It started out as an ambition to get our honeymoon photos organized. Then it was the definite temptation of a free trip :). But in the end, it was the process of making the site that became the ultimate prize. It not only brought back wonderful memories but it has brought us so many new travel buddies! Thank you for your kind words and warm wishes. It is always a pleasure to hear that you enjoyed it and that it had enticed you of the charming villages of France!

A lot of people asked us about the technical details of how we "made the scrapbook". Perhaps it's because anyone who owns a digital camera has at one time or another faced the daunting task of getting their photos organized. Yes they made taking the pictures very very easy. But no, as of getting the thousands of digital photos organized, even the shoebox doesn't work out well. And so most of them end up sitting on the hard drives of our computers.

Making a digital scrapbook is time consuming. We are certainly not experts. But below is a list of things that we learned from making this scrapbook:

  • The software is Adobe Photoshop. Features used: sizing, cropping, text tool, layers, masks & filters.
  • Camera really doesn't matter much, light and perspective does.
  • People make photos interesting. That's why we loved Linda Wilson's Scrapbook!
  • Used the highest resolution setting of the camera.
  • Used the highest quality sizing algorithm of the software. In Photoshop, it's bicubic.
  • Added text as the last step of the composition, that is, after all the sizing of the images were done.
  • It really is a difficult trade off between presenting the photo at its original scale vs. making a navigatable site so that viewers don't have to scroll too much.
  • Avoided HTML tags that make moving things on a page.
  • Gave up on thinking what Rick wants, but rather what enchanted us and what we wanted as our honeymoon momento.

    And yes of course you can copy the postcard format for your own personal use! :)

    • © 2001-2002     Tong Acken,    Acken Studio