Happy New Year!

The adventure continues... what a quick two months it has been since I began working here, and I'm enjoying every minute... from working alongside Ann and Cathy on so many holiday gifts, to helping our customers on our photo kiosks. I love to see the creative things you all are doing!



Did you have a chance to stop by and enjoy a hot chocolate at our open house on December 12? It was wonderful meeting so many of you and hearing your stories of how you are preserving your memories. Speaking of that, check out this neat video about digital images caught on modern cameras. It is worth your time: www.youtube/watch?v=cGgUo2LrmPc



Why not make it a resolution to preserve your digital images by doing one or more of the following? You could burn them to CD or DVD, or back them up on a hard drive (or both, ideally!). Or, why not make prints of your favorites? Please contact us if we can assist you as you get started. We feel it is s0 important to be able to preserve these memories for future generations.



I will post again soon. Watch for info about new products, especially something that your teen/tween/granchild will love... colorful, personal, and sure to be envied!

Jen

The Excitement of "Being New"

Greetings!

My name is Jenifer Metz (you can call me "Jen") and I'm "new"! Ann and her crew at JMC asked me to spend a few hours a week with them, finding out what services are offered and helping tell you about what we do here. What an adventure!

It's exciting to look around me as a I write this -- there are machines producing beautiful prints for our customers, projects being completed on canvas and other types of media, older photos being restored or preserved digitally, and so on!

What a warm welcome I have received, and you'll feel the same way next time you drop by. The photo cafe' beckons our creative side, and the photo counselors here are ready to get us started on whatever our "I should do..." lists have on them.

I am excited to delve more deeply into my surroundings, to find out more about how I can get my holiday greetings produced (maybe even with a family photo including pets!), and to share what I am learning with you, our JMC Family!

Join me on this journey, and check back weekly. The adventure promises to continue being exciting with new discoveries around every corner. Maybe I'll even give you a peek at how my family's holiday cards turn out. (Don't forget to get started on yours -- info is at the bottom of the home page, and you can do it all from home!)

I love this place!

Stay tuned... and drop me a note at jmcpds@jmcpds.com if you have a question for me or a photo counselor at JMC.

Jen

So many pictures, so little time

Would you like to take advantage of the Live Love Laugh photo contest or the Hooray for Summer Special at JMC, but you have no idea how to find those favorite photos in your massive hard drive? Maybe you're looking for some special photos for a family reunion display or other project. The fact is, there are so many photos, and you don't know where to begin. Here are a few simple steps to get you started organizing:

1. Drag and drop all your photos into your "My Pictures" folder.
2. Add folders within that folder each year that you have photos for.
3. Within each year folder, add folders for big events, special occasions or by person.
4. Then start dropping the pictures in the appropriate folders.

Now you're well on your way! At least you can find what you're looking for.

Next, as time permits, look at the pictures in each folder, and delete the duplicate and blurry ones. This is a key step. If you cannot see what's in the photo, you will never use it, and it has to go!

This would also be the time to rename the keepers from names like DSCN26781 and HPIM3233 to names like AZMarathon1 and CampingTrip34. This will help others in the family quickly find photos later too.

If you go into this with a plan like the one outlined above, it will not seem so impossible. And once you get it done, your task of organizing any new photos will seem small.

Once your digital pictures are organized...oh, just think of all the possibilities!

Here or there?

We all make buying decisions everyday...where to buy groceries, clothes, auto parts...even photos. These numbers are really telling.

For every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that in a national chain, only $43 stays here. Spend it online and nothing comes home.

So many cute dogs!

April was in interesting month here at JMC. There's always something going on around here with families in the studio, customers working in the Photo Cafe and wedding picutures being printed. But we had some special visitors in April. Dogs! Yep, we dedicated Tuesdays and Thursdays to taking pictures of pets to benefit the Humane Society of Central Illinois. The dogs' families got some cute pics, and the HSCI got $250! Thanks to all the dogs that came in and made our month!

Featured in this picture is Sugar. Her mom is in Iraq, so her grandma brought her in to get her picture taken. I'm sure the troops will enjoy seeing her pics. She was such a sweetie!

April 15 -- Oh happpy day!

It's not a day that people are usually smiling, but it's a day we've declared as the start of a fun contest we're having to collect happy photos to share with our customers and friends. Click here for more info. Or, become a fan of JMC Photo and Digital Services on Facebook and get all the scoop, plus see the contest photos!

There's something about photos...

We've been busy at JMC, taking and processing photos, of course! Reflecting on the long winter months behind us now, one thing is clear. Photos create a sense of joy. Plain and simple. We saw this at our Valentine's Day event, and we saw it at the Pantagraph Kid's Expo at the Interstate Center. Our booth was next to the Zoo Lady, so we photographed many children with exotic paint on their faces. The kids -- whether painted or not -- were so fun to watch as they hopped up on the stool and posed for the camera. Many dressed up in our fancy boas and hats. Some made funny faces. It was just a good time, and I believe that's what photos do. As I write this, the temperature outside is 70 degrees for the first time this season. I know many people are outside right now, enjoying life. Soon I will be out there with them. I may even take a few photos to preserve the moment, and I encourage you to do the same. The photos we take today could come in handy on a rainy day later in the Spring.

Love is in the air!

It was a good weekend at JMC. Love was definitely in the air at our Valentine's Day event called Searchin' for Smooches. Quite a few of you come in to take advantage of the special deals on Valentine's Day photo gifts. We also took some pictures of grandmas, grandkids, husbands, wives and even high school sweethearts. It was fun to see you all, and see the photo projects you're working on. Thank you for stopping in and letting us help you share your love this February 14th. If you missed the event, stop in this weekend for specials on 4x6 reprints -- .13 on Friday the 13th, and .14 on Saturday the 14th. In the meantime, let me take the opportunity to say Happy Valentine's Day!

What is an external hard drive???

We've been asked to clarify some information in my previous post. Specifically, "What is an external hard drive?" To make sure I get it right, I consulted with the Photo Counselor's Computer Guru, Andy of Andy's Better Computer Business, and offer the following from him:

A hard drive is the physical data storage in your computer. An external hard drive is simply a box with a hard drive in it. External hard drives are what "techies" prefer to use for data storage because they can be updated with little or no interaction from the user.

Buyer beware. All though Maxtor is a large company, my experience is that their drives fail much more frequently than those of Seagate and Western Digital.

That in mind...using the software that comes with the drive is usually a trial software that will rope you into buying the license. It also many times compresses the data into a format that is not RAW (RAW meaning you can see it without the need for another application). We techies like data to be RAW so you don't need the software that came with the drive in case of failure.

In setting up external drives for my customers, I generally don't use the software that came with them. I set up a free program that works for you in a (what I consider) more satisfactory format. This format is simply a perfect duplicate of your original data.

To find out a bit more about this, I went to Best Buy's website, and searched for external hard drives. As you can imagine, there are a variety to choose from. The Western Digital brand offers 30, ranging in price from $95 for 250 GB of storage space to $340 for 2 TB of space. Average is obviously somewhere in the middle. The size you need depends on how much "stuff" you have on your computer.

I have not purchased my external hard drive yet, but I will do it soon (I promise!) and will write about it here, so you all can learn from my experience.

Until next time...

Lost Legacy...almost!

Working in a photo shop, you'd think I know how to protect my photos. We hear stories from people all the time who lost all their photos when their computer crashed. Well, it happened to me...almost.

I was on the computer one night in late December, and the lights blinked due an ice storm. Then they came back on. Then they went off again and right back on. When it was done, my computer displayed a very strange message. Trying to reboot only seemed to make things worse. My sweet hubby worked on it the following night for nearly 6 hours. Nothing. Seemingly, everything was gone.

Now, I have four kids. The three teenage girls all have digital cameras, and they have millions of photos. I also have a 3-year-old, and his whole life is documented on my computer. Why hadn't I backed up the computer????

The next day was Saturday, and I was desperate. I called a local computer fix-it company, and they said to bring my "tower" down to their shop. They ended up keeping it for about a week and, to make a long story short, they were able to save everything. The legacy that was almost lost was found. Whew!!

This whole thing cost me about $200, and, while I was glad to have my pics back, I didn't even have an external hard drive to show for it. That cost another $100, but I've got peace of mind now. The pics, and everything else on the computer, are safe. The legacy is ours to last a lifetime.

If your pictures could be in danger, don't procrastinate. Get an external hard drive, or burn everything to discs, and store your back-up in a different location. You won't regret it.

Excitement is in store for 2009

I am amazed at how much the photofinishing industry has changed over the last five years. Yes, I know digital imaging has been going on longer than that, but that’s when we at JMC finally took the plunge. And now, thanks to our new marketing director, Angela, we have a blog. Go figure. We never thought this would be a way we could communicate with our current customers and potential new ones. If Mom and Dad (Jim and Mary Charback, thus the JMC in JMC) could see us now, they would be in awe of the changes in total imaging and what the future has in store. It’s both exciting and scary.

So now we will be starting a new year with scads of ideas and possibilities for our customers, trying to help you create and preserve legacies with your pictures. I heard it said recently that pictures are not just for photos anymore. How true! Photo Books, collages, pillows, jigsaw puzzles, blankets, purses, mouse pads, mugs, and the list just keeps growing each year with ways to show off the images you have created. But let’s not forget the tried and true photo in a frame or album, or restoring and preserving those family images of yore. The old can become new again, opening up new possibilities of uses. There is a way for everyone to display their favorite photos, and we are here to help.

Cathy, Meghan, Angela and I look forward to this adventure and invite you to come along with us. Our first event of the year on February 6th and 7th will be “Searchin’ for Smooches” for Valentine’s Day. A wonderful opportunity to find that perfect Valentine’s Day gift for your loved one, whether they be a sweetheart, mom, dad, children, best friend or anyone special in your life. We will have great prices on reprints, collages, photo books and mini portrait sessions. Check back to the “Check it Out” section of our website in the coming weeks, or better yet, click here to join our mailing list & receive news and special deals!

The Photo Counselors at JMC wish you a wonderful New Year and look forward to helping you create a legacy with pictures.

Ann

Jump Drive and Away!

The thought occurred to me as I prepared to make my photo calendars in the Photo Cafe that I would have to figure out how to get my photos there. Almost all of our photos are electronic anymore, so I contemplated my options. Then I remembered the little jump drive I found in the laundry. Thank goodness I checked the pockets before those jeans went into the washer! The little gadget belongs to my oldest daughter, and she uses it with ease to transfer school work from home to college and back again. I simply plugged the thing into the front of my computer, dragged my photos to it as if I was putting them into any other folder, and away I went.


I want to buy my own jump drive, so did a bit of research and here's what I found, in case you'd like to get one too. They cost anywhere from a couple dollars to a couple hundred dollars. They are about the size of your thumb, and are sometimes even called thumb drives. Some call them flash drives or USB drives. I found them ranging in storage space from 1GB to 16GB, but reasonably priced (around $30.00) at even the higher number. Check out Amazon for a great variety and you, too, will "Jump Drive and Away."

Calendars for one. Calendars for all!

Every year, I am challenged by the holiday season. It's hectic, and it's expensive. Yet it's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. Having four kids, I put on a happy face every year and try to make the season as magical for them as I can. A fairly new tradition of my extended family is to draw names, rather than to buy gifts for everyone. This has reduced quite a bit of stress for me. However, since I have six in my family, I'm still on the hook for finding six gifts for people who really already have everything they want and need. This year, two of the names on my list happen to be Grandma & Grandpa. Also this year, I started working with this really cool photo shop here in B/N. The calendars at JMC are going to be the hit of our gift opening ceremony (there's always an unofficial competition to be the one who gave the most clever gift). Grandma's and Grandpa's love nothing more than grandkids. With a few pics and a little time in the Photo Cafe, I'll be well on my way this year to finishing my shopping and winning that competition on Christmas. Now, what to get those four kids? I know! Calendars for their lockers...see you in the Photo Cafe!

Have a seat on the virtual couch!

We're the type of counselors who can help you with your problems. Your photo problems, that is. If you've never heard of photo counselors before, that's because we are a rare breed. Sure, you will find lots of companies willing to print your photos, but you won't find many that are actually concerned with helping you preserving your memories, like JMC does. Just last week, I helped a family develop a memory book for their grandma & grandpa's 50 anniversary. Before that, it was a baby's baptism and a wedding abroad. Being a part of these most special events in people's lives is perhaps the best part of what I do. In fact, I'm so excited about it, I'm going to start documenting it here in this blog, all with the intent of giving you photo ideas from restoring old ones to storing new ones, and everything in between. Check back often, and I promise you'll be entertained with clever prose and tips on everything related to photos. Have a seat on the couch, as they say, and enjoy!