Digital photos are great, but often times we just post them straight to a website page or let them languish on our computers. For several years now,however, Big Huge Labs has provided some awesome and practical photo related projects that can be done in a short amount of time, with very little computer skills needed.

The site includes over two dozen projects that can be printed and/or posted on the web. Projects include various custom poster ideas, custom trading cards, calendars, desktop wallpaper, a pocket album, a CD Cover template, slide show generator, and much more.

Each Big Huge Labs project is template-based, and the process for completing projects is as follows:

Hockneyizer

This example is based on the what's called the Hockneyizer project, a college of Polaroid frames based on a selected image.

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  1. Select and upload one or more photos, depending the project you're doing. If you have photos on a Flickr.com or Facebook account, you can access them from the Big Huge Labs site, or you can upload them from your computer.
  2. Customize the background and other items of the project.
  3. Click the Create button and your project is completed, in less than a minute.

You can save and download a web size copy of each project for free, or you can get a pro account for high resolution prints.

While the projects on the site are great, I want to highlight a few, plus point out a few other resources the site has to offer.

Motivator

This project enables you to make a motivational poster, the kind that you often see sold in gift shops. You can create your own title and caption to fit your photo. Jackson touched on it a while back.

Cube

This is a fun project for your children. It requires a set of six photos that are copied to a template that can be printed out on say Matte paper and folded into a cube.

Color Palette Generator

If you're designing a website and you want to figure out what color(s) match your main photo for a particular page, or if you're looking a color to frame your photos, this little resource can be very useful. Once a photo is uploaded, it just a few seconds to deliver a palette of swatches that match the selected photo.

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Top Digital Camera

Another handy resource on the site provides a list of "top cameras and models to create photos uploaded to Flickr", a worldwide and popular photo sharing website. This list is automatically updated based on EXIF data gotten from photographers who upload images to the Flickr account. Each camera model listed is linked to a Amazon.com product page for the selected camera.

Pocket Album

This project involves creating a small size photo album of selected photos. The album is small enough that you don't really need the full resolution size of the project. Printing the project on Matte paper should be sufficient.

Slideshow

If you're looking to create and post a slide show of photos on the web, Big Huge Labs overs a really simple way to do so. However, each photo you want to use in the slide show needs to be uploaded to a website, with a URL for each individual image. This is best done if your photos are uploaded to Flickr.com. After selecting your images and creating your slide show, you get a URL for the show hosted by Big Huge Labs.

Many other projects and resources on the Big Huge Lab site are mainly for Flickr.com members, but there's enough creative projects for anyone who wants to do some fun things with digital images.

So what novel ways do you make use of your digital images? Let us know about the resources you use.