Best Money Making Ideas

Moving Memories

Last year at my mother-in-law’s surprise birthday party, we showed a video montage containing a lifetime of photographs. Each of her seven children had selected a dozen photos. The photos were then transferred to a DVD and set to music. With the right equipment and some technological savvy, you can cash in on the ever-growing need to move memories. It was the best present we could have chosen for the birthday girl. In addition, it provided entertainment for the guests, as well.

As technology advances, more and more people are looking for new and improved ways to store and display memories. Transferring photos and VHS home movies to DVD is a relatively easy business to start. Your biggest expense will be your equipment. At the very least, you will need a computer, a digital camera, and a DVD burner. These basics will get you started working from your home. As you learn more about the process, you may wish to add equipment that is more advanced and offer more specialized services, such as adding music, text, graphics, or manipulating the color.

Dee Dee at Kent AudioVisual is a memory mover. She transfers 8 mm film to DVD. With just yellow page advertisement, she’s nearly always booked at least a month in advance. Although the specialized equipment she uses makes her task relatively simple, she keeps updated on the latest changes in technology. Moreover, because she is handling memories from as far back as 1920’s, she must use utmost care with each customer™s keepsakes.

If you choose to work with older film, you will need to educate yourself on care and handling procedures. Film repair and photo restoration are two natural offshoots of the video/photo transfer business. They are specialized areas that require education and experience to perform correctly; however, the potential income may make these specializations worth pursuing.

Just the basic transfer of VHS home movies and photographs will keep you in business. Yellow page advertising will bring in most of your customers. When setting prices, charge a set-up fee and then charge per-photo, per-hour, or per-foot, depending on the project. Collect additional fees for any extra editing or special effects.

The presentation at my mother-in-law’s party was put together with loving care. Viewing decades of family history was a real treat. It was the kind of experience that could be shared at weddings, graduations, anniversaries, reunions, holidays, and even funerals. Marketing event packages for these occasions could help boost your business.

The most important thing in this business is to remember that you are dealing with precious moments in your client’s lives. If those images are destroyed, they are gone for good. You are saving sentiments, so always work with caution.

Owning a video transfer business can be a lot of fun, but it does require some patience, skill, and specific equipment. If you are a people-person who enjoys working with technology, consider moving memories for a living. Before you now it, you could have a future preserving the past.

Resources:

http://www.signvideo.com/conv-v-to-d.htm

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,125517-page,1-c,dvddrivesmedia/article.html

http://www.howtodothings.com/computers/a3487-how-to-transfer-vhs-to-dvd.html

http://www.memoriesinhand.com/?gclid=CJzTn8GLkJQCFQqFGgod02yafQ

http://www.nettapes.com/?gclid=CPzmh8KLkJQCFQx2GgodNiQqgQ

Studio Portraits…Without a Studio

Is your dream studio a large, airy building with natural light streaming through the windows, backdrops of every imaginable color and huge amounts of lighting equipment? This would be great if you have unlimited funds, but this is not a practical way to start a small portrait studio.

You can consistently produce excellent portraits of friends, family, or clients with a small living space that you convert into a studio.

Here are some of the things that you need to consider.

BACKGROUNDS:

Backgrounds can be something as simple as a blank white wall or as expensive as hand-painted muslin and canvas backdrops. Large canvas tarps like those that painters use to protect floors, are ideal for spraying or splattering paint in various colors. This is a good way to provide a variety of backdrops in different colors for a nominal sum of money. Mismatched paint (almost all paint stores goof every now and then) can be purchased for a fraction of the cost of a custom color.

BACKGROUND SUPPORT:

Background supports can be permanent or temporary. Two closet shelf brackets nailed high on the wall about five to six feet apart can hold a dowel with a sheet of seamless paper that can be rolled down when you need the backdrop.

Vertical stands with a horizontal support between them can provide a greater range of mobility and can be stored in a closet when not in use. Extra light stands can serve very well for this type of arrangement. In addition, background stands can be built from 1-1/2″ PVC pipe. With a few lengths of PVC, a few “elbows” and “T’s”, you can have a custom background stand of any size. If the pieces of PVC are just fitted together and not glued, the entire stand can be disassembled and stored in a closet.

LIGHTING:

Lighting is the most challenging part of a home studio. The object of lighting is to control light. One way to do this is to control unwanted light. Any windows near your ’studio’ site will tend to give you unwanted highlights or compete with your main light source. You will need to block the windows with some type of black material so that there is no light entering the room from the windows.

Photofloods and quartz lights are the least expensive forms of lighting but they have one major disadvantage…they are hot.

Instead of pointing these hot lights directly at your subject (which is quite uncomfortable), there are a couple of things that you can do. Try bouncing the light off the ceiling. You will lose two to three f-stops when you bounce light. Another thing that can be tried is to use a diffusion panel. This will lessen the harshness of the light by spreading it out over a larger area and will decrease the temperature of the light on the subject.

SETTING UP THE STUDIO:

When your home studio is set up, you will need to have a space of about six or seven feet between your subject and the background in order to avoid unwanted shadows. If this distance is not possible, try placing the lights higher than your subject is. This will cause any shadows to cast downward where your subject hides them.

LIMITATIONS:

You can take a variety of portraits that are of acceptable quality in a home studio. However, you usually cannot take three-quarter of full-length portraits because ceilings are too low. Also, do not attempt to use a wide-angle lens as this produces a very unattractive portrait and tends to distort facial features. Stick to head-and-shoulders portraits and you will have attractive images!

Resources:

http://www.ehow.com/how_1358_set-photo-studio.html

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=25148

http://www.graphic-design.com/photographic/studio/index.html

http://www.free-stockphotos.com/studio-lighting-tip-setting-up-home-studio-for-product-photography/

http://www.forphotography.com/how-tos/homestudio.html

Photography Shopping Assistant

Clothes shopping can be very overwhelming at times, especially if shopping for a completely new seasonal, or vocation, wardrobe. This could take a whole day of shopping, or even several days, of comparing styles and various department store options. We all know how hard it is to choose between many different clothing items. We are concerned with the way the clothes look on us, the way they fit, age appropriateness, etc. After trying on many different items, it is easy to become completely overwhelmed, not even remembering the first items tried on, when trying to decide which of the articles of clothing to purchase or invest in. It makes it even harder when trying to stay on a budget.

If you are reasonably good at taking photos, are a real people-person and love to shop, this would be such a fun way to earn money! Let’s face it, most people like shopping with others, because they are able to ask for opinions, views, and ideas. This type of business should become very popular if you are the kind of person that enjoys shopping with others and helping them dress themselves. You will be sought after as a companion shopper even more if you offer a service that takes pictures of the shopper wearing all of the different outfits they try on.

If you decide to offer this fun helpful business idea, you should be able to charge around $35 an hour for your services. You might also offer package deals for people that might like to shop with you in small groups or someone that plans to shop for more that 10 hours in a week. These are all things that you can take into consideration once you establish yourself in this exciting and fun business. Since you are your own boss, you will be able to see what the needs are of your customers and be able to gauge what different customers are able to pay you for your services. When customers start competing for your time and services, you will be able to start charging more if you want to.

To get a good start with your new business you’ll need a digital camera, laptop computer, computer case, image software, a pack of writeable CDs and CD burning capabilities. Once you have taken pictures of all the outfits your customers want pictures taken in, you should burn all of the images on to a CD for your client to keep and reference later. This is about all you will need to invest in, to get started.

You can decide on how you want to choose your mode of transportation to the needed shopping areas. You may be able to ride with your customer, or just meet them at an appointed time in a department store or shopping mall they choose.

Resources:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/

http://www.melange4women.com/drforyoboty.html

http://fashion.about.com/cs/tipsadvice/a/figurefixers.htm

http://www.lamasbeauty.com/fashion/keelan_clair_dressing.htm

http://www.wdxcyber.com/bodytype.html

Photography Image Enhancing Services for Models

Looking at a magazine cover, many of us wish that we had the same skin and complexion that the model on the cover has. However, these models do not always have the same skin and complexion shown on the cover. Sometimes these models have their photo retouched by photo-enhancing specialists to remove any wrinkles, blemishes, and any other flaws on the photos. Therefore, if you have a skill at photo enhancing, you could consider offering these services for a fee.

The main things required to start a service offering photo enhancing are a skill and knack at the job and the necessary software. ‘Photoshop’ is one of the good software programs available nowadays. However, if you have any different program that you are comfortable with, you may as well use it. When offering photo-enhancing services, you could offer your help in photo retouching and glamour enhancement of portraits. The budding model will need your services the most.

With your programs, you can help remove wrinkles, improve skin texture, enlarge eyelashes, enhance and reshape lips, remove hair strings, whiten teeth, remove any existing teeth gaps and many other changes. It is also possible to apply or remove make-up and to smooth skin texture of the photographs too. One of the most challenging aspects found in the world of photo enhancing is digital slimming.

It is not only the models who need digital slimming to be done on their photos; portraits, wedding photos, and perhaps some photos of children too may need some changes to be done to make one look slimmer. You could offer to remove double chins and to slim down the face and body. Sometimes, one may need a background change to emphasize a person or to change moods in the picture. Therefore, you can create plain color backgrounds or some artistic indoor or outdoor environment in the picture too.

Word of mouth can prove to be sufficient advertising for you. Models will have friends who are also models and may need some help in their photos. However, it is not that advisable to rely on it only. You should look around for modeling sites. On sites there are many models’ portfolios displayed wherein you could offer your services to them. So it proves to be quite beneficial to you to advertise on these sites.

You could make it convenient for the customer to send the photo to you via email. You then can make a quote, of about $50, which is rather reasonable. The price of course, depends on the amount of work involved in touching up the photo. Offering rush delivery, where you send over the photo to them within a day provides an added incentive for clients to approach you for their services. Of course, you could hike your prices for this by about 50%; the client will surely be happy to pay to get the perfected photo quickly!

Resources

http://www.touchofglamour.com/

http://www.newfaces.com/

http://www.theimagingdept.com/

Photo Processing Delivery

Getting your film to a printer and then back again to pick up the photos is a huge pain and inconvenience. Yes, there are still people who use cameras with film and it is a hassle for them to get their photos processed. Offer a service to these people to pick up their film, get it processed, and deliver their photos to them in person. You could charge about $10 per delivery. You might even get some clients who are professional photographers, which would mean a very regular client for you!

So many people still prefer using camera’s that use film. Offer a service to people that prefer film, but hate the hassle of dropping off their films and picking up the developed photos when they are ready for picked up. Pick up their film, get it processed, and then deliver their photos to them after the photos are developed.

This service will save people the time and hassle involved in receiving their precious personal photos. So many people plan to take care of these errands and can forget for months to take film in to be developed. Some even loose their pictures, because they have lost the film, or forgotten for so long that the film may not be in very good condition by the time it is developed. Then, there is another group of people that forget to go back hours or days later, to pick up their developed pictures.

You might even get some clients who are professional photographers, which would mean regular clients for you! For these professional photographers, this service could be very appealing to them. They are busy taking pictures most of the time and prefer not spending the extra time delivering and picking up photos, on a regular basis. They are skilled professionals that prefer to use their time taking pictures, not delivering the film and picking up the photos after developed.

You could charge about $10 per delivery. This may seem like a lot, but many people are willing to pay someone else to take care of this hassle for them. So don’t be shy in offering this service in your area, especially for the professional photographers in your area. You can also offer to pick up negatives that your customers want processed for larger prints, or wallet size photos.

This could also be a wonderful service for those that are shut-ins or physically disabled, or in retirement communities. Be sure to advertise to people in these communities. If they find they can trust you to give good, timely, reliable service, they will advertise for you, helping you to get new customers regularly. Happy customers are the best advertising you can have, and free to boot. You might offer them a discount for each new customer that they refer to you.

Remember that the price that you charge needs to cover your gas and vehicle use. These can vary in areas and times of the year, so make sure that you are charging the proper price for your services and cost of transportation.

Resources:

http://www.local.com/results.aspx?keyword=film+developing&cid=665&gid=US_-_National&gclid=CJvr4PiGkJQCFQFvHgodhnGdeA

http://bonitasprings.eztousebluebook.com/catresults.asp?HeadingID=30135

Scrapbooking has become one of the biggest hobbies in America and overseas!  It’s become so popular that scrapbook supply stores have been popping up on the streets, online - everywhere!  There are so many different things that you can do with a scrapbook; there is no telling where you could begin or stop!  I have gotten into it myself (creating scrapbooks for my two daughters).  Let me tell you, I am far from a crafty artsy-type, person.  However, once I got those albums, stickers, pens, brads, and everything else in my hands, I was instantly hooked!  I absolutely love it and my kids love seeing their pictures and memories put together in their own creative books.  It’s a fantastic hobby, and it’s just so much fun.  I especially love the rub-on stencils.  What a great invention!

Oh, yes, you’re interested in starting a business.  I told you about my excitement with scrapbooking to let you know how widespread this hobby is and how overly addictive it can be.  It is just a wonderful thing to be able to preserve your children’s memories and pass them down when they are old enough to take care of them.  However, it doesn’t just stop there.  There are so many different themes a scrapbook can take.

Some include:

1. School Days
2. Weddings
3. Religious Ceremonies
4. Remembrance
5. Birthdays
6. Sports
7. College
8. Scouting
9. Traveling
10. Careers
11. Seasonal

There are so many more, I couldn’t even list them all.  It is just a matter of what someone wants to preserve with a scrapbook.  It’s much more fun and creative than a simple photo album.  It combines arts and crafts with photography.  The possibilities are endless.

If you sound like you would love to do this, find your local scrapbooking store (I’m sure there is one, otherwise you can search online), and see what is out there.  It’s amazing.  There is such a variety of supplies and it is overwhelming if you are new to this hobby. Speak to others who like to scrapbook, talk to your local storeowner, chat with others online in appropriate forums, and chat rooms.  See what your potential competitors are doing, and how well they are doing.

Since this is such a widespread hobby and is so vast, there is a variety of businesses you could spawn.  One is creating scrapbooks for those who can’t find the time.  Not only would this be fun (if you find you enjoy it), but you would be paid for it, too!  Creating precious memories in a scrapbook for someone can be quite the fulfilling career.

Some other businesses you could think about are:

Creating Supplies
Inventing new supplies
Opening your own supply store
You could specialize in creating only certain supplies (stickers, stencils, paper, etc.)

The list could go on-and-on.  Have fun with it!  Here are some websites where you can begin your research:

How To Make Money With Scrapbooking.

scrapbooking.about.com

www.stepbystepdigitalscrapbook.com

www.scrapbook.com

www.scrapbookexpress.com