Digital Photo Center

Create Digital Photos
Fun Projects with Your Photos
eCircles Photo Tools
eCircles Recommends

Create Digital Photos

Scanners

Scanners capture an image, such as a photograph, and digitize it for computer editing and display. There are many types of scanners: hand-held, flatbed, color, B&W, high or low-resolution and more. The type of scanner you choose depends on your intentions. Low-resolution photo scanners are adequate for digitizing images you plan to display on your eCircles. Below are some scanners that we recommend:

Acer Peripherals America manufactures imaging products known for their vivid colors and their speed, a combination that enables powerful image processing without loss of clarity or accuracy. Acer scanners provide speed, high-quality scanning, a user-friendly design, bundled software, and 24/7 toll-free technical support.

Acer Scanners 620UT series provides you with photo and document scanning as well as slide and negative film scanning. You can scan 35mm slides or larger transparencies up to 5" by 7". You can also scan negative filmstrips that have already been developed. The Acer Scanner will develop these pictures so you can archive your negatives or choose to make reprints.

Digital Cameras

A digital camera is a film-less camera used to produce digital images that can be used in a variety of ways including sharing on eCircles. Digital cameras from consumer point-and-shoot varieties to professional-level cameras. Digital point-and-shoot cameras are as easy as their traditional film equivalent: turn on the camera, frame the object, and press the shutter. Images are captured on a chip instead of on film and most digital cameras have a screen that instantly displays the image you just captured. Did your subject close their eyes or make a funny face? If so, delete the photo and try again. Once you're happy with the results, save the image, connect your camera to your PC and post it in your eCircles photo album. Below are some cameras and books we recommend:

Your Local Photo Processor

For your next roll of film, get your photos developed the traditional way and ask for a digital copy, too! For about $7, most photo processors will put your photos on a floppy disk or CD allowing you to come home and load the pictures directly to your eCircles. You'll never have to waste your time and money making reprints and sending them via snail mail again!

Fun Projects with Digital Images

Adobe ActiveShare

eCircles and Adobe have partnered to offer you Adobe ActiveShare software for free. With Adobe ActiveShare, you can instantly upload photos or entire photo albums directly to your eCircles via the "Share on Web" feature. With a friendly installation process and interface, ActiveShare makes photo sharing even easier:

Easily upload and share you photos to your own, private eCircles
Import photos from your scanner, digital camera or Kodak® Picture CD
Fix your photos with one-click tools such as rotate, trim, and red-eye correction
Upload your images and have beautiful, high-quality prints mailed to friends and family

Learn more about ActiveShare

Photo Printers

Find a picture in your eCircles to print! Photo printers now make it possible for people to produce professional-looking pictures at home without the wait for conventional photo processing. Most of today's home-user photo printers use dye sublimation technology, which allows prints to be long lasting, waterproof and durable. It also uses a continuous tone printing instead of dot printing so prints are sharp and colorful. Acer's FotoPrisa 300P is a dedicated photo printer. It connects directly to your PC and is used just like a regular printer.

Create Personalized Photo Gifts

Once you and your friends have shared your photos on eCircles, anybody can turn any of those photos into a great photo gift. Frame your photo in a cool metal, wood or specialty frame. Put a photo on a t-shirt, coffee mug, message cube, puzzle and more. Buy it for yourself or send it as a gift. To create a photo gift, simply view the photo you'd like to use at full size. Click on it and follow the simple instructions to create as many gifts as you'd like.

eCircles Photo Tools

Share Your Photos

Once you have your digital images, what are you going to do with them? If you post them on a regular Web page, you run the risk of your precious images falling into the wrong hands. Sending them via e-mail is time-consuming and you run the risk of your recipients not being able to view the image on their system. With eCircles, you won't have these problems. Because eCircles are private, only those you invite can view your photographs.

Share Photos Among Your eCircles

Whether you create a new album or use an existing photo album, you can now copy your photos anywhere in your eCircles. You can copy photos in one album to other albums in any circle or you can create a new photo album for your copied photos.

Is Anybody Looking At My Photos?

Now that you've shared your photos, don't you want to know if people are actually looking at them? Now you can. At the top of each photo, there's a counter displaying how many times your photo has been viewed. If you find that you've been posting some great photos, but not everyone has been looking at them, send your friends an e-mail and tell them to take a minute to check them out!

High Resolution

When you upload a high-resolution picture to eCircles, it used to come out too large to be viewed on one screen. Now eCircles automatically stores the high resolution copy for "printing" applications such as framing your photos, and puts a lower resolution copy into your album to view from your circle. This makes your photos easy to view in your circle, while keeping the higher resolution copy available for printing purposes.