The Three Myths: Myth #1 "It Takes Too Long"

This is an image of my two youngest daughters a few years ago. We got them a plastic blowup igloo. Great fun. When they got in, the static electricity nearly caused a thunderstorm!

Creating interesting products using your own digital images has long been plagued by what I refer to as "The Three Myths". These myths have been well earned in the industry and are still around today in an industry dominated by software tools, computer hardware and technology wonks. Here they are:

Myth Number 1: It takes too long

Myth Number 2: It costs too much

Myth Number 3: The quality is poor

Today, I'd like to take on the Myth Number 1.

In the early days of digital photography only the hearty, knowledgeable few were able to navigate the cluttered ocean of software tools and hardware. Creating a photo book using your own images was, well impossible. Along came some bright developers and not only was it expensive, it also took a long time.

At the beginning of 2008, the Photo Industry published a study saying that it took more than 19 hours for the average person to create a photo book. I was blown away and did some research. Did you know that it only takes, on average, 183 minutes to buy a car!

Who has 19 hours? I worked with a great lady, an expert in scrapbooking and the industry. When her mother died, she made her a book using an online photo book tool. I asked her what she thought.

"It took a long time" was her well considered reply.

"Will you ever make another?" She thought a moment, pursing her lips and looking up and off to the left. "No" she said after a moment. "Really?" I asked.

"Well maybe I'll do another if my father dies."

I was shocked. Here was an expert and she might make two books in her lifetime because it took too long.

More shocking was the industry's answer. After thoughtfully considering the time and effort it took, they suggested that retailer offer "training classes" in how to make a photo book.

I met another lady at a high end Photo Retail store. she had been coming to the store for more than a year in order to make the perfect book of a trip she took with her daughter.

Last March, I looked at a piece of software that touted itself as "the easiest to use option" on the market. The books were lifeless and single dimensioned. Worse yet, I did the math. If you were to try all of their potential features, you'd be choosing from more than 9.6 trillion choices. At aVinci, we're working to create solutions that create professional looking photo books, DVD's and posters in seconds.

If you have layouts or styles you like, art that impresses, tell me and we'll tell the industry.

Slideshows, DVD's and More

We live in the age of multimedia. Our lives are supplemented with wildly vivid imagery. Have you noticed the change in television studio sets since the introduction of High Definition? I took the picture above in ESPN's Digital Studio.

One of the best ways to showcase your digital images is with a slideshow. Now personally, I hate the word slideshow, but it is a word to which people relate (sometimes badly). When I was young, world travelers would come by the Elks Club with their travel photos and put on a slide show. "Here I am in front of the Eiffel Tower" was quickly followed by "My dog jumps in the Seine".

We've come a long way from simple slideshows. Here's a link to http://www.avincistudio.com/ where you can create a movie of your images in mere seconds. Just download the software and in minutes you'll see how great your images look in a full motion production.

What's more, if you'd like a couple of secret promo codes, I'll post those too if you ask.

I provided a sample above of a Wedding Production that was made in seconds using aVinci software. All you do is supply the images! Good luck.

The Chart of Many Bubbles

Way back in 2002, when less than 10% of cameras sold were digital. I looked at what it would take to simplify the art of telling a story in multimedia. It seemed to me that multimedia would be an emerging opportunity. My main motivation was to find a way to allow people to "give voice" to their stories. I wanted to hear the stories of my friends and family in their own words. I wanted to know what made them who they were. Still images, video tapes and books did not seem like the answer. Over time, it became obvious that three things were necessary.

Individual Expertise

Probably the most difficult thing was to have an idea. What did you want to do? If you have never done something, how would you know what you could do? You also need motivation, and lots of it. Storytelling is a daunting task. You needed content and industry information showed that more than 1 trillion printed images were stored in shoe boxes and darkened closets. In many cases you knew something about the images (context) and in many cases you did not. For example, I found an image in an old album my Dad had stored in the garage. It appeared that my grandfather was in the image with my grandmother, but they were very young. I asked my Dad if that was grandpa and grandma, he said "no". I took the image out of the book and their in my grandmothers handwriting were the words "our first apartment". Case solved. You also needed artistic ability and technical competency. No wonder storytelling was a lost art.

Hardware

You needed digital cameras, personal computers, printers, video cameras, tape players, tape recorders, VHS, Beta, D3, Video Tape, Film etc. All these were the capture and create devices. With one device you would capture moments through images, video, sound and with others, you would publish those moments in a form that others (and yourself) could enjoy. Things like prints, movies, DVD's, CD's and anything you could think imagine.

Software

The interface between humans and machines is software. Software tells the machine what to do. Only problem is, software was (and is) designed by engineers. Engineers just love a challenge. So the more powerful the software, the harder is is to learn, use etc. Imagine needing to learn a new language in order to use a pair of scissors!


Next: What did I learn from scrapbookers?