Digital Photography Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 80 Create a Home Inventory

Creating a home inventory and storing it in a
safe place will make it easier to work with the insurance company at
a time of loss.

A home inventory can make dealing
with an insurance company much easier. And your camera phone is a
convenient way to create and store this inventory. With a little
preparation, you can canvass your entire residence in just an hour or
so.

You'll need a stack of 3" 5" cards and a bold-tip
felt marker. Carry out your inventory one room at a time. Daytime
hours are best, because you'll have enough ambient
light to record the objects without using flash. Many camera phones
don't have flash, and for this job,
it's just as well. Photographing shiny objects with
a flash is difficult at best; it's hard to record
detail in the lighter tones. Ambient light is less contrasty, which
makes it better for this project.

Start with your first item and write the following information on a
3" 5" card:

Name of object

Serial number

Date purchased

Purchase price

Make your letters big and bold, as shown in Figure 7-12. Put the card next to the item and snap a
picture.

Figure 7-12. A sample item in a home inventory

When you finish one room, move on to the next until
you've completed the entire house. Then, upload your
images to the computer [Hack #76] .
You might want to give each image a filename that makes sense, such
as bedroom_tv.jpg,
bedroom_vase.jpg,
bedroom_lamp.jpg, and so on.

A handy way to organize these images is to actually build a web
photo gallery [Hack #50] and burn
it to three CDs: one to keep at home for reference, one for
easy-access backup at your office, and a final copy in a safe-deposit
box or another secure location.

When you need to refer to the catalog, simply load the CD into your
computer, double-click indexl, and a
thumbnail catalog of your entire home inventory will appear in your
web browser. You can click on any of the thumbnails to enlarge the
image and read the details you wrote on the 3" 5" card.

When creating your inventory, keep these tips in mind to ensure the
best detail possible:

To prevent camera shake, hold the camera steady when making the
exposure. Chances are, you're shooting in less light
than your camera phone likes, so the shutter speed will be slow.

Increase the ISO setting, if that's an
option on your camera. ISO 400 requires much less light for a good
picture than ISO 100 requires.

Take more than one picture of each object. Then, after you upload the
photos to your computer, pick the shot that has the largest file size
[Hack #47] . The bigger the file
size, the sharper the picture will be.

Use pink 3" 5" index cards. Pink cards reflect
less light than white ones do. This will make them easier to read,
because they will require about the same exposure as the objects
you're photographing.

Finally, remember to update your home inventory at least once a year
to keep it current.