Dale iPrints FAQ....Some Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What does this service do for me? A. How would you like to have photos from your digital camera printed on real photographic paper? Now you can, with iPrints from Dale Laboratories! Until now, your options in getting pictures from your digital camera were limited. You could output your photos on your color ink jet printer or buy color laser prints at an outside service. But each of these systems has real limitations...and neither can match the color accuracy and archival dye stability of pictures printed on Kodak photographic paper. We provide you with a far better solution: through a simple and automatic e-process, you're linked directly to the digital photoprocessing equipment in our laboratory for truly outstanding, photo-quality prints and enlargements. You'll get free uploads of your digital pictures and easy ways to share your photos with your family and friends.
Q. What kind of software do I need to order Dale iPrints? A. The only software you'll need is the viewing software that came with your digital camera. You'll use that software to store your digital pictures (at least temporarily) on your computer's hard drive. When you connect to our web site at www.dalelabs.com or www.daleiprints.com we'll prompt you so that you can easily and simply upload the stored images you select to our server. You'll place the photos into your own, personal "shoebox" folders. We'll store your digital images...free of charge for 30 days...and let you organize them, e-mail photos to family and friends, or order photo-quality, Dale iPrints. You're going to be amazed at just how easy and hassle-free it is to store your images and order digital prints on-line!
Q. What kind of Picture can I upload? A. You can print any computer images as long as we are able to read the file format. We support JPEG and JPG formats. Please keep in mind that not every image out of your digital camera or PC will come out well. There may be problems with resolution or other factors. Our application will alert you with a warning each time it detects a possible deficiency in your picture.
Q. What should I do to prepare images? A. Though you wouldn't know it based on advertising hype, none of the digital cameras available on the consumer market have the amount of color information available in a conventional photographic film frame (about 15MB). However, the newer digital cameras offer resolutions of 2.1 or even 3 megapixels. This is more than enough to produce digital prints and enlargements (on our equipment) that are nearly indistinguishable from prints made from photographic film. The important point is that the image you upload needs to have a sufficient number of pixels and colors for a quality color print. Pixels can be thought of as dots that make up your picture. The larger the print you want, the greater the number of pixels you will need in your original camera or image. If there are not a sufficient number of pixels in your original photo for the size print you want, the printed image will have jagged rather than sharp edges. You must also have adequate and accurate color information in your original file if your print is to have good, natural-looking color. The first generation of digital cameras and many inexpensive cameras designed for Web use, have very low resolutions of 320 x 200. Photos taken with low resolution cameras are great for web use (where only screen images are generated), but they are not adequate for printing on photographic paper. In order to produce a satisfactory photographic print, your electronic photo should have a resolution of at least 600 x 400 in its original size. You should also remember that photographic films have a height to length ratio of 24 x 36, which corresponds to a the dimensions of a 4" x 6" print. In the PC and digital camera world, the rectangle ratio is different : 640 x 480. This is the ratio designed to best fit a computer screen. These differing ratios produce a problem when printing a computer based image to traditional photographic paper. If a digital camera picture is printed onto a standard photo paper size (i.e. 4" x 6") there are blank borders on the top and bottom of the print. Therefore, our Dale iPrint application will automatically zoom in to fill a standard photo sized print. This means that some of your digital camera image will be cropped out on the final print. So, it's a good idea to be sure that no important subject matter is at the very top or bottom of images before submitting them for printing. (A new feature, to allow you to manually crop your images so that you can decide what area will be cropped out is expected to be added by the end of 2001.)
You should also keep in mind that a 600 x 400 image has just enough resolution
to print a reasonably sharp
Q. What is a Compression Warning? A. Some models of digital cameras allow for a choice of a level of Quality. This is an option that is sometimes labeled as Low, Medium or High Quality. This refers to the level of compression of the picture. The simple rule is, the higher the quality (i.e. a lower level of compression), the better the prints will be. We suggest always using the highest quality setting when you want to get digital iPrints made from your pictures. Please keep in mind that once you have compressed an image, there is no coming back. You cannot 'decompress' and recover the original look of your picture. Also, the compression factor is independent, from the resolution of your picture. When you compress, you don't reduce resolution, but you do deteriorate the picture.In most cases, our software will warn you if compression is too high on your original picture.
Q. How can I upload images from my digital camera? A. Your digital camera is supplied with software that enables you to transfer the photos from the the camera to your PC. These images can be saved as files on your hard drive. While you are doing this transfer, be sure that you select the JPEG or JPG file format.
Q. Can I print scanned images? A. Many of today's scanners produce excellent digital images. But, just as with digital cameras, the file sizes must be large enough to produce a high quality photographic prints. The limiting factor is that the file size not be so large that it takes excessive time to transfer over your modem to our server. A general rule of thumb is to try to get a file with a resolution of 1024 x 1536. This will give you a good trade-off between quality, disk space and modem transmission time. Select JPEG or JPG as the file format to save.
Q. Can I print images from my camcorder?
A.
Many of the new digital camcorders offer a still frame
option. However, the resolution of these still frames is usually too
small to produce really good still prints. Should you wish to order
iPrints from digital camcorder images, we suggest not going to larger
than a
Q. Can I print from my "Image to Floppy"? A. Yes, you can. But, please keep in mind that the file size of images on a floppy disk...particularly where you've recorded multiple images on the same floppy...is likely to be too small for adequate resolution and a high quality images on photographic prints. Where you are ordering prints from images saved to a floppy disk, we recommend not ordering larger than the 4" x 6" size. Should the image be too small for adequate print quality, our application will not make the prints.
Q. Can I print gray scale images (Black & White)? A. Depending on the quality of your original file you may be able to get acceptable black and white rendition on color paper. However, you should expect to see some color "caste" when printing black and white images on color photographic paper.
Q. Are GIF files good enough to be printed? A. The GIF file format is widely used for digital images. However, all GIF images are limited to 256 colors (often called a 256 color palette). Beyond its limited number of colors, GIF is a compressed format. GIFs are designed primarily for screen display purposes (that still often are limited to 256 colors). GIF images normally have small file sizes, making them very attractive for use on the INTERNET. But, if you try to upload and print a GIF originated file (even after converting the file from GIF to JPEG), you will have poor results because of the lack of a large enough number of colors. Your image file may look attractive on a 256 color computer screen, but it will not be adequate for high quality on photographic paper. GIFs simply don't have an adequate number of colors or large enough file sizes to produce top-quality digital iPrints. Therefore, we only offer prints from high quality JPEG images; not GIFs.
Q. What print sizes can I select? A. With Dale iPrints you may select the number of prints and the size you want. This information will be listed as you select your prints. We currently offer 4" x 6", 5" x 7" and 8" x 10" prints.
Q. What is the average time needed to upload an image to your laboratory? A. Transfer time depends on the size of the files you are going to upload and the speed of your modem or Internet connection. The good news here is that once you've clicked on the files you want to upload to our laboratory, the process is pretty much automatic. We'd suggest you just click "Upload" and walk away while your computer does its work and inserts your selected pictures into "shoeboxes" on our server. Once your images are in our server, the process is fast and easy. Just click under the pictures you want printed, add your billing information, and click "Send". Your orders are done in a "flash".
Q. How do I know that the print I will get back is a good print? A. If your pictures have insufficient resolution or number of colors, print sizes which will produce inferior quality will be grayed out and not be selectable.
Q. Can I review the images that I have uploaded? A. Your images go into digital "shoeboxes" which you can edit at any time. Simply access the shoebox and you can add or remove any digital photograph. How you arrange and organize your shoeboxes is totally up to you.
Q. Can I send prints to my relatives far away? A. Yes. Our system allows for separate billing and shipping addresses. So, you can order prints and have them sent directly to relatives. You can also e-mail photos through electronic links to family and friends...at absolutely no charge. Helping you share your photo images is what we're all about!
Q. How long will it take to receive my prints? A. Your pictures will normally be printed on the next business day. Normal delivery is by First Class U.S. Mail. This generally takes from 2-4 days.
Q. How much do iPrints cost and how do I pay for them? A. Our pricing system is quite simple. 4" x 6" prints are just 49¢ each, 5" x 7" prints are just 99¢ each, and 8" x 10" enlargements are only $2.99 each. Shipping and handling by First Class U.S. mail is an additional $1.95 per order. You will be paying for your orders by credit card on a secure, e-commerce link. As you choose your prints you will be able to see exactly what the cost will be.
Q. How much will it cost me to store my images? A. You can upload all the images from your digital camera for free! We'll store them on-line for 30 days, free of charge. During that time you can organize your photos into shoeboxes, e-mail them to family and friends, or order Dale iPrints on-line. You may also store up to 200 of your favorite images in permanent shoeboxes at absolutely no cost. You're free to review these pictures whenever you want, delete pictures, and add others. Should you go over the 200 image maximum, you may store additional images for just $10.00 for 100 images for three years. The small cost for storage will be charged to your credit card.
2960 Simms Street, Hollywood, FL 33020-1579 800-327-1776 * 954-925-0103 Fax: 954-922-3008 * E-mail: info@dalelabs.com |