Tag Archives: printing service

Creating Polaroid Like Wall Collages

Major Polaroid fans have rows of Polaroid shots all nicely lined up on their walls. Artist create smaller collages of Polaroid photos put together to make a bigger picture, telling a story. Usually, this is done by scenes that require several photos to cover an area or a subject from different perspectives.

Not having a Polaroid camera in a person’s camera collection doesn’t mean the art can’t be done. One quick solution is to take a photo with the iPhone and split it into sections, sort of a reverse multi image collage. Instead of starting with a bunch of photos and arranging, start with a single image and cut it apart. With the holidays around the corner, snapping a photo of something seasonal will be great to use. Luckily, my wife owns a Antique shop so I have lots to grab quickly. Holiday Store window decorations are another option rather than setting up a shot on your own.

Using nSquare, I import a photo a choose how many parts I want it broken into. The app actually allows for multi photos and resizing a single.

Keep in mind, this app will be breaking the photo into individual images in your iPhone’s camera roll. You can do the process twice, using the same image both times but adjusting a bit so that one square in the pattern of photo parts is slightly off ‘normal’. Think ‘Picasso’

Now that you have your bits, you can use them as they are, printing each. If your going to print your own, you may want to import the photos into the Instant app. Instant is a Polaroid app that will surround the images with the classic Polaroid frame, as well allow for adding a touch of retro finishes. Print, then trim.

If you don’t want to print, trim and cut, there is always the free app Printic. Printic offers a variety of print/mail services, the one I used for my wall art is their standard format which happens to look a lot like a Polaroid framed images.

The individual images can be stuck/pinned on the wall or clipped together and hung as a single large using. Now, looking at the below images arranged, you can see how the borders or resizing of a single image will give a more retro pop to the overall story. Remember, each frame is a separate image that can be tuned, but with nSquare, the individual images are basically cut apart for you.

The Fun Of Creating And Sharing Printed 6 Inch Photo Booklets With The iPhone

The list of companies offering to print photos taken with the iPhone continues to grow. Many have different offerings to set them apart from the others. Cards, iPhone cases, TShirts, mugs, photo books, magnets and postcards. The latest, from Kindred, is a print and mail service for a booklet of a dozen photos. The images are full bleed to the edge and each can have a bit of text added over the top of them.
Kindred’s free app lets you choose photos from any of your iPhone’s photo libraries, your social sites… or you can have the app auto choose photos that you have taken over the last week. After photos are chosen, a larger view is presented to assign a cover, sort, delete and add more.

Kindred offers the page inside the front cover for extended text. From this thumbnails view, just drag/drop to adjust the order the images will appear in the booklet. No actual photo editing is available.

There is also a view options to see individual photos and how the photos will flow next to each other when printed. Deleting and adding text per photo is offered in this view.

When the photos are arranged as you like, enter an address to send the booklet to. Kindred would like you to subscribe to a monthly (free month if you sign up for the subscription service) photo booklet. If you don’t think you will have a couple minutes to put the booklet together each month, don’t forget the ‘auto’ create feature. The monthly booklet is $5, plus the monthly $4.95 subscription.

If you would rather not jump right in with a Kindred subscription, single booklets can be created, printed and mailed for $11.95 each. When you checkout, the app offers to let you take a picture of your credit card to remove the need to enter the info. If you do it, you still have to enter the expiration date and card’s code, so it is only saving the time to type in the card number.

Your iPhone photos printed to Polaroid like paper frames

As I mentioned at the beginning of the Stickygram article, there are a lot of printing service options for your Instagram photos. While this solution prints square photos, they aren’t limiting you to just those uploaded Instagram services images. The service, Printic, offers a free iPhone app to gather and adjust your photos. Then, for 99 cents each minimum of 3, they will print and mail for you. I tried the service with a few for a friend who isn’t on Instagram rather than back to me.

Printic requires an Account Setup, then offers access to choose a photo from the iPhone photo library, Instagram and Facebook.

Selected photos appear in a running bar across the bottom of the page. Selecting the ‘pencil’ icon in the lower right corner pops up Edit tools for each picture. Printic allows Cropping, Quantity, Text and Delete.

One of the popular things to do when sharing a Polaroid (and a feature found in most imitation Polaroid creating apps) is ‘writing’ a short message on the open box area below the photo. Printic offers this as well.

When your done editing the photos, add your payment information, then where you will be sending the photos. It is optional to have the photos sent to multiple addresses so Printic could be a creative way of doing invites or announcements too.

I always wonder about the licensing a company has to do in order to create apps and services which allow printing to a photo frame that mimics a Polaroid. Polaroid took the time to big shoe me when I had artwork on CafePress for sale which had a Polaroid in the corner of the image. They stated that they own all representations of the frame.

Keepsy adds the ability to create photo print books on the iPhone

I have set up a couple print books using the Keepsy online Web service. It’s pretty easy to add photos, either from a photo library as well as photos I have on Instagram. My only complaint has been the feature where all of the chosen images are auto inserted into a photo book, that I then have to sort and shuffle. Bigger books can prove to be a fun juggling game. Overall though, the service is great for creating quality photo books that Keepsy prints and mails for me.

Yesterday, Keepsy released a free iPhone app version of their service. When you launch the app, it goes through the photos in the iPhone’s photo library and then divides those the apps sees as being able to be grouped. All of the rest of the images are still available to use in print books too.

The first two ‘folders’ on the list are actually tools that make the creation of book groups easier. They offer suggestions as well button(s) to get a person started.

The additional areas on the list are the Keepsy app trying to group photos just to make it faster for the creation of print books. Anaheim in my case was actually photos I took at Disneyland. Opening a group, photos can be removed (good since if you have the iPhone HDR feature on, you have two copies of each photo), shared with other people so they can add photos too, then sent to print.

Custom groups can be created from photos in the iPhone’s photo libraries. On the ‘simple things make me happy’, Keepsy groups the photos by date which makes it much easier to get through the 3200 photos I have to sort through when building a group for a print book.

The photos grouped together are automatically added to a digital version of the print book. Keepsy allows the photos to be moved around between pages as well more pages added since Keepsy attempts to keep page counts down to stay affordable.

The Web site for Keepsy shows the options that the Pocket Book version of the print books have (notice that there is a base price, then a charge per page over that so smart grouping of photos on pages saves money):

MoPho app update – creating printed dog tags using your iPhone photos

Rather than waiting to get home to use the computer, the app MoPho allows you to create print products all on the iPhone. Using photos you have taken with your iPhone, the app offers a long list of items that can have your photos printed on. Choose a product, select one of your photos (you can pull photos from Instagram too), adjust the photo on the product, pay and MoPho service will print and ship the item for you. Great fun but also a life saver when you forget to send a gift to someone or need to have something for a special event like a company co-worker going away get together.

In the latest update, the MoPho app has received the addition to it’s product list… a Dog Tag.

Using photos taken with the iPhone on products, all created on the iPhone

I have mentioned using the free app, MoPho, to create prints using images I created on my iPhone. The app allows for iPhone photos to be printed in a variety of size, on a variety of materials and even on products like mugs and mouse pads. MoPho has been updated to version 2.0 including a whole new User Interface as well an expanded list of product types that can be created using iPhone photos.

To help promote version 2.0 you can get 10 prints for free (one free offer per person), just use code ‘10FREE‘ at checkout.

You may have noticed in the opening screen shot above, the addition of access to your Instagram photos. Below is a list of the photo size and layouts available through MoPho. Notice the two square layouts have a Instagram logo to remind you that those photos are square so they fit that layout the best. Choosing a size/shape, then a photo, MoPho will print and ship for you, all managed through your iPhone.

MoPho goes beyond printing photos, the update includes more products than the earlier version. Tapping the categories across the top bar presents images of the products (scroll up/down) in that group.

Choosing images can be a single or multiple at a time. The photos don’t have to only from the iPhone’s photo library, connecting a Facebook and/or Instagram accounts will let MoPho to use those photos to be used for products or prints too.

When viewing a product after an image have been selected, the product appears with that image on it. Sharing your work via social networks and crop/zoom/rotate buttons are across the bottom of the overview. The ‘More Info’ button provides information about the product being worked on.

Using the Crop Zoom button, you have access to the full image to resize, rotate and move. This is particularly important when dealing with a tall or wide work area where the image doesn’t automatically fit those dimensions.

Bouncing around MoPho without the need to follow the app’s path is done through a swipe on the screen to the right. This exposes the tools and area access. Another modern UI update to the app that seems natural when using it instead of hunting around for a ‘settings’ icon or being locked into an app’s workflow.

Your iPhone Instagram Photos printed to magnets – StickyGram Half Off Sale!

Just got a special sale email from StickyGram… the good and bad of using someone’s service often is they send you email marketing but usually it has discounts in it!

As a refresher, StickyGram is a online service that offers printing of your Instagram photos onto little flat magnets. They are nice around the house and folks love them as gifts. The magnets are printed in a sheet of 3 by 3 individual images that snap apart to make 9 individual magnets, the last set I bought came in at $14.99 US (for the printed set of 9). You just choose which images you want printed from your Instagram account through the StickyGram interface, pay, they print and mail right out to you. The magnets print finish is matte with a slight white boarder.

The email mentioned a discount good through April 9th.

Buy a set of StickyGrams and get another for half price. It doesn’t matter if you buy 2 or 100, the second one will always be half price. Just use the code: “EASTEREMAIL“

Your iPhone pictures infused onto scratch resistant aluminum

There are a few options to have your iPhone pictures printed. There are services that will print your iPhone taken image onto a postcard and mail it. Most of the services lean towards square prints so you can do something with your Instagram and Hipstamatic images.

A new provider, PostalPix, is expanding on what others are offering. PostalPix will print your square images and mail to you or to someone else in the 4×4, 5×5 and 8×8 sizes. They also have the 4×6, 5×7 and 8×10 non-square printing covered. If your looking for using your images for a bit of art, PostalPix will infuse your images onto aluminum, all ready for the office or home walls. The free app handles everything from accepting your iPhone images, choosing the size and paper, aluminum or mousepad, to paying.

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