News

ThePictureShop.com Introduces New Fun Way to Share Memories

Just came back from a vacation with hundreds of photos on your digital camera? Like most people, you probably cannot wait to have them developed. But after sorting through hundreds of digital images and having them developed at your neighborhood photo store, you end up just filing them in those cheap, free, slip-on albums, or worse, in a shoebox. A new online venture, ThePictureShop.com, offers Filipinos a different way of sharing memories – the PictureBook.

What are Picture Books?

PictureBooks (sometimes also referred to as Photo Books) are a new, fun and unique way of preserving your precious memories as captured by film or digital cameras. Instead of the usual method of taking pictures; developing it; then filing in an album, you just upload the digital images to ThePictureShop.com where it will be arranged into an album- or book-like format measuring 7 inches wide by 5 inches tall (or the same size as a 5R photo) complete with captions and artistic effects. The pages will be professionally bound using a spring or wire bind to maximize the viewing area, while at the same time, making it easy to flip the pages.

A single PictureBook can contain up to a maximum of twenty (20) pages, and can have up to eighty (80) photos. Photos are arranged in different ways based on pre-designed templates. You use the PictureBook Maker to choose the layout you want, and to tell us which picture goes to which location.

“Our customers like the fact that it is very handy,” says Ms. Colleen Tan, managing partner of ThePictureShop.com. “At 5x7 inches, you can easily slip it into your bag and show your friends. And at an affordable price of P750.00, that is cheaper than developing 80 x 5R photos and buying an album to store them.”

There are a few online do-it-yourself album printing sites abroad. But what makes ThePictureShop.com’s service different and unique from the rest is it employs a human touch to the PictureBooks. Each photo that goes into a PictureBook is manually enhanced and color corrected by hand. Digital photos printed on a PictureBook typically looks better than the original one that is normally sent to the photo developing shop. This is because ThePictureShop.com uses several tools first to adjust the image to realize its true potential. These include:

• Brightening under-exposed pictures
• Improving the color balance and hue saturation
• Adjusting the contrast
• Making flesh tones look more natural
• Red-eye reduction and removal

Once all the photos have been enhanced, they are layed out by hand using the pre-designed template or style sheet that the customer specified using the freely downloadable PictureBook Maker software. Layouting by hand ensures the utmost aesthetic effects that cannot possibly be duplicated by machine-automated layouting. Manual layouting also allows for odd-sized photos such as panoramic shots which are normally truncated or cropped by machine-based layouting.

PictureBooks are not limited to photos. Customers can also scan handwritten notes that they would want to be included. This will give the PictureBook a personalized and scrapbook-like feel. Other possible combinations include scanning images of train tickets, stamps, show tickets, maps and other memorabilia that the customer want to associate with their travel or event photos.

ThePictureShop.com accepts online payments using the award-winning Mozcom PayEasy Online Payment System. PayEasy has been awarded the Best E-Business Product for E-Services Philippines 2006 by the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM) of the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). PayEasy supports all the major credit cards, Bancnet/Megalink ATM cards, PayPal, G-Cash, Smart Money, UCPB my1Time, China UnionPay and Malaysia's iPay88. PayEasy supports offline over-the-counter bank payments at EastWest Bank, Banco de Oro and Chinabank.

For more information, visit http://www.thepictureshop.com or call/text (0920)950-9074.