How to make more of your photos

These days, the quality of digital photographs is so good that it seems a pity just to print them out on paper and stick them in an album.

Instead, why not experiment with something different? At home, you can use specialist paper to print transfers on T-shirts, create temporary tattoos, or make fridge magnets. You can even use your images to create jewellery and key rings on plastic that you bake in the oven.

Alternatively, if you want to enlist the help of the experts, your local print shop can turn photos into posters, mugs, coasters, place mats and mouse mats and there are plenty of websites offering similar, and sometimes much cheaper, services. Paper? It's just so passé.

T-shirts
To use your inkjet printer to produce a personalised T-shirt you'll first need a decent image, a plain white or very light-coloured 100 per cent cotton T-shirt, a sheet of transfer paper and - brace yourself - an iron.

The process is straightforward but fiddly. Simple images with bright colours or plain text work best, but a high-contrast photo will also reproduce well.

Consider framing photos to make them stand out or use photo-editing software to apply a blurry or feathered edge to images so they blend in with the background.

Remember to flip your image before you print it onto the transfer paper, especially if you're using text, because when you iron it onto the shirt it'll come out back-to-front.

Home made T-shirts are great one-off gifts but there's a lot of faffing around involved. You need to use image-editing software to prepare the image, make sure it's positioned properly on the T-shirt, take care when ironing it onto the T-shirt, and so on.

For runs of more than five, it might be a good idea to consider using a printing service. If you do opt for this route, you can expect to pay around £14 including delivery for a T-shirt from www.t-shirtshop.biz, which allows you to design your T-shirt from start to finish online.

Bonusprint also provides an online T-shirt printing service and offers free software so that you can upload photos directly to the website. T-shirts cost £10 each, plus a 90p postage and package fee.

If you fancy the DIY approach, however, between £7 and £10 will buy you five sheets of transfer paper, although you will find cheaper products at www.photopaperdirect.com.

Temporary tattoos
Ever fancied the idea of having a tattoo but didn't want to be stuck with an anchor on your forearm for posterity? Why not use your printer to create temporary tattoos for a bit of fun? Even if they're not your cup of tea, your kids are bound to love them.

The key to producing a good tattoo is having a good design, which means picking a design or picture with plenty of solid, dark colours, along with well-defined shapes and lines.

Until you perfect your technique, it's best not to try anything too big or too ambitious. Many tattoo paper makers don't recommend using images larger than 4cm across but you can save money by using an image-editing application to fit as many images as you can onto a single page.

Remember that, like T-shirts, these will print back-to-front so they'll need flipping round first. It sounds daft, but ensure that you put the paper in the right way around and give your printout five minutes to dry completely.

Note that if your printer has a heating element, the tattoo film can melt on the way through, with potentially catastrophic results for the printer.

Most home printers don't these days, but if you've inherited an old laser printer - or just want to be certain - check with the manufacturer first.

Three A4 sheets of tattoo paper will set you back about £10. Get someone else to apply the tattoo for you to avoid getting any wrinkles in the design as it's placed on.

Mugs
Cheesy but functional keepsake or perennial personalised favourite? Whatever your opinion, Bonusprint will get you mugged up in a jiffy - well, in seven days to be exact.

Just download the company's Pix software from the website and you can add your picture (it gets printed on both sides of the mug), rotate and crop it, send the artwork electronically to Bonusprint and then pay online by credit card.

The software even tells you if the quality of your photo isn't up to scratch. All very neat. Bonusprint actually offers one of the cheapest mug-printing services we found online at £7 per mug plus 90p for postage and package.

3D Crystal Art
Remarkably, Crystal Impressions can take an image and render it in three dimensions, inside a crystal block. Supplied photographs aren't used directly but provide the reference to create a template that directs two laser beams.

These create minute fractures inside a flawless piece of optic glass to produce the finished 3D image. Probably too expensive for a one-off, they start to become more attractive in units of 50, when paperweight-sized crystals would cost about £22 each, plus £100 or more for the origination.

Visit www.3dcrystalart.co.uk for more information. Even Elton John's got one, don't you know?

Lego Mosaic
Not so much a jigsaw as a bricksaw. Go to the Lego website, enter the word Mosaic in the search box at the top of the page and click Go.

On the page that the search tool returns, click on the Build Your Own link and you'll be taken to the Brick-O-Lizer page where you can upload a JPEG image and have it turned into a 3D picture made from Lego bricks.

The on-screen step-by-step guide makes it easy to upload your chosen image to the site, edit and crop it, and have it 'brick-o-lyzed'. The finished puzzle is delivered in a pizza-style box filled with nearly 2,000 bricks. The results are particularly effective for faces.

A Lego Mosaic will cost you £25, plus either £3.50 for normal delivery (6-12 working days) or £15 for express delivery (2-3 working days).

Large format prints
Most print shops can supply 12 x 18in mini-posters. Again, they'll usually send the original off for processing and to get decent results you'll need a 5-megapixel image, towards the top end of what most consumer digital cameras can deliver.

If you want cinema-sized posters, then professional print houses will do the job, but you can expect to pay a hefty sum in the range of £40 and upwards, especially if it's a one-off. For a good mid-sized poster service, try Photodeal.

Download the Photodeal software first, select the photos you want developed, then choose the format and enter the delivery address and payment details.

Along with common-sized enlargements, the company offers 27 x 18in posters and 54 x 18in panoramic posters. Kodak print shops do 12 x 18in posters for £12 each while you can order a single 27 x 18in poster from Photodeal for £10 and single 54 x 18in panoramic posters for £15.

Jigsaws
When it comes to out-of-the-ordinary items, your local photo print shop will usually send the original photograph off to a major developer like Kodak. Jigsaws produced this way typically measure 7.5 x 9.5in and have 80 pieces.

You'll need to supply the image either on a CD-Rom or the memory card that you use in your camera. Some shops can copy the image or images from your disc or memory card on the spot, while others send the CD or card away. Don't fret, you will get it back along with your jigsaw.

Kodak says that it needs a 2-megapixel image to produce an 80-piece jigsaw, so all but the cheapest digital cameras will be up to the job.

Note that when the images are stored on your PC, their size will be expressed as a number multiplied by another number; images suitable for turning into a jigsaw should have a resolution of 1,632 x 1,224 pixels or more.

And the rest
If you're smitten with the idea of doing more creative things with your digital photos than merely printing them out, Kodak shops also do 7.5 x 9.5in tablemats.

You'll need a 2-megapixel image and £10 will get you two mats, while six mats cost £20. You can have a different image on each mat as part of the same order. Kodak will also print 3 x 5in coasters using your snaps, for which you'll need to supply a 1-megapixel file. A set of six coasters will cost you £10. Again, you can have a different image on each one.

You can also liven up the front of your fridge by making your own fridge magnets. A pack of three sheets of A4 magnetic paper suitable for making fridge magnets costs about £8 from Avery and you can also get a pack of four sheets of plastic paper called Fantastic Plastic onto which you can print designs for key rings, badges and so on.

Cut out the design, pop it in the oven for two minutes and it bakes solid. You can also make your own 'stained glass' designs to stick on a window using Avery's see-through Window Picture paper. A pack of five sheets will set you back about £8.

Let it out
While you're unlikely to ditch photo paper in favour of printing out your snaps onto a mug every time, personalised printing let's you create unusual and unique gifts and keepsakes.

If you stick to producing one or two T-shirts or fridge magnets from time to time you'll find the effort - and an occasional over-familiarity with the iron - is definitely worthwhile.

However, if you need half a dozen or more of an item, it's probably cheaper to get someone else to do them for you. For large format items in particular, make sure you provide originals at a resolution appropriate to the eventual size. If in doubt, check with your printing services supplier.