Here’s a lesson my sister-in-law learned the hard way while crafting my parents Christmas gift: Disable your camera’s date and time stamp if you plan to use the images to create a photo calendar.
My mom and dad received a gorgeous 2012 calendar from my brother and sister-in-law this morning. It is filled with colorful pictures of my young nephew’s first trip to Disneyland, Sea World and Legoland, plus dozens of candid shots of other family members. However, each of the images also features tiny numbers listing the date and time the photo was snapped. The date and time are great to have if you are scrapbooking photos, but otherwise the numbers simply serve as an eye sore.
When you enable the date and time stamp on your camera you are stuck with viewing the numbers on your photos, unless you own Photoshop. The photo-editing software program has a tool that can erase the numbers. However, if you don’t own Photoshop the numbers will appear on any item you add the photos to, including posters, mouse pads, t-shirts, mugs or tote bags.
Naturally, there are some photographers who live and die by their time and date feature. They argue that the stamp enables them to better organize their photos. A woman I used to work with swore by her camera’s date and time stamp. She maintained that since she took so many pictures, it was nearly impossible for her to remember which shot came first. Having the date stamped on her photos enabled her to place her photos in chronological order without suffering an aneurysm in the process.
If you can’t stand seeing your pictures marred by tiny numbers printed in the bottom corner, consider disabling the time and date stamp on your camera. The majority of new cameras will store the date and time information within the image file, without it appearing on the picture itself, so you can always look up when the photo was taken without having it burned onto your images.
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