Now is the time to purchase your holiday photo cards

http://www.ephotogreetingcards.com/online-photo-card/
Now is the time to purchase your holiday photo cards
Most everyone enjoys to show their family photographs at Christmas time. We receive well over a hundred Christmas greeting cards, holiday photo cards, newsletters from friends and relations from all over the world. Needless to say, people like to share their family news in different ways, but we always choose to receive pictures or image of the family in order to keep track on how fast the kids have grown.

For those that want to get a jump on the holiday season, right now is a superb time to order your Christmas photo cards and holiday photo greeting cards. While many want to place a few choice photos in a newsletter, almost all like to mail a greeting card with a digital photograph or collage of photographs imprinted upon the card. Others prefer to position a photograph directly on the greeting cards. Regardless of what process works for you is great, but found below are a few suggestions perhaps you may wish to consider when choosing your holiday photo card.

Use the Proper Resolution to your Holiday Photo
Most photos are made with cell phones or digital cameras. While photograph resolution - as measured by metapixels - tend to be high many smartphone owners do not know how to adjust the image resolution for their smartphone camera to get the highest quality image. Those that do know how to adjust the resolution, generally have it set to internet quality to reduce the file size of photos to spare memory space. Photos posted to Facebook or Flickr are generally not suitable to be reproduced digitally on a photo card or for a photograph. Without getting unnecessarily confusing, do try to create photos of no less than 300 pixels per inch for your family photo - the greater the better.

Editing your Photographs
Ok, you've shot a great family photo and are now motivated to play with several of the fabulous editing tools embedded in your phone or camera. Don't! Save the high resolution photograph onto your hard drive and, if needed, do your editing with a copy of the image. Without getting too geeky, the most important thing to know could be that the aspect ratio is generally different on digital cameras than it really is on 35mm cameras. The aspect ratio of a 35mm camera is 3:2 whilst the aspect ratio of a digital camera is 4:3. That is why you will lose a part of your digital image should it be printed as a 4x6 photo. Many amateur first person shooters crop the images too closely and often crop off the tops of people's heads when the photograph is printed.

Printing and Picture Resolution
Many families are surprised that their printed out digital photo doesn't look the same as the image on their camera or computer monitor. There can be numerous explanations, but computer screen resolutions, laser printers and the variety of paper employed will definitely affect the quality of the print. If you plan to send out a Christmas newsletter on copy paper, your embedded images will most likely be of low quality. Inkjet printers have a tendency to produce better quality photos than color laser printers.

Mounting Photos vs Printing
Commercially produced images on specialty photo paper possess a far higher quality than digitally reproduced photos. While it could take somewhat more time, you are assured a better quality reproduction if you print your family photo and mount it on a card. Digital holiday cards generally have a lower quality but are far more flexible in producing a collage. If printing digitally, a 2x3 photograph will appear sharper than a 4x6 photo.

Holiday Cards and Photo Cards
Photo cards remain extremely popular, but there is a tendency to return to more conventional holiday greeting cards. The factors behind these changes are wide ranging, but one suspects that there are too many family photographs circulating in social network sites. In truth, many families prefer to highlight the religious meaning of the season rather than sending a photograph of their family. Most printing firms offer both traditional holiday cards and photo card options so select the one that best meets your needs.

Knowledgeable shoppers realize that searching for Christmas photo cards during the Summer and early Fall is a sure way to save money. Most printers tend not to really get ready for the holiday season until after Halloween. In an effort to encourage people to shop quick, many card printers offer special promos which can save you anywhere from 10% to 50% which can result in considerable savings. More importantly, by taking advantage of these seasonal promos you save the stress of shopping at the eleventh hour. While many individuals will commence their search on the internet, it is frequently a very good idea to vist your local stationer store. Quite a few of these stores have great bargains through the end of September and you can be assured that you are working with printing companies that have been properly investigated. For those that shop on the web, it is often best to skip the ones featuring the largest discount promotion since print quality is liable to be suspect. Shop around and jot down two or three companies with a good selection of holiday photo cards.