So, You Just Got a Digital Camera – Now What? Turn On Your PC and Make the Magic Happen
REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 17, 1998 — Plummeting prices and highflying features are turning digital cameras into today’s gadget of choice for small-business owners. Digital cameras promise unprecedented convenience and huge savings in reduced costs for film and processing. There’s just one problem: What do you do with one once you have it?
Well, just about everything. People are adding photos to business cards and flyers; creating picture-perfect greeting cards and calendars; and producing original, photo-based artwork never before possible. How? By combining a digital camera with new photo-editing software that turns today’s PC into an advanced photo-processing shop.
“We have streamlined our operation, lowering costs and handling time required to create sales materials by moving to Picture It!
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2.0 and a Kodak digital camera,” said Alan Greenstein, director of information systems for Hoss Equipment Co. in Irving, Texas. “Digital cameras are quickly becoming a standard PC accessory – but realize that capturing an image is only half the story. What you can do with that image depends on powerful software to edit, enhance and organize those images and to create professional-looking sales sheets and Web pages. Picture It! has afforded us the opportunity to get pictures of our products to our customers faster and easier than ever.” Hoss Equipment Co. uses Picture It! with a Kodak DC120 digital camera in combination with an HP PhotoSmart scanner and printer.
Microsoft® Picture It! personal imaging software is becoming the photo-editing software of choice. It’s a comprehensive product for image capturing, photo editing and creativity, cataloging, printing, and sharing photos over the Internet. It serves as a darkroom, photofinishing counter and slide projector – all on the PC.
Picture It!, the leader in the imaging category, outsold its competition more than 2 to 1 on revenue this December, according to PC Data*, and was the hands-down favorite at the most recent COMDEX computer trade show, taking home nearly every top award from leading publications, including PC Magazine’s 1997 Product of the Year, PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice, and PC/Computing’s MVP. Picture It! was also Family PC’s Family-Tested Winner.
So how are businesses using digital cameras and Picture It! to do things they could never do before?
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Instant electronic postcards. Until now, personalized photo postcards were often only a once-a-year holiday ritual requiring a trip to the photo shop and a big print run. Now, they can be used as reminders to clients and direct mail pieces.
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Direct to the Web. Adding photos to Web sites is easy with Picture It!, making interactive materials easily updateable, providing small businesses with the most recent information available.
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Your own darkroom. Picture It! makes it easier than ever to produce professional-quality business cards, flyers, brochures, calendars, certificates and report covers with great photos cropped just the way you want them. It’s easy to crop, move, resize, flip or rotate pictures into new positions. Place your photo on your business card.
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Your own photofinishing studio. That photograph may not look like much when you import it from your camera, but there’s no reason it has to stay that way. Picture It! makes it easy to remove red-eye, correct colors, eliminate dust and scratches, and adjust for the perfect levels of brightness and contrast.
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Express unlimited creativity. Professional artists create stunning works by painting and drawing on top of photographs. With Picture It!, anyone can do the same thing on a computer. Picture It! includes virtual airbrushes, pencils, chalk and rubber stamps that allow people to express their creativity more freely and easily than ever – and without the messy cleanup.
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The perfect portrait. Used with a high-resolution digital camera or a scanner , Picture It! makes it easy to produce great photos for use as marketing tools, such as brochures, sales manuals and presentation portfolios.
Picture It! 2.0 is the photo-editing software packaged with Hewlett-Packard’s popular PhotoSmart printer, scanner and the new PhotoSmart C20 digital camera, and with HP Pavilion PCs. It is also the photo-editing software for Kodak’s Kodak® Image Magic
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Print Service and includes links to the Kodak Picture Network.
Picture It! is currently available for the estimated retail price of $54.95 with a $10 (U.S.) rebate for users of previous versions. Customers can call (800) 426-9400 for more information on a reseller in their area. They can also learn more about Picture It! and obtain free Picture It! trial software from the Microsoft Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/pictureit/ (connect-time charges may apply).
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
* PC Data, a Reston, Va., market research firm, tracks sell-through data in units and dollars at 42 retail chains and mail order companies representing more than 70 percent of U.S. retail sales.
Microsoft and Picture It! are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Kodak and Image Magic are trademarks of the Eastman Kodak Company.
Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
