I’m going to write about three computer programs / scripts that are going to help you create a great Christmas gift. I think that those methods work best for presents for people that you really care about: close relatives, partners and children for example. All you need besides those programs is some time, a printer and a picture or video of something that the recipient likes. Let us start..

• Create a Poster from an Image

You only need a picture that would make a great poster. Download PosteRazor and run it. Select the picture on your computer, specify the output size and a pdf file will be created that contains a number of pages that are the poster. Print those pages and you have a great personal gift. Use large images for best results. Available for Windows, Mac and as source code.

• Create huge rasterized images from any picture

PosteRazor is cute but has limitations. If you want huge, and I mean huge, outputs that can decorate a wall in complete width you need to use the online script Rasterbator. The output looks really incredible, please note that it is up to you if you want to define borders in the final picture. You may also download an offline version which does not have the size and resolution limitations of the online script.

• Create a Flipbook

Flipbooks are great gifts especially for children (and women). All you need is Flipbook Printer created by my friend mouser from donationcoder. You obviously need a movie for this to work. Just load the movie, define start and end and let the program do the rest. All that is left to do is to print the results and join the results together.

I would love to hear about your ideas and other programs or scripts that do something similar. So, if you know something please let me know.

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Once you have uploaded an image to the online script you may crop it and select the output size of the rasterized image by simply moving a slider into the exact position you want it to be. An information will tell you how many sheets of paper you need for the size that you have selected. Once you are satisfied with the size you may further customize the results by adding a border to it, selecting the dot size and selecting whether you would like a black and white image, a custom color image or a multi color image.

Once that is done you are set to go. The image will be processed and a pdf file will be created. Make sure you follow the directions of the developer when you print the pdf:

When printing the image with Adobe Reader, choose Page scaling: Fit to Printer Margins at the options window that comes up (Fit to Paper in older versions). If you chose horizontal paper alignment, also make sure Auto-Rotate and Center is selected. Most printers cannot print to the margins of the paper – these settings ensure that all the images will be completely printed. 

Thanks to Hans for this nice tip.

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