The Pros and Cons of Digital Stamps
The Pros:
- Cost
savings: Digital stamps usually cost
less per image than an image that has been produced in rubber or acrylic.
There is no shipping or handling cost associated with the purchase of a
digital image, nor is there any cost to go to a store to buy them (e.g.,
gasoline for your car).
- Instant
Gratification: Once
you pay for your digital stamp, many companies offer immediate download of
your selected image(s), while others will e-mail them to you within 24-48
hours after purchase – far faster than waiting for mail service
delivery!
- Wider
range of image selection: Manufacturers of rubber and/or acrylic
stamps rely on minimum order levels and only produce stamps that will sell
in large quantity, due to the manufacturing cost. This is not true with digi-stamps, where
designers are more willing to produce original art to be sold in the
expanding digital market for a fraction of the cost.
- Creative
versatility: Digital
images can be resized, flipped, mirrored, layered, printed in any colors.
They can be printed onto anything you can put through a computer’s
printer, including paper, adhesive-backed fabric (e.g., Square 1 media),
vinyl, transparencies, stickers, or transfer media for glass or hard
surfaces.
- Mess
free: No more inky
fingers or ink spills, and you’ll never have to scrub another wood-mount
stamp again! To clean up after
stamping digitally, just close your computer window.
- Easy
to store: Anyone who has ever tried to store hundreds of
wood-mounted stamps or even pages of acrylic stamps can tell you that they’re
space hogs. Not true with digi-stamps, where even high resolution images
take only small digital space on a computer’s hard-drive. Many serious
digi-stampers even store them instead in small thumb drives, burned onto
CDs or copied onto external drives.
- Easy
to transport: With digital stamps stored on thumb or flash
drives, one can hold tens of thousands of images in one hand.
- Won’t
wear out: Unless you delete or save
over your original image in error, your digital stamp will not degrade
over time or with multiple uses.
- Eco-friendly:
Most digital stamps are
purchased online, saving on wasted packaging materials and delivery
resources (boxes, stamps, etc.) You’ll
be arranging multiple copies/sizes of your digital image so that you can
use one piece of paper or cardstock, saving on paper costs and
resources. You will have a perfect
printed image every time (assuming your printer is working correctly), so
there is no more waste with images that weren’t stamped correctly.
- Freebies are available! Many companies offer free digital stamps for you to try before you buy. Simply use your favorite search engine to scan for "free digital images" or "freebie digi-stamps".
The Cons:
- No physical
asset: When you buy a digital stamp, you
are buying only the right to use that image; you are not buying the image
itself. You cannot resell it after
you have used it, so you cannot recoup any portion of the money spent for
the digital stamp itself.
- Must
have computer and printer access/knowledge: All the flash drives in the world with
fabulous digital images will do you no good whatsoever if your computer
has crashed, you’ve run out of printer ink, or your electricity is out.
Don’t figure that you’ll be taking your laptop to the sandy beach to use
your digi-images.
- Quality of printer ink: The quality of your printer’s ink may affect the finished item. Some
printer inks run or smear when they are wet or when certain markers are
applied. Always test your markers with your printer’s ink, and give your
ink time to dry before coloring your image.
- Limited
surfaces: If you cannot run
your material (thick cardstock or very thin paper, transparency, etc.) through
your printer, you cannot apply your digi-image to surfaces like fabric,
glass, etc. Yes, there are ways to
work around these limitations, but you need to be willing to be
resourceful and have access to the supplies needed.
- Cost/waste
of inkjet ink/paper: You’ll definitely be printing more
images, in different sizes. Inkjet ink is not inexpensive, nor is
paper.
- License
limitations: You
cannot share your purchases with your cropping friends, according to terms
of use (TOU), angel policies or licensing terms. Be aware of each company’s rules for use
before you violate them.
- Computer
crash/die: Please be
sure to back-up your computer frequently!
If not, you will likely lose all of your purchased digital images
if your computer crashes or dies.
It has been my experience (don’t ask me how!) that some digital
companies with which you are registered may be willing to re-send or replace your lost images, but not
all do, nor is it a requirement.
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