Fill your loot bags with birthday memories

Print and share your digital party pictures

By Peter K. Burian

We all snap lots of pictures during a child’s birthday party, but all too often we don’t share those photos with others.

“We took a lot of digital pictures during [my daughter’s] party last month, but so far, every single photo is in our computer,” says Tina Wood, a government office manager. “Although kids like to have photos of their parties and friends, we don’t make enough prints. My older daughters love going through photo albums of pictures of their friends when they were younger.”

If that experience sounds familiar, consider planning ahead for this year’s birthday parties. Try some of our innovative options for image sharing, and get rave reviews from both guests and family.

Take great party pictures

To prevent frustration on the big day, familiarize yourself with the camera’s features before the party. Practise shooting with and without flash. You’ll need an assistant — an older sibling or another parent — to make the prints while you’re busy supervising the party.

To take photos you’ll be proud to show and share, consider the following tips.

1. Snap a few formal shots. To create a few portraits, capture each guest as he or she arrives, posing with your child. Later, take a group shot with all guests. Use flash for nice, even lighting even if the group is outdoors.
   
   
2. Shoot candids. After taking the important posed photos, shoot like a news photographer, which is a lot less stressful than trying to control the situation. Capture spontaneous hugs, grins and ice cream dribbling down chins.
   
   Shooting candids isn’t as easy as it seems. Wood had trouble getting good shots because the camera was slow to respond and the kids didn’t stay still long enough for the photos to be sharp. If you experience this problem, try a pre-focusing technique.
   
   Another way to take candid photos is to start with a wide-angle shot to include the scene and then zoom in tightly for close-ups of expressions. And don’t forget action: if your camera includes continuous mode, activate it so that you can shoot several images in a series (fairly quickly if you’re not using flash).
   
   
3. Get the cake shot. For photos of the birthday boy or girl with the cake — while the candles are still lit — use ambient light only. Set the camera to Flash Off and select ISO 400. Many cameras have a special “party” setting for indoor environments that you could experiment with. Indoors in low light, brace your elbows on the back of a chair to prevent the camera from shaking.
   
   
4. Don’t miss the gifts. A key party photo includes the child amid colourfully wrapped gifts. Find a good shooting location in advance and get down to eye level. There’s no need to capture every individual present, but be sure to shoot before-and-after photos: your child with all of the wrapped presents and your child with gifts and mounds of wrapping paper.

Share images instantly

Plan to send the guests home with at least one souvenir photo in their loot bags.

“Children always like to see themselves playing games and having fun,” says Wood. Although she has sent photos to kids after the party, Wood thinks it would be great to make the prints right away. “That’s appealing because it would be a special item in addition to the usual small toys and candy.”

As soon as you have pictures of the cake and presents, ask your assistant to print some 4” x 6” glossies. Some portable photo printers and desktop models allow you to hook up the camera directly to the machine to print. The photos will look especially nice in inexpensive cardboard frames or mini photo albums. Your guests and their parents will be pleasantly surprised to receive party pictures on the same day.

Get creative with the photos you share

While the party is still fresh in everyone’s mind, download the images to your computer and organize the best shots in a new folder. Then, consider any of the following options for photo distribution.

• Create a slide show of the special day with Windows Movie Maker, a free application included with Windows Vista that lets you arrange pictures in any order and add narration, music and titles. Use the enhancing features in Windows Photo Gallery to correct colour, exposure and red-eye.
• Post some shots to a family web page or on a free photo-sharing or social networking site such as Windows Live Spaces. The process is simple and quick. Sign up for a membership and use the tools provided to upload photos. Then, invite others by e-mail to view the album; they can also order prints of their favourite pictures.
• Save your best JPEG photos to CDs or DVDs, and give them to others for sharing.