras were sold last year and sales of an additional 10 million cameras are expected this year. Digital cameras have passed the 4 million-pixel-threshold and are expected to overtake the resolution of film by 2003 or so. They are expected to outsell film cameras for the first time next year.

Asking a Tombstone to Smile

Many of us already own digital cameras of one sort or another. Of course, as family historians, we take lots of pictures, don't we? Preserving the moment somehow seems more important after you've spent time looking into the past. It is as if we are trying to make up for our ancestors' lack of pictures of their lives by creating major photo-documentaries of our own lives. Besides documenting the present, we also photograph the past by taking pictures of tombstones, plots of land, buildings, mementos, and even paper records. I have pictures of empty patches of grass where the tombstones SHOULD have been.

Those of us with digital cameras have a dilemma by the horns. While the extreme convenience of digital pictures mean we save on processing costs, the ease of capturing digital pictures and saving them in an electronic storage device (hard drive, disc, SmartMedia cards, etc.) leads to an entirely different problem. How are we to display all of these photos?

For the family historian, its not just the current photographs which we take ourselves which contribute to the display problem. We scan old photographs as well as source documents to turn them into digital images. How do we share and show these scanned images?

It used to be that at family gatherings, photo albums or anything from envelopes to shoe boxes full of photos could be passed around the room and admired by all. What is the family supposed to thumb through with the digital photos from the vacation when you visited the old homestead? How were they to admire your scanned picture of great grandfather Joachim?

Printing digital images onto picture-grade paper is one option, but it seems so counter-intuitive. You take an image that is stored as electrons and plaster it on paper with some ink. You are then faced with all the same storage and handling problems surrounding the image as if you had taken the picture with a film camera.

There are several options for the electronic display of images - both those you snap and those you scan. We'll proceed to review some of the more popular methods to show off your digital pictures.

Picture This

Most of us with digital cameras or scanners have e-mailed the resulting images to family members on the Internet. These file attachments to our e-mail messages are often quite large and may take some time to download if their recipient's Internet connection is not a speedy one. It's always polite to ask before you send attached images.

Another alternative to sending out images to others is to host them on your web site and then invite others to visit. This puts the storage burden on you and your web site rather than on others. By simply sending out the URL address of the electronic images, others can view them by using their web browsers.

Those are two basic methods for electronically sharing your snapped or scanned images: e-mailing them as attachments or hosting them on your own web site. Some genealogy software programs have even recognized family historians' penchant for sharing images and have included imaging software in their genealogy software. Sierra's Generations Grande Suite 8.0 ( http://genealogy.sierrahome.com/index.jsp )includes their Snapshot™ Express software which allows a user with a digital camera or scanner to organize their own electronic photo albums or to create photo slide shows which can shared on a web site or as an e-mail attachment.

The common ways of sharing digital images all require a computer for viewing. You can't view an electronic image if you don't have an electronic screen to display it on. That's one of the simple truths of electronic images. Since most software for editing, organizing, or otherwise manipulating electronic images are designed to be used on computers, it can be challenging to share electronic images with those who are not computer owners.

Step Away from the Computer

Some technology companies are working on solutions for sharing electronic images without complete dependence on computers. For example, iomega, well known for their Zip drives for computers, have introduced their Fotoshow Digital Image Center for televisions ( http://www.iomega.com/fotoshow/index.html ). This gadget is essentially a Zip drive which also accepts Compact Flash, SmartMedia, and IBM MicroDrive digital camera memory cards. It allows you to take pictures with your digital camera, plug the memory card into the Fotoshow box, and display your digital images on a television screen. Copy the images from the camera's memory card to the Zip drive on the Fotoshow, edit or arrange the images using the imaging software on the box, and you can share the Zip disc with friends and relations who may view them on their own Fotoshow. No personal computer need intervene between the taking and displaying of your digital pictures. The Fotoshow box is also a fully functional Zip drive with a USB connection for your PC so you can download scanned images as well. Anyone with a Zip drive may view the pictures on their computer as well. Fotoshow retails for about US$300.

Bypassing the need for a computer to display digital images is also the idea behind the Digi-Frame Digital Picture Frame ( http://www.digi-frame.com/home.html ). The Digi-Frames come in two sizes: a 5.6-inch display screen for about US$600 and a 3.9-inch display screen for about US$400. Both have interchangeable snap-on external frames so that this electronic appliance can be made to match any décor. They take either SmartMedia or Compact Flash memory cards from your digital camera.

Digi-Frame's Digital Picture Frames
Source: Digi-Frame Digital Picture Frame

Now you can display your digital snaps in your kitchen, living room, den, or anywhere else electricity may be handy (the smaller Digi-Frame can utilize batteries too) without a computer. I have one of these in my office running various slide shows of my family, the house pets, and of course, the ancestors. If you simply must connect your Digi-Frame to a computer, it comes with a PC or Mac-compatible cable to do just that. Scanned, e-mailed, or other "non-snapped" pictures can be uploaded to memory cards in the Digi-Frame and one display option gives old photos a nice sepia tone effect.

Taking digital picture frames a step further is the Ceiva digital picture frame ( http://www.ceiva.com/ ). This is really a small Internet appliance that happens to be an image display system. Ceiva's digital frame connects to a standard phone line and can dial up anyone of over 3,000 local phone numbers in the U.S. in order to connect to the Ceiva network. It's rather like an Internet Service Provider in that to use the Ceiva frame, you must also subscribe to the Ceiva network for about US$50 per year. As a subscriber, you can upload or download pictures using your Ceiva frame - this happens automatically at night thus reducing the time spent tying up the phone line. You can send pictures to other Ceiva subscribers on your "Buddy List" and they can share pictures with you. Owners of Ceiva frames may also add non-subscribers to their Buddy Lists so you don't have to be a Ceiva subscriber to share pictures with someone with a Ceiva frame. The frame itself is a fairly simple two-button device which is aimed directly at people who don't have a computer. The Ceiva frame costs US$250 and the subscription fee is extra.

Finally, some digital camera makers are also moving into the display market. Sony's CyberFrame uses Sony's Memory Stick media from Sony's digital cameras ( http://bpgprod.sel.sony.com/bpcnav/app/99999/2/17/22443.99999.product.BPC.html?reload=1 ). The CyberFrame is not aimed at the home-user market, being priced at US$900. The Sony's digital picture frame has speakers so "talking pictures" can be displayed - specifically MPEG movies.

Sony's CyberFrame
Source: Sony

Images from the Past

Don't you wish you had pictures of all your ancestors? Don't you wish you had them stored in something more sturdy than a shoebox? The increased popularity of digital photography creates new challenges for the family historian. Our expanding collections of digital images take up lots of storage space in terms of megabytes. Beyond storage issues, the display of digital images - whether snapped or scanned - can be problematic. Vendors are starting to respond to the display problem by creating digital displays which don't require a connection to a computer. Unfortunately, scanned images of paper-based photographs still require the use of a computer to turn them into an easily displayed format. Our choices for the digital display of images are increasing but for now, we have only a few options other than computer-based display and these tend toward the expensive side.

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Framed - The Display of Digital Pictures
Created & maintained by Mark Howells.
For information about this article, please send email to markhow@oz.net
Updated June 1, 2001
This Work Copyright © 2001 Ancestry.com, Inc., all rights reserved. To see this Work in its original context and to view others like it, visit www.ancestry.com.