1. What does this service do for me ?

How would you like to have your Digital Image printed on professional Kodak Photographic paper? Look no further; this is exactly what Panoramic Network does for you! Today, if you want to print your digital image, you can use an Ink Jet printer, a Dye Sublimation printer or a Color Laser printer. Panoramic Network provides you with an additional solution: Panoramic Network will Link automatically to the Lab and will process your Digital Photos.

2. What kind of software do I need to access this Service ?

We have two solutions: The first is an application called Panoramic Network software, which you can download, from our site. Once you easily install this 1.4 MB file, you will be lead through an easy intuitive process (WIZARD technology) to select and prepare the images you want printed, and push a button and let your PC do the rest; it will automatically dial Panoramic Network. Our second solution is an online shopping cart that will allow you to upload all your files and select what you want to get printed.

3. What kind of Picture can I Upload ?

You can print any computer images as long as we read the file format. Currently, we support JPEG, TIFF (uncompressed), BMP, TGA and FLASHPIX.

4. What about other files formats ?

As the Panoramic Network application needs to be as small as possible to enable quick Internet download, each additional format would make the application bigger. Therefore, we have decided to include only the most popular file formats. Please keep in mind that not every image will have the quality that you and Panoramic Network have come to expect. This may be a result of resolution problems. If this is about to happen, the Panoramic Network application will alert you with a warning each time it detects a possible deficiency in your picture. You will then have the option to print or not to print the image.

5. What should I do to prepare images ?

We should point out that a traditional Photographic print has a resolution that is superior to all current computer color print technologies. Therefore, it is necessary that the image you upload should have a sufficient number of pixels and colors.
Number of pixels : this is generally called resolution. The first generation of Digital Cameras, that are no longer sold, carry a resolution of 320 x 200. Photos taken with such Cameras are great for WEB usage and other PC illustrations, but they are not adequate for printing on professional photographic paper.

In order to produce a satisfactory photographic print, your Electronic Photo should have at least a resolution of 600 x 400 in its original size. You should also remember that photographic films have a specific rectangle ratio of 24 x 36, which corresponds to a width of 3 for an height of 2. In the PC world, the rectangle ratio is different : 640 x 480. This comes from the fact that PC's are mostly screen dependent, and today these screens have this other ratio. This produces a difficulty when printing a computer based image to traditional photographic paper. Therefore, the Panoramic Network application enables you to crop to a 2 x 3 ratio. If you select "Crop", you will be able get a print without any borders.

We should also mention that a 600 x 400 image has just enough resolution to print a 4" x 6" photo. You will notice that the Panoramic Network application will warn you if you try to send an image that does not have enough resolution, still you will be able to bypass the warning and upload such an image, but the result will be a poor quality print in most of the cases.

6. What should I do to print frames in my pictures ?

With any Image Editing Software you may be interested in composing some of your pictures with frames. Various machines used by photofinishers print differently, and the printing of the exact perimeter of your picture will vary from one photofinisher to the other, some cutting into the total picture and some others not. Should you be interested in printing frames around your pictures, make sure you put some white borders around the frame to ensure that the frame is printed in its entirety. Then you can trim the framed pictures at your end.

7. Does Panoramic Network offer a discount for larger orders?

Quantity discounts are considered, although it is dependent upon the particular order. For example, if a customer requests over one-hundred copies of a single image they would receive a discount on the order. To get a quote in less than 24 hours please e-mail us at orders@panoramic.net.

8. Can Panoramic Network mail prints outside the continental United States?

Panoramic Network is able to ship to the United States and Canada at this time. We are planning on expanding our geographic coverage to many more countries. We will announce this as soon as our plan is final. Please check back or let us know that you'd like to be on our mailing list for new announcements, just e-mail us with the words "mailing list" in the subject box at orders@panoramic.net.

9. What is a Compression Warning ?

Some models of digital cameras allow for a choice of a level of Quality. This is an option that is sometimes labeled as Low, Medium or High Quality. This refers to the level of compression of the picture. The simple rule is, the higher the quality (i.e. the level of the factor of compression), the better the prints will be. Since there are so many variables in reaching an optimal result, the best recommendation we have is to tell you: don't compress too much. 

One thing you should note is that once you have compressed, there is no coming back. You cannot 'decompress' and recover the original look of your picture. Also, the compression factor is independent , from the resolution of your picture. When you compress, you don't reduce resolution, but simply intentionally deteriorate the picture. In any case your software will warn you if compression is too high.

10. How can I upload images from my Digital Camera ?

Your Digital Camera is supplied with software that enables you to transfer the Photos from the the camera to the PC. While you are doing this transfer, make sure that you select JPEG or FLASHPIX file format. Note : today very few Digital Cameras does supports the FLASHPIX file format, but it is expected that this situation will change. Saving such format on your disk will do the job.

11. Can I print scanned images ?

A scanner is an excellent source of digital images. The only thing you should keep mind is to scan with enough resolution to match our new type of color printing technology. However, we do not want to let you scan in too high resolution, which will put you in a situation where the file is too large and therefore will occupy a lot of your disk space and will take too much time to be transferred over your modem. A good alternative is to try to get a file with a resolution between 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768. This will give you a trade-off between quality, disk space and modem transmission time. Select TIFF Color 24 bit or JPEG as the file format to save. Check our Scanned Image Resolution Guide for a chart on how best to scan your photographs for print.

12. Can I print images from my camcorder ?

Logitech and Play offer a device called SNAPPY. We have tested this device with a Camcorder and made prints out of them. We should say that the print quality we have obtained using a HI-8 Camcorder is outstanding. Using the application supplied with SNAPPY, we recommend selecting a 800 x 600 resolution, and saving the file using JPEG file format. The Panoramic Network application will be able to collect such images and upload it.

13. Can I print from my "Image to Floppy" ?

Yes : We have tested different "Image to Floppy" suppliers, and tried to upload them with the Panoramic Network application. For a few of them, a warning mention popped out in the screen, but for most of them, when bypassing the warning we got an acceptable quality print. But, the selected print size should not be larger than 4" x 6" (10 x 15 cm).

14. Are GIF files good enough to be printed ?

The GIF file format is widely used for Digital Images, but we should all remember that all GIF images are limited to 256 colors (often called 256 color palette). Beside its limited number of colors, GIF is a format that is compressed (without any losses), and therefore, its characteristics are such that for screen display (that still often are limited to 256 colors too), GIF is an appropriate format because files are small. This is the reason that GIF is one of the standard formats used over the INTERNET. But, if you try to upload and print as a GIF originated file (i.e. after converted the file from GIF to JPEG), you will have poor results because of the lack of number of colors. It may looks attractive on a 256 colors computer screen, but it will not be adequate on photographic paper.

15. How do I know that the print I will get back is a good print ?

With the Panoramic Network application when you select your images, should they be of insufficient resolution or number of colors, an alert will be displayed on screen. In this manner you will be simply able to delete the selection. You will still be able to send the image to the lab if you wish, but the result will be of inferior quality. Check the Panoramic Network Resolution Guide for more details on print qualities.

16. Can I send prints to my relatives far away ?

Yes, by using our online shopping cart you can add the mailing addresses of your friends and family and have the images you want printed shipped directly to them.

17. Can I print my image on mugs or t-shirts ?

Absolutely!  We currently offer many products that we can print your images on.

18. What print material do you use?

We print on Kodak Digital III professional photographic paper, processed through Kodak RA-4 chemistry. The archival qualities of this process is 50+ years, before fading may occur. This is the same process that you would find at your better pro-labs.

19. How can I view my directories as "Thumbnails" in Windows Explorer?

To enable Thumbnail viewing within an image folder in Windows Explorer (Win98) follow these easy steps: 

1. Open an Explorer window and navigate to your image folder
2. Right click on the folder that has your images in it 
3. Select "Properties" from the drop down menu that appears
4. Put a check in the check-box next to "Enable Thumbnail view" and click "OK"
5. Open your image folder and select "View" on the upper menu bar
6. Scroll down and select "Thumbnails" to view the folder contents as Thumbnail images!

Note: two files will be created as a part of this feature: Thumbs.db and Desktop.ini.  If you delete either or both of these files, you will to repeat this process to view your folder in Thumbnail mode.  This feature is NOT supported in Win95 or Win3x, and is built in to Win2000.

20. Why does your shopping cart system crash when I try to check out? Is it broken?

Most often a "crash" or failure at this point is caused by outdated or improperly installed security libraries. The problem seems to occur mostly for customers using Netscape browsers version 4.73 or earlier. If you are a Netscape user, we recommend downloading Netscape version 4.75 or higher or Internet Explorer version 5.5 or higher for best the results. If you are uncertain if your browser's security library is up to date, Try using Versign's browser encryption test tool.

21. Why does your site display little boxes instead of letters on my computer?

This annoyance occurs in Netscape Navigator when your base-character set has "Unicode UTF-8" selected. Make sure your browser is set to "Western (ISO 8859-1)" under the VIEW / CHARACTER SET / item on your toolbar. You can see an example of this phenomenon here