PUBLICATION CENTER

If you make your living selling photographs, it’s wise to try to anticipate how ongoing changes in technology might affect the market for images and imaging services. Many relevant advances in technology first appear at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which attracts more than 140,000 attendees eager to see the latest in audio, video, mobile electronics, wireless and landline communications, information technology, home networking, multimedia, and digital imaging.

These news items from the 2008 CES suggest some of the radical changes and emerging opportunities in the photo-imaging market:

According to Mitch Goldstone of ScanMyPhotos.com, approximately 3.5 trillion pictures that were shot on film need to be scanned so they can be digitally saved and shared. He proclaimed that “Analog is dead. Now the race is on to digitally convert generations of favorite memories super-fast and inexpensively.” Using Kodak Document Imaging 1600 scanners, Goldstone’s company enables consumers to have 1,000 images scanned in about 10 minutes for $49.95. For $99.95 customers can use a prepaid US Postal Service Priority Mail box to send in up to 1,600 images for scanning.

With the Photo Messenger feature on Ality’s Wireless PIXXA digital photo frame, users don’t need a computer to send and receive photos to friends and family members anywhere in the world. “Wireless PIXXA takes the popularity of digital photo frames one step further with Internet connectivity and photo-sharing capabilities,” explains Ality CEO William Wong. Designed to blend into the décor of bedrooms and living rooms, the digital photo frame can also be set up to synchronize calendars, deliver greeting cards, or stream news, weather, traffic, or information.

With the technology available through

Visan’s RocketLife.com, individuals, businesses, and schools, museums, and fund-raising groups can launch their own branded websites for selling photo products such as albums, calendars, posters, and T-shirts.

The technology eliminates the need for consumers to log into an account or upload their photos before they can start creating their photo gifts. Rocket Life’s Smart Arrangement Technology intuitively lays out artistic designs and collages in a matter of seconds, not hours.

Photos can be manually cropped, rotated and manipulated with treatments such as tints, blurs, lighting, textures, text, and graphics. With Rocket Life’s real-time, photorealistic 3D renderings, consumers can visualize exactly what the photo end product will look like.

Digital Foci introduced two digital photo frames that can be adapted for use with whatever frame you choose—including a custom frame. Image Moments 15 has a 15-in. screen and can display 16.2 million colors. Image Moments 8 has an 8-in. screen and next-generation LED Backlight Technology. Both feature 256 MB of internal memory and built-in memory card slots.

ATP’s GPS Photo Finder is a portable photo accessory that makes it possible to “geotag” photos taken with any digital camera that is using JPEG image files. Geotagging allows users to tag images with the GPS coordinates for the locations at which the images were taken. “Imagine tracking your trip across Europe and being able to visually and geographically organize your photos afterwards,” says ATP’s Michael Plaskin. “With new applications such as photo-enabled GPS navigation around the corner, this technology will see significant growth in the next few years.” Google Earth and Picasa are two applications that currently support geotag data.

Bling! It software ($49.95) from Vertus makes it easy for anyone who sells products on eBay or Amazon to create more professional-looking product shots. With just a few clicks and on-screen guidance, users can seamlessly replace a standard image background with a more appealing backdrop and add drop shadows, highlight effects, and logos. “For the first time, anyone can create high-quality product shots capable of competing with studio-shot professional product images,” notes James Carr-Jones, president of Vertus. “With businesses of all sizes offering products through e-commerce outlets, and more than 4 million product images being uploaded everyday to eBay alone, the seller that makes the best impression online ultimately generates the most sales. Bling! It enables even the most casual seller to optimize potential revenue by making products truly stand out from the ever-growing crowd.