PHOTOS and VIDEO
First of all, one of my favorite things to do is to take pictures with a digital camcorder as well as a regular digital camera. With both of these instruments, I can load the images into my computer, edit them, and then load them back onto either of these cameras. For the digital camera, the media is a floppy disk. This makes it very easy to load the pictures onto my hard drive. In case you don’t like them, even after you edit them, then you can simply delete them. Once I’ve stored enough pictures onto my hard drive I can make a more permanent copy by creating a CD with my CD burner. For videophiles you can also edit your videos to your heart’s content and when you are completely satisfied you can again make a Video CD or DVD with your CD or DVD burner. If you have the right hardware, you may also be able to transfer are your video images back to a VHS tape format. What makes all of this possible is the device that I really love using called the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge, which was reviewed in the PC Alamode in the October, 2002 Multimedia theme issue.

Occasionally, I use my older 35mm camera to take pictures and after I have the pictures developed, I can either scan them into the hard drive and then edit them or I can use a new (to me) device that is on loan for review and that is something called a slide and film scanner. This device, the PrimeFilm 1800 from Pacific Digital lets you take slides and scan them to your hard drive so that you can then edit them. It also works with print film negatives. This is a somewhat expensive device. However, if you are serious about digitizing your old slides and film negatives into images on your computer that you can edit and command digitally, then you might want to consider another product, because the results I have had with this product have been rather poor. The best part of this product is that it comes equipped with Adobe Photoshop Elements so that you can edit your images as needed.

PRINTING IMAGES
What can you do with all of these images you are putting on your hard drive? Well, as you all know, for one, you can print them out. Different kinds of paper are available and can be used. Depending on the quality of your image, your inkjet printer can make excellent prints of your digital images. What I have used successfully is an Epson Stylus Photo 820 printer, which produced better results than any of the Lexmark, HP or Xerox printers I have used in the past. I would like to note that this is my first experience with a printer manufactured and designed with printing of photos as a primary goal. So naturally, I expect it to work better than the earlier inkjet printer models and it does not disappoint. Another point of note is that this product now sells for under $100.00. There are many higher cost models available, which will probably produce significantly better results. The last fact that hits home with me is that printing digital photos uses a lot of ink, no matter what printer you own and you will need to take the price of replacement ink into consideration before you make your decision on a photo printer.

DIGITAL PEN
Last, but certainly not least is something called the Logitech digital io pen. This device is an actual ink pen that writes with regular blue ink. However, it is much more than that. When used with a “digital notebook” the pen’s built-in memory records exactly what you write, draw or scribble on the page. The notebook pages have millions of tiny dots imbedded in the paper in a specified pattern. Therefore, whatever you write on the page is recorded in the pen. Once the pen is docked to it’s docking station which connects to the computer via a USB port, then that pages images (handwritten text, drawings, doodles or whatever) are downloaded into the software. The io software allows you to create an e-mail or make a Word document from this digital image. You can also print it out which would allow you to provide multiple copies to others of any notes or comments you wanted them to share. For example, this month I have been teaching a graduate course in Group Counseling at The University of Texas at San Antonio. The class is divided into two groups and they are provided with observations and feedback from me that I write at the time they are conducting their training groups. I simply e-mail the feedback comments directly to them after they are downloaded from the io pen.

These are just a few of the things I use in the “computer output” area to make my computer a more fun and valuable tool.