Digital Holiday Photo Cards: Making the Right Choice
As a stationer, I am often asked whether digital Christmas photo cards are “better” than 4″x 6″ photos mounted on a personalized holiday card. There really is no simple answer to this question, but I will share a few insights that might be useful to consider when making your choice.
While the reproduction quality of digital photos has improved significantly, photographs developed commercially still have an edge. This should not be surprising since commercially developed photographs are produced under ideal printing conditions using papers specifically designed to create uniform quality prints. While I have seen exceptional digital prints using high resolution ink-jet printers on archival papers, this printing technique is best left to professionals.
Digitally-reproduced holiday photo cards are generally less expensive than photographs mounted on Christmas greeting cards. The price of digital photo cards is generally a function of the paper stock and quality of the design templates. While some photo cards resemble commercial mailers, some leading design companies have beautiful frames to enhance the setting of your photograph.
There is a common misconception that “it is easier” to select a digital holiday card than a conventional photo-mount Christmas photo card. This is certainly not the case. When you print digitally you have an unlimited range of color options. I have personally witnessed the frustration than sets-in when a buyer is faced with so many design and color options to print their digital photographs. Pre-designed frames from leading paper companies are generally of much higher quality than the limited template selection provided by most online printers.
William Arthur, one of the leading holiday photo card designers, provides the consumer with the option of using photo-mounts or having the photo imprinted digitally on the same high quality paper stock. The price of William Arthur’s holiday photo card is the same regardless of which printing process is chosen. While the quality of photo prints is better than digitally reproduced images, printing your William Arthur photo card digitally can save you time and $0.19 per photograph print.
To see all of the printing options available, we suggest that you contact a Guild member store in your neighborhood to see which printing process works best for your family photograph this holiday season.
Richard W. May
Therese Saint Clair
October 14th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Last year we invested heavily in photo cards as we traditionally do very well with them. Unfortunately, the economy, coupled with the move to digital photos left us with lots of inventory.
This year we have decided not to purchase additional photo cards and have reduced prices on our existing inventory 30%.
Let’s see what happens this year -
October 14th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
We had a similar situation. Difficult to judge people’s spending patterns. The few digital holiday cards we received were quite horrific (many of them looked like commercial advertisements). Personally, I still think photographs are the best option, but some of the fine paper companies do have some attractive digital solutions this year. Hope all goes well with you.
November 1st, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I still believe photographs are the best option but feel the push from younger consumers to digital. If the client is featuring a wedding photo or one of life’s milestone events I have a pretty easy time convincing them to stick to a photograph…compliments will take you far. I almost refuse to do a digital card the only has the photo on the front. We are in So. Cal surrounded by the entertainment industry. I remind my clients of the tradition of a “greeting” card. Photo only cards can seem like an ungraceful, look at us statement and almost like a headshot publicity picture common in our So Cal location.