Picture This: Your Digital Photos Deserve Frames Too
Decorate with family memories — and swap them out in an instant — with frames made just for showing and sharing digital photos
Mike Elgan
March 5, 2013
Houzz Contributor. I'm a Silicon Valley-based writer, columnist and blogger, covering technology and culture. http://elgan.com
Houzz Contributor. I'm a Silicon Valley-based writer, columnist and blogger, covering... More
Nearly every home and office has framed pictures of loved ones displayed. It's wonderful, as they serve as constant reminders of good times with family and friends. It seems like framed pictures have been around forever. In reality, the practice is historically new and constantly evolving.
Before the widespread use of consumer cameras 100 years ago, and before even the widespread use of professional cameras 200 years ago, paintings, drawings and etchings of relations were mostly for aristocrats and royalty.
Color photographs started being displayed in the 1950s and '60s. In the 1980s services that printed photographs on large, painting-like canvases emerged. In the 1990s a small industry of digital-photograph-displaying electronic frames began.
The emergence of ubiquitous camera phones 10 years ago and social networks five years ago has completely transformed how we take and share our family photos. Facebook and Google+, not to mention Instagram, Flickr and hundreds of other online social photo sharing services give us a constant stream of pictures, not only of family and friends but of their lunches, cocktails and pets.
Social picture sharing is a great idea. But you know what? So is hanging pictures on your wall. Truly special and meaningful pictures should be lovingly framed and hung or propped up in your home or office.
The good news is that you can have it all — there are very low-cost ways to hang brilliant, vibrant, high-resolution digital pictures on your wall, mantel and desk.
Before the widespread use of consumer cameras 100 years ago, and before even the widespread use of professional cameras 200 years ago, paintings, drawings and etchings of relations were mostly for aristocrats and royalty.
Color photographs started being displayed in the 1950s and '60s. In the 1980s services that printed photographs on large, painting-like canvases emerged. In the 1990s a small industry of digital-photograph-displaying electronic frames began.
The emergence of ubiquitous camera phones 10 years ago and social networks five years ago has completely transformed how we take and share our family photos. Facebook and Google+, not to mention Instagram, Flickr and hundreds of other online social photo sharing services give us a constant stream of pictures, not only of family and friends but of their lunches, cocktails and pets.
Social picture sharing is a great idea. But you know what? So is hanging pictures on your wall. Truly special and meaningful pictures should be lovingly framed and hung or propped up in your home or office.
The good news is that you can have it all — there are very low-cost ways to hang brilliant, vibrant, high-resolution digital pictures on your wall, mantel and desk.
Digital picture frames, which look like frames for printed photos but let you display a slide show of digital pictures, have been around for years. The better ones cost between $100 and $200.
What's new in this category is the ability to download pictures from social sites, which makes a lot of sense — that's where the sharing of family photos takes place.
A few of these products support downloading from Facebook. But that's a problem. Facebook modifies pictures that people upload to a lower-quality version that takes up less space on their servers. This is true even if you upload using Facebook's "high quality" setting.
A better place to socially share high-quality photos online is Google+ or Flickr, which do not reduce the quality of pictures uploaded. One dedicated photo frame that supports both these networks is the MeeFrame, from Looqs. MeeFrame lets you download pictures directly into the frame from Flickr and Picasa. (All pictures posted on the Google+ social network are also posted on the Picasa service.)
The MeeFrame gives you a high-quality 8-inch framed touch screen. In addition to the social networks mentioned, it can also display pictures emailed to a dedicated email address or added to a memory card. The company also provides a cloud service for sharing photos.
The frame connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi and can also play streaming Internet radio, act as an alarm clock, display the news and weather, and do other neat tricks.
What's new in this category is the ability to download pictures from social sites, which makes a lot of sense — that's where the sharing of family photos takes place.
A few of these products support downloading from Facebook. But that's a problem. Facebook modifies pictures that people upload to a lower-quality version that takes up less space on their servers. This is true even if you upload using Facebook's "high quality" setting.
A better place to socially share high-quality photos online is Google+ or Flickr, which do not reduce the quality of pictures uploaded. One dedicated photo frame that supports both these networks is the MeeFrame, from Looqs. MeeFrame lets you download pictures directly into the frame from Flickr and Picasa. (All pictures posted on the Google+ social network are also posted on the Picasa service.)
The MeeFrame gives you a high-quality 8-inch framed touch screen. In addition to the social networks mentioned, it can also display pictures emailed to a dedicated email address or added to a memory card. The company also provides a cloud service for sharing photos.
The frame connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi and can also play streaming Internet radio, act as an alarm clock, display the news and weather, and do other neat tricks.
If you have the sense that the touch-screen digital picture frames like the MeeFrame are little more than iPad-like tablets with dedicated software for downloading and displaying pictures, you're right.
The difference is quality. The Apple iPad itself has a higher-quality screen for showing pictures than any digital picture frame — or any other tablet for that matter. The iPad is the best-quality digital picture frame you can buy. But who's going to spend hundreds of dollars to buy an iPad just to show photographs?
The answer for many people is: You don't have to spend a dime. The iPad was released nearly three years ago. That means many of us own or will soon own our second iPad. Why not put the first one to work as a digital picture frame?
Even if you don't have an old iPad, you can easily use your current one to show pictures when you're not using it. A cool product called The iPad Frame looks like a high-quality wooden picture frame. But the frame part swings out, enabling you to slide the iPad into it. It's also a dock that plugs into a nearby outlet, so while the iPad is in the frame, it's plugged in and powered for continuous use.
You can prop up The iPad Frame on a mantel or hang it on a wall, and you'll have digital photographs of the highest quality at no cost beyond the cost of the frame and what you have already spent on the iPad. Then you can choose from among hundreds of apps in the iTunes App Store for downloading and displaying photographs from your favorite social networks, or simply use the Slideshow feature of the built-in Pictures app.
The difference is quality. The Apple iPad itself has a higher-quality screen for showing pictures than any digital picture frame — or any other tablet for that matter. The iPad is the best-quality digital picture frame you can buy. But who's going to spend hundreds of dollars to buy an iPad just to show photographs?
The answer for many people is: You don't have to spend a dime. The iPad was released nearly three years ago. That means many of us own or will soon own our second iPad. Why not put the first one to work as a digital picture frame?
Even if you don't have an old iPad, you can easily use your current one to show pictures when you're not using it. A cool product called The iPad Frame looks like a high-quality wooden picture frame. But the frame part swings out, enabling you to slide the iPad into it. It's also a dock that plugs into a nearby outlet, so while the iPad is in the frame, it's plugged in and powered for continuous use.
You can prop up The iPad Frame on a mantel or hang it on a wall, and you'll have digital photographs of the highest quality at no cost beyond the cost of the frame and what you have already spent on the iPad. Then you can choose from among hundreds of apps in the iTunes App Store for downloading and displaying photographs from your favorite social networks, or simply use the Slideshow feature of the built-in Pictures app.
While the first iPad shipped in 2010, the first iPhone hit the market nearly six years ago. Millions of people are on their second, third or (as in my case) fourth iPhone.
Just as The iPad Frame frames your iPad, the Appstand frames your iPhone. It costs about $25 and transforms your old, neglected iPhone (or your current one) into a high-quality picture frame for your mantel or desk.
Just as The iPad Frame frames your iPad, the Appstand frames your iPhone. It costs about $25 and transforms your old, neglected iPhone (or your current one) into a high-quality picture frame for your mantel or desk.
Yet another option for displaying family photos is easy to overlook: your TV. There are many ways to display slide shows on a TV set. Game consoles like the Xbox let you do that easily; you simply follow the onscreen instructions. And all smart-TV solutions enable you to display photographs, either streaming from a nearby PC over Wi-Fi or via some other method. You can also easily connect a digital camera, laptop, tablet or phone to most modern TVs and show on the big screen what you are already able to view on the little one.
For more social sharing and control, however, there's an appealing new option for Google TV. Google TV is Google's smart-TV technology, which is already built into many of the major-brand flat-screen TVs sold these days. If you've got it, you can take advantage of Out My Window.
Out My Window is a social photo sharing service that enables photo sharing on Apple-based mobile devices, like the iPhone and iPad and now Google TV. (Support for Android phones and tablets is coming soon, according to the company.) Out My Window is a very secure and private way to share socially. It shows your pictures only to people who are using the app and also with whom you have mutually agreed to share with.
By using the Google TV app, you'll instantly see the new pictures uploaded by family and friends in the slide show on your TV. And you can load your own pictures to it, too.
Digital pictures look better and last longer than printed photographs. They're brightly lit, and a single frame can show you not just one but hundreds of pictures in rotation.
And it doesn't have to be expensive.
For more social sharing and control, however, there's an appealing new option for Google TV. Google TV is Google's smart-TV technology, which is already built into many of the major-brand flat-screen TVs sold these days. If you've got it, you can take advantage of Out My Window.
Out My Window is a social photo sharing service that enables photo sharing on Apple-based mobile devices, like the iPhone and iPad and now Google TV. (Support for Android phones and tablets is coming soon, according to the company.) Out My Window is a very secure and private way to share socially. It shows your pictures only to people who are using the app and also with whom you have mutually agreed to share with.
By using the Google TV app, you'll instantly see the new pictures uploaded by family and friends in the slide show on your TV. And you can load your own pictures to it, too.
Digital pictures look better and last longer than printed photographs. They're brightly lit, and a single frame can show you not just one but hundreds of pictures in rotation.
And it doesn't have to be expensive.
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Sorry so long:) but technology can be a beautiful thing.