Developing conventional film onto a CD: For Dummies
 

Hi
be patient with me, I'm still crawling into the 21st century

If I take regular 35mm film to a photo shop, and choose <print to a cd> as an option, can I later load that cd into my computer, save individual images to one of my drives, and then send photos as attachments to emails? Do I need to save the images in a special way?

Hi elaine,

>can I later load that cd into my computer,
Yes

>save individual images to one of my drives,
Yes

>and then send photos as attachments to emails?
Yes

>Do I need to save the images in a special way?
If you are asked to save in a specific format xxx.bmp is one that all PCs can handle.
xxx.jpg takes less space.

You will probably want to reduce the size of the pix for sending email.

I'm glad I'm not within slapping distance so here goes:

jpg?

reduce the size?

I did say 'dummies'

I'm a luddite when it comes to these things do, as I don't have a working home computer.

But .jpg is a picture format -- it's a JPEG file.

Pictures tend to take up a lot of space, so if you want to e-mail files to people, it may be better to e-mail smaller files (where the pictures may be of lower resolution or are stored in a different format -- .bmp (bitmap) usually takes more space, as ira points out).

Or alternatively, you can post your pictures on a website and e-mail the link to people. There're many such websites, but I don't know which one is the best as I've had people e-mail me links from various websites. Also, people from Fodors do that too.

One thing about posting pictures on websites -- people may need to register to view the pictures. I usually find this quite a chore but grudgingly do that to view pictures my friends want me to see. Otherwise I usually can't be bothered to see the link posted by someone I don't know if I need to register to get in.

Hi elaine,

Do you have Microsoft Photo Editor installed on your PC?

You can find it by going to "Windows Explorer", clicking on "Tools", "Find", "Files" and entering "photo editor".

You can open a picture from your CD, resize it and save it on your hard drive to send as an attachment.

<i>can I later load that cd into my computer, save individual images to one of my drives, and then send photos as attachments to emails?</i>

You may choose to save individual images to one of your drives but it isn't necessary. You can attach photos on the CD to emails.

You can add attachments directly from the CD, but as ira was saying, those will usually be pretty large files (many times on the order of 1MB - large for email). Also, they're too large to fit on the screen unless they're reduced by the computer, so it's just wasted file size you're sending.

You can use MS Photo Editor as ira said. I think even MS Paint (under accessories on your start menu) will work. Or, if you have a scanner or digital camera the software that came with it will work well.

What you would do is open the picture file (you can open it directly from the CD) into the program you've chosen. There should be an option under one of the menus that is something like &quot;resize&quot; or &quot;scale image&quot;.

When you open this option, you may have the choice to resize in inches or pixels. Choose pixels. If possible, choose an option to hold the aspect ratio so that it will scale in both directions at the same time.

Then, choose the largest pixel number and set it to something smaller - 400 or 600 is good. You can experiment with these and then see how they look if you email them to yourself. Save the new image somewhere on your computer. You will not be able to save it back onto the CD.

You can include several of these in an email and it won't take all day for the person to open it. Plus, some email client restrict the size of emails received, so you have less risk of the email bouncing back to you if you make them smaller first.

If any of this in unclear, please ask for explanations! :)

Hi Elaine,

I have gotten my film developed as prints and on CDs for several years now. I just now popped a cd into the drive to see how they were stored. This was a roll that was developed by Sam's Club, where I have had consistently decent results, but it does go back to '03...The cd opens in its own program, and gives me some options for saving as bitmap or jpeg files. You can copy pictures you like and save them to their own file for uploading to the internet or mailing or whatever. Why don't you shoot a test roll of film and have it developed onto a CD? (Take pictures of the dog, the cat, the snow, whatever, just to take a roll!) The additional cost to put them on a CD is only about $3 or 4 per roll. Then you can experiment with them and come back here with more questions! (I forgot about these pictures, and am having a little trip down memory lane in Ireland!)

You can eliminate some of the difficulties with the size of JPEG files (when you send several pictures as either attachments or as inserts in your e-mails) by using a WINZIP program which is free and downloadable..it compresses these files for you and makes it easier and faster to send them. Only downside is that the receiver also has to have the program in order to unzip them and see them.

It isn't nearly as intimidating as it sounds and you may not feel you are &quot;ready&quot; to tackle this aspect of things..yet..but like the computer and e-mail, once you've done so you'll wonder why you waited so long.

Good luck and just think..pretty soon Fodors will get into the swing of things and &quot;allow&quot; people to post pictures of themselves on their posts as many other internet boards already do. I cannot wait to see some of the &quot;fashion experts&quot; in the flesh...or perhaps I can come to think of it.

allisonm, when Sam's Club saves your images to the CD, do they save them at largest file size? (so you can later print 5x7 or 8x10)...
I've been using Eckerds for years, and my last trip's film images were saved to the CD in the smallest file size, so not even enough for a 4x6 print! They have told me they do not control the file size - their computer is preset. The weird thing is, 4 of 10 rolls <i>were</i> saved at large size, and on one roll a couple of frames were saved at large size. I don't understand the random-ness of this, and am not happy with tiny images on a CD that are not good for anything but emailing. I called Walgreens and was told their computer is also set to save images at small size setting. Very aggravating. I've bought a writeable drive, but now have to upgrade Windows to use it.

Ok, helpful ones, here's the latest.
I did develop a roll of film onto a Kodak CD. I inserted the CD into my drive, and downloades the free &quot;Kodak Easy Share&quot; software, which allows me to edit and enhance the pictures, select some or all, and them email them to whomever. The recipients have been able to see the pictures. I have removed the CD from my drive for now.

What I can't quite figure out, but think I have to do some tinkering and exploring on my own, is how or where these pictures are saved on my hard drive, that is, which drive and how labeled. That way I could also send individual pictures as attachments to emails that I send from my Yahoo account, instead of relying on the Kodak software email feature. But still, I was able to send pix, and I'm thrilled.

Thanks to all for your patience.

If you insert the CD and just view the images, then remove the CD, the images are not yet saved to the hard drive. Inserting the CD causes a new drive to appear in your 'file manager' (ie. windows explorer). What I did was create a folder on my c:/ drive for 'Pictures', and then a sub-folder named for the event (ie. 2004 France vacation). Using the windows explorer, I copied the images from the temporary drive (ie. e:/) to the folder on the c:/ drive. I only edit the images I saved, never the ones on the CD/temporary drive.

Intrepid1 - have you actually been able to further compress .jpg files using WinZip? I had always assumed that wouldn't help (as is the case with .ppt files, for example), and in fact just tried a few photos to see if it was possible - no change in size at all (some .zip files actually came out larger). If you've had success in doing this, please share the secret. Thanks.

If the files sizes on the CD are small enough (less than maybe 200kb) you don't have to put them on your hard drive to email them using yahoo. What you would do it:

*insert the CD into your drive - if it pops up a window asking you what software to use to read them, or if it opens your kodak software, you can just cancel or close out of it.

*open yahoo mail and compose a new message

*click the attachement button and browse to find it on your computer

*in the browse window that comes up, where it currently probably says &quot;c:&quot; click the little arrow next to it and choose &quot;d:&quot; or &quot;e:&quot; or whatever the name of your cd drive is. If you're not sure, try them all and see if your pictures are there.

If the files on the cd are too large, you can follow the steps I posted earlier, but using the kodak software you downloaded, to make them smaller.

You can find the size of your files by opening up a &quot;my computer&quot; window. You will most likely find the &quot;my computer&quot; icon near the upper left corner of your desktop. From there, double click on the CD drive letter and you'll see the contents of the CD. If the file size is not currently one of the columns displayed at the top of that window you can add it, probably under the view menu, but I'm not sitting in front of a windows computer right now, so can't say for sure.

When looking at file size, 1000 bytes is approximately equal to 1kb. 1,000,000 bytes is approximately equal to 1MB. I'm not sure how they're displayed when you're looking for them, but this should allow you to convert.

In response to Travelnut
The actual CDs have been removed, but the Kodak EasyShare free software is on my desktop, and the photos are there, they appear to have been saved as part of the operation of the Kodak software.
What I can't figure out yet is saving them on another drive--I'll give myself some time to peruse jlm mi's instructions.

thanks again all

ELAINE: Thanks for asking the question I didn't have the courage to ask myself. I hate to admit I am so cyber-challenged.

I'm an old-fashioned girl....I still remember the days when we did logarithms with slide rules.

When I ask these computer questions, I usually request that the answers be phrased in &quot;computer baby talk&quot;. If I still don't understand, I have to ask one of the high school kids in the neighborhood to explain it to me...very slowly.

Now that I have these answers, I will take the first step and have a roll of film developed to a cd. Then I'll see if I can figure out the rest...trial and error...A LOT of error.

Thanks again.

Elaine, you can try this:
When you have your Kodak application open and can view pictures, do the pictures have a file name, something arbitrarily assigned, like 11082004_17.jpg? (I made that up)

If so, then you can jot down a picture's file name. Go to the &quot;Start&quot; button on the bottom left of the pc window. Click on that and use your &quot;find&quot; or &quot;search&quot; option for files. Put the pix file name in the search box and search on the c:/ drive. If this works, the file (picture) will be listed and then you can see the path/directory where it is stored.
Good luck!