DIGITAL L.A.; GET THE PICTURE : MORE COMPANIES MAKING THE PHOTO-COMPUTER LINK.

Byline: David Bloom 

So you can't quite make that roll of snapshots from last month's vacation fit into your computer, or onto a T-shirt to send Grandma for a present. Well, Sony has some nifty new services to help at its ImageStation on PhotoNet (http://imagestation.sony.com).

Sony is one of a handful of companies offering development and digitization services for people trying to move their pictures back and forth between the real world and the computer one.

The easiest way, of course, is with your own digital camera, which will take electronic pictures that can be dumped directly into a computer.

But even the cheapest and least of these costs a few hundred dollars, as much as a decent 35mm single-lens reflex camera. And the SLR camera offers far more filter and lens options and higher-quality pictures, assuming you keep your finger out of the shot.

A simpler, far cheaper approach, as you await the inevitable fall in price and rise in quality for digital cameras, is to use a service such as Sony's. Once your pictures are in a computer-readable format, cheap software such as Adobe's Photo Deluxe or MetaCreations' Super Goo will allow you to eliminate small flaws such as ``red eye,'' apply a variety of special effects, even combine several photos into one composite shot.

The finished products then can be printed out on inexpensive color ink-jet printers, or sent to Sony or its competitors.

ImageStation will either print your digital photos to high-quality paper, or convert film to digital format. The computerized pictures are returned by way of the Net, stuck in a private folder accessible from your Web browser for review and downloading.

One handy feature allows the customer to create a public folder with some or all of the pictures, so friends and family can view or even order paper or electronic copies of the pictures. My technologically impaired father reported a series of problems downloading the shared folder, however, so you may instead choose to download them yourself and e-mail copies.

After 30 days online, you can pay a small sum to keep the folder available, though the smarter thing for the Net-savvy is to move the pictures to a personal Web site available free at any of the many Web locations offering free space to cyber-homesteaders.

ImageStation takes a couple of weeks to return developed pictures, a little less to return the easily downloaded digital versions. Printed versions of the electronic photos are fairly sharp, even on an inexpensive ink-jet printer.

And ImageStation also will print the photos on such things as coffee mugs, T-shirts and hats.

The service is competing with Seattle Filmworks, which has been providing digital photos over the Net for a few years now. The difference is that Seattle Filmworks always develops the film as slides or prints and charges a few dollars extra for digital copies.

ImageStation provides the option of having the pictures only digitized, with no negatives or printed versions.

Another difference is that Filmworks' pictures are in a proprietary format it claims is quicker to download and more compact than the widely used, Internet-friendly JPEG format that Sony has used.

Filmworks provides a free small program called Picture Works that organizes the photos into albums and slide shows and can convert them to more common formats, which in turn can be converted to JPEGs with another program.

Filmworks also sells an array of other inexpensive programs, including editing, retouching and publishing titles, for $29.95 to $39.95.

Another program, Photoworks Composer, comes with templates to create personalized greeting cards, calendars, stationery and more that can then be uploaded to Seattle Filmworks for printing.

Filmworks' prices are competitive and also give the option of returning the digitized pictures on a floppy disk instead of through the Internet. The company also sends a free roll of film with each roll it develops.

Filmworks will send you two free rolls of film for trying out their service; just check the Web site at www.filmworks.com for more information.

And for other photo-based gifts, you also can try Reliance Color Labs in Swansea, Mass., (www.reliancecolor.com/). The longtime photo-developing house will turn your pictures into cards, calendars, watches, wall clocks, puzzles, placemats, mouse pads and shirts.

`Use Sunscreen'

It may be the oddest little song on radio these days, but I love it. And it comes with its own Internet hoax hook for extra juice. The song is ``Everybody's Free (To Use Sunscreen),'' and has been popping up on KCRW-FM (89.9) playlists and a few other places.

The heart of the song is a wonderfully whacked fake graduation speech that originally was a column by Chicago Tribune writer Mary Schmich. Somehow, the Internet claimed the column for its own, transmuting it into an alleged speech by novelist Kurt Vonnegut to graduates at MIT.

The speech, read by Tim Perry over wonderful dance music, includes some great nuggets of wisdom, such as: ``Don't worry about the future, or worry but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are as apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind.'' and ``Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.''

The song was put together by Quindon Tarver and appeared in director Baz Lurhmann's film ``Romeo + Juliet.'' More recently, the eclectic Lurhmann included it in a wildly diverse collection of music from his films, plays and opera work called ``Something for Everybody.'' Check it out.

An Internet-athon?

It was inevitable, probably, but now the Muscular Dystrophy Association's annual Labor Day Telethon, hosted by Jerry Lewis for 33 years now, is being carried on the Internet for the first time at the organization's Web site (www.mdausa.org).

The telecast begins at 6 p.m. Sunday and runs for 21-1/2 hours and is TV's most successful fund-raiser, bringing in $50 million last year to finance research on a series of wasting diseases such as myasthenia gravis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and polymyositis, as well as muscular dystrophy itself.

Chatterboxes

You may not spend much time on the Internet in chat rooms, but someone sure is.

Chatting ranks third behind information searches and e-mail as the most-used activities on the Net, according to Myra Stark, a senior vice president and director of knowledge management and consumer insights at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising in New York.

And chat rooms consume 26 percent of all the time spent on the Net, according to Stark. So if you do use chat rooms, take heart. You really aren't alone.

And that chat is taking people away from their television screens, according to a study by Nielsen Media Research that was commissioned by America Online. Nielsen surveyed about 4,700 households that use its People Meters and found that those with Internet access spent about 15 percent less time watching television.

A study last year of Internet users said the television was the activity they were most likely to reduce while on the Web. Though AOL used the most recent study to tout itself as a place for advertising targeting wealthier households, the real question will be what this all means for the rapidly diminishing market share of network television.

Nielsen also reported that 79 million people are now using the Internet, a 36 percent jump in just nine months. For the first time, more than half the people between 16 and 34 are using the Internet as well, Nielsen reported. And 13 million people above the age of 50 are using the Internet.

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PHOTO no caption (ImageStation homepage)