The photographic evidence is provided by CatchACharacter, a company specializing in capturing fictional characters in action. Their target market is small children who aren’t quite so sure what is going on and need to see it to believe it. Personally, I just bought into whatever the story was as long as the goodies kept coming. But kids today are more worldly. They’ve got to see the evidence.
Well, here’s how you get them the evidence. Don’t spend big bucks hiring a private detective who will run up a major tab watching your house on key nights. For much less than it costs to keep that gumshoe in coffee and donuts, you can have a professional quality photograph ready to present to your child. It’s about $10 for the pix.
There’s also sweat equity involved here. The way it works is that you get a snapshot of your favorite scene from inside or outside your home. You upload this photo to the CatchACharacter site. Then you select the character in question from the lineup and place that character into your photo. Magic completed, you download the composite photo and print it as your proof. If anyone dares to utter the dirty word “photochop,” they immediately get coal in their Christmas stocking, Easter basket or under their pillow. A nice earful of coal and no money will stop that maligning of the Tooth Fairy in short order.
What do you need to make this work? The most important thing is a high resolution photograph with up to a 12 MB file size. The higher the resolution, the better. Horizontal formats work best. File format should be jpg, bmp or png. Most photos are already in jpg format these days as they come off the camera. You’ll also need a broadband connection as the upload process can be very time and processor intensive.
Once you’ve uploaded your photo, chosen a character in the right size and achieved the best composition you can, your personal Character photo will be stored on the CatchACharacter servers. You can download it for printing in many popular sizes, email it to family and friends or post it to more than 20 social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace and Flickr.
I should go without saying that it’s a rotten thing to send Tooth Fairy pictures to your college student’s fraternity brothers. So, I’m sure I don’t need to say that. And kids, if you happen to be reading this and are computer savvy, it should also go without saying that it’s really rotten to show Santa kissing mommy or, worse, daddy and sharing that with their social circle or employer. If that’s the sort of thing you have in mind, just stay away from this site altogether and keep your mitts off the practice photos.
For those of you who are responsible adults and have little ones who would thrill at the sight of their favorite fictional character caught somewhere in or around their home, then you are both authorized and encouraged to visit the CatchACharacter Site to watch a quick tutorial video or try using the system free with one of their sample photos. Now, isn’t it true that seeing is believing?
