The story of why your are getting such a great deal...
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Daniela standing in front of the
first Big Picture. |
The first
Big Picture I ever made was done by hand. Charcoal on paper. My
girlfriend at the time (now my wife) was away and I missed her
terribly. I took a photograph and photocopied it. Then I cut the
photocopy into little pieces and transferred each piece to a
regular sheet of paper by hand. It was tedious. Being both an
artist, programmer and lazy, I decided to write a program to do it
for me and The Big Picture Program was born. |
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The process is so
simple |
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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!
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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! |
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Here's the interface...
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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. |
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WHY HAVE THIS |
WHEN YOU CAN HAVE THIS |
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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, nothing was safe. |
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| Quilters
also bought it telling me it enabled them to blow up pictures for
their quilts. 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. |
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photo quilt courtesy of Janet Ray |
Stained glass courtesy of Jack Waldrop |
Mural courtesy of Sandy Tat |
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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 81/2 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. |
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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.
So buy your copy now!
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