Shocker: Cameraphone Photos Not Printed
from the who-prints-digital-photos... dept
Apparently printer makers are freaking out that, even as cameraphone popularity grows, no one is actually printing out cameraphone photos. Of course, in reading this, it seems like they're skipping a step. Are people printing out any digital camera photos, whether or not they're from cameraphones? While some people definitely do, plenty of people (especially of the younger generations who are more likely to jump on the cameraphone bandwagon) are probably perfectly happy in most cases to simply store their photos online for viewing. Printing out photos seems sort of archaic. Trying to convince people to print them out, as the printer makers are apparently doing, seems sort of pointless. It's like convincing new automobile owners that they should hook up a horse to pull the vehicle.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Camera phone
I can act like a tourist and snap away.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Excessive Costs
This fee is on top of the actual cost to print the photo. Maybe this explains why camera phone photos are not being printed on paper.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Paper vs. Plastic
We have 100-year-old family photos, printed on paper, that I can look at right now. They were stuck in an old trunk, untouched for decades, but we were able to take them out and look at them. What if, ten years ago, I had saved all of my digital photos on 5.25 inch disks and stuck them in the back of a drawer? If I came across those disks today I would not be able to view the photos, they would be lost forever.
Will CD's be around for 100 years? What about DVDs? Do I have to get out all of my digitized photos every five years and transfer them to the latest storage medium?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Paper vs. Plastic
If I can't transfer the pictures diretly to my computer I'm not going to spend additional $$$ to send them to a service & THEN pay again to print them
thats what I have a Kodak digital camera with a USB cord for.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Paper vs. Plastic
I printed some pictures 3 years ago, and they are all green now.
However, the 100 year photos were printed (developed) with special chemicals and paper which in fact can last up to 150 years.
Black and white photography the the only long term solution. Everything else sucks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Paper vs. Plastic
Some inkjet prints will fade IF NOT TAKEN CARE OF. That is, don't expose it to sunlight and etc. Also, certain combination of specific inks and paper will fade faster than others. That's reality.
Also, there are two types of inks out there for consumers, dye and pigment. Pigments are supposed to last longer than dyes by at least 50-75 years by some estimates. However, sometimes they don't look as good.
Bottom line, not all prints fade after 3 years. That's just dumb to say that so blanketly.
Lastly, cameraphone photos are so tiny compared to a point and shoot digital cam that they are hardly worth printing unless it's really that important.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Paper vs. Plastic
Your tale of the family photos is probably atypical, I see fading already in pictures taken not 15 years ago. Your photos will fade eventually. What's more, you can't reprint them. You can't make copies. You can't distribute them to family members. They could all be destroyed in a basement flood or other disaster and be lost forever.
To address your example of 5.25 inch disks, hundreds of those disks could fit on today's CDs. You can fit many CDs on a DVD. Maybe this isn't the answer you're looking for, but yes you should get all of your photos out every 5-10 years and transfer them to a new storage medium. But you won't be getting out dozens of 5.25 inch disks. Each upgrade in storage medium will have a larger capacity. If all of your previous photos took up a certain amount of space, on the next storage medium upgrade you'll probably have double that capacity. With each upgrade you'll have fewer and fewer disks to handle. To address my point earlier about a basement flood, this new medium could be easily copied and backups could be distributed to many locations.
In conclusion, I cannot agree with you. Digital storage has so much greater flexibility that I cannot think of doing it any other way. (also note that you can do digital AND printed, if you wish)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Thieves!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Printing out digital photos
[ link to this | view in chronology ]