"Roll film sure made it easier"

There is nothing better about getting together with old friends.  Last night I enjoyed some slices of wonderful pizza and a few beers with some of my best childhood friends at a new Pizza place here in Greensboro, The Corner Slice.  Excellent food at a great price, and you can read about it here.  Half of this group was in town for the High Point Furniture Market, and the rest of us were just out to see our old buddies.  Everyone was asking the typical questions about the important things in life, and soon it was my turn to answer "so how's business?"  I was trying to finish my bite of pepperoni and black olive before the question was followed  up with a statement of "rolls of film sure made it easier than digital."  My friend was making the point that because their first born came at a time when digital was still expensive, slow, and  of poor quality, they used 35mm film to capture their son's early memories. "Catbird", as we call him, pointed out  that when their second came along they bought their first digital camera, and as a result now have about 20% of the number of pictures that they do of their first child.

It really does not have to be that way.  Everyone points out to the fact that it was easy to drop off a roll and pick up you prints.  Like the roll makes you do it????  Well here is a news flash for you:

  • Your old friend "the roll" could hold a maximum of 36 images.
  • A 36 exposure roll would normally cost you  around $4.00.
  • You never got your roll back, so $4 GONE.

Now let's look at your new friend, the digital card:

  • You can buy a 1G card for $6.00.
  • Your 1G card should hold between 150-400 images
  • After you have your prints printed, store your files on your computer, and REUSE!

Now days your card is just like a roll of film, just leave it with the store, and pick it up with your prints. There was a risk when cards use to cost $40, heck even if the lab lost it on your second visit you have still saved money. The one down fall is that you are required to move old files to your computer so that they are not printed over and over again, and it really is not a shortfall because it is forcing you to store your images.

All the time and gas money can be saved  by ordering your prints from home.  I know most feel this is too complicated and they just are not comfortable doing this, but I promise if you do it once, you will never view ordering prints as a frustrating experience again.  There are two types of online ordering.  The first is the most common and is the method most of the big photohouses use to sell their services.  Most online companies have you load all of your images so you and the hundreds of friends and family members that want your vacation pictures (roll eyes) can order from them.  This type of uploading takes what seems like forever.  Come home from a few days at Disney and upload your pictures and I can promise that you will not be using your computer on the internet for a while.  Mastercolor has chosen not to go the shareware route, and we use ROES for receiving images from our customer.  The major difference it that your images are uploaded at the end of your order.  Only the images you wanted are uploaded and this cuts down on uploading time.  You can upload through ROES from the disk or card directly, but this is slower than uploading from a created folder on your desk top.  Another advantage to having them in a folder is that it forces you to back-up your images and store them on your computer.  The same number of images typically will upload between 30%-50% faster in ROES compared to "shareware" due to a compression software within the  ROES program.

Don't make saving your family's memories seem like a chore. On Roes you can create:

  • Trader cards for your kids
  • Canvas Gallery Wraps
  • Panoramic Prints ( New special pricing starting May 1st)
  • Story or Coffee table books
  • Greeting Cards

Give us a call and we will walk you through your first ROES upload, it's easy and it's fun!

Please visit some of my previous Blogs on suggestions for storing your files:

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