UPGRADED WITH NEW FUNCTIONS - ADD TEXT, CROP, UNDO!

The story of why you are getting such a great deal...

Daniela standing in front of the first Big Picture.

The process is so simple

As you can see it's very simple but the results are amazing.  It was so much fun making big pictures.  We went through our photo album and started scanning in pictures or taking digital pictures and blew them up too.  It was a blast!

Now my mom wanted me to blow up her pictures too but like I said, I was lazy, so I came up with a great idea.  I made the program so simple that even she could use it.  You see, she's afraid of computers but within 5 minutes of installing the program she was printing the pieces and putting them together herself!

This was around Christmas time and I had a side hobby of making puzzle boxes from exotic hardwoods (it was a diversion from my high tech job).  I'd sell them to local stores or at street fairs and somebody mentioned I should put them on eBay.  So I did, along with the Big Picture program.  It wasn't long before the Big Picture Program took off and I quit doing the boxes (the laziness kicked in again).  It was going great!  I was making a little bit of money and meeting new people through eBay.  They used my programs in ways I never even thought of.  T-Shirt makers were buying it and when I asked one of my customers why he told me there's this process called Image Heat Transfers.  You can buy a special type of paper called "Inkjet Transfer Paper" and print a picture on it.  Then you iron the picture onto a t-shirt.  So I went out and bought some of this paper and made these t-shirts. 

But then I thought to myself, why stop there?  Why just make big pictures?  Small pictures like logos look smart and classy.  Wouldn't it be great if the program could make pictures small as well as big?  Or any size in between?  So I modified the program to accept any size you can think of.  Big, small or any size in between.  This feature with the inkjet transfer paper opened up whole new worlds.  And forget just doing t-shirts, any kind of fabric was fair game.  Pillow cases, curtains, towels, even mouse pads - nothing was safe.

Quilters also bought it telling me it enabled them to blow up pictures for their quilts.  And that there's even a natural 1/4 inch border allowance for their sew line (whatever that means, and I'll explain about the border later).  Look at this beautiful quilt made by one of my customers who bought the program,  Kristen Buckley of HandMadeByKristen. 

Stained glass artists used it to do their layouts and muralists used it in lieu of projectors.  There were so many uses for the program that I lost count.

Stained glass by Jack Waldrop	Mural by Sandy Tat

Around that time my first competitors appeared.  I knew it was inevitable but I had an edge.  They had bought my first program and reverse engineered it and made their own, but still, it was based on my first, old version.  That's why they have basic functions like "sharpen" and "print individual piece".  Functions I had put in for my mom.  With all the feedback I was getting from my customers I knew how to improve the program.  The first major improvement made was this overlap function.  You see, each piece will have a border that needs to be trimmed.  If you don't do it right your big picture will have big gaps.  This overlap function makes the pictures seamless and cuts the work in half! You don't have to trim every side of each piece when putting them together.

Another great improvement is the ability to print on to any size paper.  This I had to add for my overseas customers.  They don't use regular 8 1/2 x 11 size sheets.  So I had to make it so they can use anything they wanted.  But this greatly helped US customers.  Now they can print their pictures onto legal size sheets and use less paper!

Another great feature I added was the ability to mirror reverse the image.  This is needed for the T-shirt transfers.  When you iron a picture on to a t-shirt, the image comes out in mirror reverse so you have to reverse it first.

Whew!  I was putting a lot of work into improving the program and always staying one step ahead of my competitors.  But for every step I was ahead another competitor would appear.  Not only that but the competitors were getting downright nasty.  Outright piracy and shill buyers lurking behind every transaction.  It was a lot of work.  And did I mention I was lazy?  Well, that's when I stepped back and asked myself "why"?  Why was I working so hard for something I didn't need?  I had made most of the money to be made on eBay from the program.  Now there are so many competitors it isn't worth trying to get more "market share", it's like squeezing the last drop of water from a dry sponge.  And besides I still have a day job.  So why?  That's when I decided to undercut all my competitors and start selling the program at this discounted price.  I've more than made back the time and money I've put into it, and the eBay forum has taught me a lot about business and marketing.  The program is as great as it is because of all the people who bought it, used it and gave me feedback.  So that's why I'm doing this.  To thank eBay buyers and poke the other sellers in the eye.   

BONUS!

I've added special functions that will give your pictures a little pizzazz before blowing them up!

Special effects can now be applied to your pictures  -  posterize, solarize, mosaic (great for mosaic artists!), emboss, add noise and swap colors are just a few.  You can also sharpen, grayscale, adjust the brightness and contrast to make your pictures more than perfect.   And you can add text!  Great for making signs, posters and displays.

 

If you get a little wild don't worry, the program has an "undo" function.  It also comes with Crop and Save functions.

And to bring it all together I've had them professionally stamped in a retail package and shrink wrapped for display. Don't settle for home burned CDs! Buy the Big Picture Program and find out what all the excitement is about!