London Drugs photolab blog: In time for Mother's Day: Family Tree ...

I have a shoebox in my closet that?s filled with vintage family photos. Every year or so I stumble on this box of treasures, and I take a few minutes to browse through.

This made me think, how can I get these little gems out of my shoebox and somewhere where I can enjoy them year-round?

This month?s photo project is a family tree calendar, one that incorporates all of your loved ones, past and present. Here?s how I put mine together.

Step 1: Gather photos from your family tree. Look for vintage pictures of your ancestors, as well as close-ups of the newest members of the family. My calendar did not include every aunt and cousin (my extended family is massive), just the family members who are particularly close.

Step 2: Create your digital photo file. An essential step to creating any calendar is to place all of your images into one digital folder. First, copy your digital photos into the file, then scan the rest Remember to use the colour scan setting, even for black and white photos?this will capture the nuance and character of the aging paper copy. If you don?t have a scanner or the time to digitize your images, we can scan the photos for you at any London Drugs photolab counter.

Step 3: Divide your photos into dates. Birthdates, wedding dates, special occasions, or times the photos were taken?any date that is significant to the photo and your family. My photo calendar has one main image and several small images on specific days. If you wish, you can place a picture on every day of the year.

Step 4: Decide how you will create your calendar. Home Edition software is free and easy to use, and our staff can always help if you have questions. Alternatively, you can bring your images into our store and let us build your calendar. It costs $25 for us to build a calendar without text?ask at the counter for details.

Step 5: If you are building your own calendar, open Home Edition and choose your calendar size and format. We now offer new sizes and formats for calendar?I selected the new 8?x12? coil bound calendar. It?s a smaller size that fits perfectly by my phone. You will then be prompted to select your photos. Choose your digital photo file.

Step 6: Choose your main pictures. For each month, you can have one or more main photos. For this calendar, I stuck with one main photo. To keep with the vintage feel, I opted for a sepia filter, black background, and a simple white border.

Step 7: Create ?events? for the special days in each month. You can add an image and caption that will be displayed on this day.

Step 8: Upload your completed file to London Drugs. Your calendar will be ready for pickup within a few days.
My family tree calendar turned out beautifully. Each month is a lovely combination of the generations, a heartwarming way to look at the weeks ahead.

Questions? Come to a Home Edition workshop!

Throughout May, every photolab counter will be holding session in-store on how to build photobooks, calendars, and greeting cards.

• How to create a photobook will be held twice, morning and afternoon, on both Saturday May 12th and Saturday May 19th.
• How to create greeting cards will be held three times a day on Sunday May 13th and Sunday May 20th.
• How to create calendars will be held twice, morning and afternoon, on Wednesday May 16th and Wednesday May 23rd.

See your store for exact session times.

Written by Angela Ford, Amateur Photographer

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