If we go back far enough in time, “more photos taken” meant “more photos printed.” As we all know, these days are long over. Most photos these days end up in the digital equivalent of the proverbial drawer and will never be printed.
Which photos do end up being used in a printed photo product? To start, these are photos that are so special that they are worth engaging with, such as by enhancing them through filters or other creative features, combining them with other photos, text or videos into digital stories, sharing them in some fashion on social media or through texting or emails to friends or family, or by using them in a photo print product, such as a 4x6 print, a photobook, calendar or wall décor product.
At our previous eight Visual 1st conferences we’ve spent much time exploring the latest trends among the various technology solutions that in the end determine whether photos are not just engaging-worthy, but also “printing-worthy.”
These technology solutions span the whole spectrum from photo capture, to curation, to enhancement, to sharing, to memory preservation, or to print product creation.
Photo capture solutions are, for instance, smartphone or other camera devices, or sophisticated photo camera software or apps.
Photo curation solutions enable the user to easily find the photos they care about, no matter on which device or cloud service they might reside.
Photo enhancement solutions span a large spectrum of technical as well as creative photo enhancement apps, ranging from server-based image enhancement solutions to creative filter, montage, or collage smartphone apps.
Photo sharing solutions include one-to-many, one-to-few (friends or family) and one-to-one solutions.
Memory preservation solutions help you to safely keep the photos that matter as memories for yourself of future generations to enjoy.
And, last but not least, photo print creation apps make it easy and enticing for consumers or businesses to create and order their photo print products.
The bottom line: while the end of this workflow — the photo print product creation apps — is crucial, it can only come into play for quality photos that are printing-worthy in the eye of the consumer.
This goes a long way of saying that if you’re in the businesses of selling B2C or B2B or B2B2C photo print product services, it’s good practice to keep tabs on not just the technology and business innovation trends among photo print solutions, but also among the rapid innovation occurring in the field of photo capture, curation, enhancement, sharing and preservation.
In other words, join us at Visual 1st, Oct. 19-20! And if you want to broaden your perspectives even more, stay another day for our DIY Video Summit, Oct. 21. (Both conferences are streamed and interactive, no need to travel this year)
