Save money on your holiday cards with these 8 photofinishers

Printing your holiday photo cards through a photofinishing Web site can save you time and money, especially if you do so in the next week or two. A number of sites are offering limited time discounts and free shipping. Below are some deals that I found at larger sites.

To take advantage of an offer, you must register with the site and provide contact information, such as your e-mail and shipping address. You'll also need to upload any photos you want to use on the card. Be sure to note the expiration dates on all offers:

• Shutterfly Save 20 percent on holiday cards. (The offer does not apply to note cards and calling cards.) Also, you can get free shipping on your order if you spend $30 or more. A comparison page lets you compare card types. Shutterfly has a wide array of other gifts, many of which are also being discounted.
• Kodak Gallery This site is offering free shipping on orders of $75 or more.
• Snapfish This site is offering free shipping on orders of 40 or more flat cards. They are also offering 20 percent off on everything in the Snapfish catalog.
• PEphoto.com They're offering 10 percent off orders of 25 or more photo greeting cards. Also, buy one photo album, get $10 off a second album.
• Walmart photo center Free shipping on greeting cards.
• Winkflash They're offering 40 percent off all holiday card orders.

• Clark Color labs Has several promotions: 40 percent off photo greeting cards; free shipping on photo gifts of $25 or more; 7 cents per prints; $8 off hardcover photo book orders of $20 or more.
• Photoworks Buy one photo calendar, get one free.

With more HD camcorders comes more detail and anxiety

This photo was taken in the late afternoon. Note how the warmer sunlight creates softer, less conspicuous shadows, particularly on the face. This lighting technique can improve your HD video as well. (Click to enlarge.)  [ Photo: T. Sullivan ]

Sony recently announced two new flash-memory camcorder models for consumers, the HDR-CX500V ($1,100) and HDR-CX520V ($1,300), which will be available in September. It's proof that Sony, like all camcorder makers, is continuing to expand its line of HD camcorders while introducing fewer and fewer standard def models.

But in the rush toward this more detailed video format, are we getting more than we bargained for? In the world of show biz, many makeup artists, who are responsible for making celebrities look great in front of the cameras, are concerned about how much detail HD captures. Apparently, HD will, indeed, make a mountain out of a molehill. Even makeup companies are getting into the act: On the Sephora website, you can buy an "HD Elixir" which claims to have an "immediate smoothing effect" on the skin that will make you look better in front of an HD camera.

So what's an average Joe or Jane to do when it's time for his or her close-up? Here are a few tips to help you look good, or at least look better, on HD:

Best ways to shoot panoramic photos

As baseball season gets underway, photography buffs are gearing up along with sports fans. That's because digital camera owners know that ball games bring lots of photo ops. In stadium after stadium this spring, fans will try shooting the entire span of the stadium from their seats: In short, they'll be trying to shoot panoramic photos. (See the example below.)

Luckily, most models in our digital camera Ratings as well as some models in our digital SLR Ratings (Ratings are available to subscribers) include panorama or photo-stitching scene modes. Here are three such approaches, along with their pros and cons:

Capture your own gold medal moments this summer

With the summer Olympics almost upon us, you may be in the mood for photographing athletic competitions—if not in Beijing, then in your own backyard or school stadium. Here are some features that can give you winning photos.

A long zoom. A digital camera with 10x or greater optical zoom—what we call super-zoom—will let you get closer to the action while maintaining good picture quality. Digital zoom almost always degrades quality, so turn this feature off. Some zoom lenses go as high as 20x optical zoom, such as the Olympus SP-570 UZ.

Fast action. If your camera is slow, you'll miss important moments. In most cases, this is not an issue on SLRs, but check our point-and-shoot Ratings (available to subscribers) for models with a short first-shot delay (also known as shutter lag) and next-shot delay.

Burst modes. All SLRs and a growing number of point-and-shoots have burst modes that let you fire off two, three, or more frames per second. A few, like the Casio Exilim EX-F1, can even do this with a flash. That's enough to capture a few half-twists off a high dive or a some fancy turns in a synchronized swimming routine.

Two digital photo frames that try to do more

The creep of convergence—that is, of devices that take on extra tasks once done by separate, standalone units—has now reached the digital photo frame, with mixed results. Yesterday, we blogged about the Sony DPF-V700, $189, a decent-performing 7-inch frame that's also a fine slide-show player for your HDTV. Today's post covers two more attempts to integrate a digital photo frame with another device: the SmartParts SP8PRT, $279, an 8-inch frame with a built-in printer, and the GE 27956FE1, $130, a 7-inch frame with a built-in cordless phone.

Both are the first of their kind that we've seen and tested in our labs. And an electronic picture frame that does more than just show off digital photos might sound cool—and a seemingly perfect gift for Father's Day or recent graduate.

Unfortunately, neither the SmartParts or the GE digital picture frame fulfills the promise of convergence.

PMA2008: Two serious printers for serious photographers

HP and Epson, as well as other printer manufacturers, showed a variety of printers, from the very inexpensive snapshot models to very large-format models costing thousands. Two in particular caught my eye: The Epson Stylus Photo R1900 (right) and the HP Photosmart Pro B8850 Photo (below). (Click on the images for a closer look.)

The pair have several things in common. Both were announced in January and are targeted at the advanced amateur, one who most likely owns a digital SLR and wants to get the most from those photos. Both can print up to 13- x 19-inch prints (or longer panoramas). They each use an 8 pigment-based cartridge system, as opposed to a dye-based one, since the longevity of pigment is supposedly twice as long. Both are priced around $550. And from the specs and product demos, both offer quite a variety of printing options that will be quite exciting for most any photographer, from the ability to print on paper of varying texture to traditional black-and-white prints.

One of the improvements on the Epson R1900, the successor to Epson's R1800, is (according to Epson) enhanced gloss in the ink, making it much smoother than the R1800's gloss coating. The ink set itself has also undergone an overhaul: the new Ultrachome Hi-Gloss 2 ink set now includes a new red and orange cartridge, which Epson says offers more accurate facial color tones. Epson's also says that it has improved the printer's speed, which can now produce photos (in the highest quality mode) from 37-41 percent faster than its predecessor. Among other improvements on this model are two USB 2.0 ports. (The new HP printer includes one port.) The R1900's highest resolution is 5760 x 1440 dpi.

The HP Photosmart Pro B8850 Photo printer (left), which has a maximum resolution of 4800 x 1200 dpi, is roughly the same size as Epson's R1900, although a bit heavier. Like Epson, HP claims that its new-pigment based inks are more water-resistant and resilient than dye-based inks from previous printers. HP claims to have a better color system for handling black-and-white prints, since it includes not only matte black and photo black ink cartridges (as does Epson), but also a light gray cartridge (Epson does not have a gray cartridge).

HP also said that they've worked with Adobe and other software companies to make the B8850 (and its driver software) integrate more seamlessly with image editing programs like Photoshop CS3. For many photographers, color management can be tricky and time-consuming HP claims that they've reworked their system to make that easier, too.

To show the value of using its branded inks, HP offers an online demo showing the effects of aging on two versions of the same photograph: one using HPs inks, the other a third-party ink. You can upload your own image to see how it might age. It's an intriguing visual demo on how digital color photographs can age and fade.

The Epson R1900 will be available later in February, the HP PhotosmartPro B8850 in April.

—Terry Sullivan

Nikon Coolpix L15: A budget subcompact with smarts

You don't expect much in a camera that costs $150 or less, but Nikon's new 8-megapixel Coolpix L15 (Click on the image at right for a closer look.) offers quite a bit for the money. (List price is $150, but it has been offered online for as little as $128).

Major features include optical image stabilization, limited face recognition (the L15 can keep a face in focus), a 2.8-inch LCD, and in-camera red-eye removal. A feature called D-lighting can rescue dark or backlit pictures by improving brightness and detail.

Related information on ConsumerReports.org:

• Digital cameras: More fun and features for less $
• Buying Advice: How to choose a digital camera
• Ratings: Point-and-shoot digital cameras (available to subscribers only)

To see what D-lighting does, consider this shot I took with the L15 of my colleague, Terry Sullivan. (Click on the image, below left , for a closer look.) His face is brightly lit by the L15's flash, but the background isn't so well lit.

Now here's a JPG of the same image (Click on the image at right for a closer look.)  that the L15 produced when I applied its D-lighting feature. Notice how the background is brighter. (So, unfortunately, is the gray in Terry's hair, which is the price he must pay for technological progress). When you use D-lighting, the L15 preserves the original image alongside the new one.

One feature expressly for novices is Easy Auto Mode, which the user manual says is an automatic mode recommended for first time digital camera users. When I turned Easy Auto on, the camera appeared to behave the same as when the feature was turned off.

I suspect from what little the user manual says about this feature, that turning it on limits which settings are displayed in the menu displayed on the LCD and, perhaps, automatically tweaks them to reasonable values for the shooting situation. Because the user manual doesn't fully explain this feature, it's hard to know exactly what it does.

Another way the L15 tried to make things easy is by automatically setting the ISO sensitivity based on the scene mode you set and the surrounding light level. The ISO range is from 64 to 1000. However, I couldn't find a way to see what ISO the camera was actually using or a way to override it. So when it comes to ISO, using the L15 requires placing your faith in the scene modes and camera's smarts.

We haven't tested the L15 is our labs yet, but Nikon's Web site for the U.S. says that the L15 can take approximately 160 shots using alkaline AA batteries.

—Jeff Fox