Breaking News!

[Mhayes]

Hi Everyone,

I have some bad news! I am afraid that we will be loosing our free printing service.  Late last night, Scott Crossen of DigMyPics sent us an email explaining that their source for printing, Qualiex, was being shut down by Kodak effective mid-Feb. Because printing never was profitable for DigMyPics and the fact they would have to rewrite their software if they were to find another provider, they decided they could no longer afford to offer this service. Plus, right now 2009 is looking to be a real challenge for businesses.

Scott wanted us to get as many of our photos ready for print so that we could take advantage of free printing and shipping before the deadline. We owe Scott and DigMyPics a huge amount of gratitude for what they have given us! Not only did we get free printing and shipping, but their customer service was tops!

I am going to ask that all of you to make an effort to get your photos in before the end of the January. Also, before you upload back to PhotoShelter, do a check list on your photo. Make sure that the photo is in the correct color space, resolution is 300 dpi and that your dimensions on the photo have stayed the same as the original. If a crop was necessary, let us know and also change the extension to reflect it. Give your photo one last going over at 100% or higher to catch any errors that you might have missed. Thanks in advance as this will be a big help to all of us as we race to get them ready.

Once the deadline comes, we will still be sending photos back to the families, but it will come out of our budget. Yes, things will be tight, but I am confident that we will find ways to make this work.

Thanks everyone for your help! Because of all of you, OPR was able to get our backlog down and we are still hoping to be able to do some more copy runs this year.

Margie

[Ausimax]

Hi Margie, This is not good news, but indicative of the times I'm afraid. What happened to the other company, Pacific Printing, I think who used to do it for us?

Another alternative that may have to be looked at in light of our restricted budget is returning the photos as digital files on Cd's. At least the people would still be getting the restorations done - the expensive bit - and would still be able to view their photos on computer or take the disk to a printing service and get those they particularly wanted printed.

These days with computers and digital photo frames, there isn't the same need to have prints, I know I never get any of my photos printed and I can do that myself, instead I have spent a lot of time scanning my old prints to digital files.

The cost to OPR would be less as it doesn't cost much for a CD or for their postage - may be worth thinking about.

Max

[Mhayes]

Hi Max,

The company that used to do it was West Coast Imaging, which was great when we had a gift of $1,000 towards printing. However, there was some problems in turnaround time and the fact that one person had to be responsible for separating out the photos and then packaging them back up and going to the Post Office to ship out. Angela did this for the longest time and then Christine took it over as well as being president. This can be quite a chore that will drag anyone down trying to keep up. Jan is now handling the printing and the ease of doing this online and having it shipped for you is wonderful!

I was all for a CD or perhaps a digital storage place for the families. The problem always comes down to the copyright issue. I also have a little problem with this as I understand the trouble we could get into by having a studio's print on a CD where they can make endless copies. However, I'm not so sure if I understand the idea when a lot of these photos were taken by the owner. Also, on some of the studio prints, they could be 15+ years old and the studio would either be gone or not have the originals for reprinting. Needless to say I do like the idea of CDs.

Margie

[cmpentecost]

Needless to say, I was sad to read the news about the loss of OPR's donated printed services.  West Coast Imaging was fantastic, but....as I'm sure Angela can attest to, it was a chore and a half to sort through the many photos and then take them all to the post office. (I'm sure the post office is missing me!!!). 

I think this is a great time for suggestions of how OPR can continue to move forward with the restorations and most importantly, getting these restored photos printed.  If anyone has ideas, this is a great place to post them.  Let's keep OPR going strong!   :up2:

Christine

[Ausimax]

Hi,

I know that the copyright issue always seems to raise its ugly head, but I can't really see what would be the problem here, we are virtually restoring these photos as agents of the owners.

The studio photos we work on, we probably make enough changes to negate the original copyright, and burning them to CD does away with the problem of getting a photo lab to print them if they have issues with copyright.

As for the matter of the owner having them on CD where they can make endless copies - they can scan their own photos to CD and do the same thing,or conversely if they have a photo quality printer print as many copies as they like. The owners may have trouble getting the studio photos printed themselves at a photo print store.

I'm not saying this is the only answer, however if we can't find another business that will to come to the party and provide free printing, it is at least a way we could continue to help these people in a way we could afford.

Another benefit, if the people get flooded again their photos would survive on a CD.

Max

[Dave]

Max,

Copyright law is tricky. I deal with it everyday at the newspaper where I work. I'm forever having to stop people I work with from violating the law on a daily basis.

I'm against the CD idea because of the copyright issue. The last thing OPR needs is any kind of legal trouble. If we think the cost of printing will be tough, just think about what legal fees would cost the organization should someone decide to sue  OPR for copyright infringement.

Derivative works such as OPR restorations could also be considered copyright violations according to U.S. copyright laws. Additionally, the law states that the copyright of any work created after January 1, 1978 endures for the life of the author plus 70 years after the author's demise.

With that said, I'm not a copyright lawyer. Maybe if we can't find another volunteer printing service we should spend a little money seeking proper legal counsel to determine if we can distribute the images via CD.

Let's exhaust all options before we head down a potentially dangerous path.

Dave

[Candice]

As long as you're returning the photos to the owner, even on CD, there is no copyright infringements.  At that point suggestions could be made to the owner where they could get quality prints made. 

I've used Kodak and find that their service is very good.   I know there are others out there, but it's a thought.

Bets

[Dave]

(MESSAGE EDITIED AT 9:12AM EST ON 1/13/09)

When OPR was established, the goal was to replace a print with a print. That should still be our goal.

Copyright issues aside, let's say we're going to start providing CD's instead. Where are our clients going to get their images printed? If it's a family snapshot then they should experience no problems whatsoever. But, if it's a studio shot or anything else that the photo tech at the local Wal-Mart deems as too professional looking then they're going to run into difficulty. What about the image owners who don't have access to a computer? What good is a CD to those folks?

CD's seem to be a simple answer, but it's also a heavily burdened process. Who's going to burn them (my computer only has one CD slot, so that's going to slow the process down)? Who's going to package them up and mail them? I speak from experience when I say no one wants to take on this kind of responsibility.

CD's will not produce the right results for our clientele. Let's not provide our clients with extra work or something they can't use at all. They have enough to contend with while putting their lives back in order.

Our system runs great when we have a printer that handles the shipping. It takes a lot of the work off of the administration and it gets the restorations back into the hands of the owners more quickly.

Dave

[Atlantis]

Thanks everyone for your help! Because of all of you, OPR was able to get our backlog down and we are still hoping to be able to do some more copy runs this year.

Does this mean what we see in the galleries now is the last left to restore? That would be great news for the families.

[Mhayes]

There are still some more to be uploaded, but we are getting close to getting them all out there.

Margie