How to: Custom Borders Polaroid Z340

Here's a few more words about how to create custom borders with the Polaroid z340 camera and load them. You can only load two custom borders onto the camera at a time, but you can store however many you want on a computer and transfer them over as needed.

Loading Custom Borders

Start by downloading the user manual. I found a copy here. Read page 54, particularly the following steps:

• There must be at least one picture stored on the memory card in the cameras file structure. 

The specifications for the borders are:

• There must be both a 1216 x 912 and a 320 x 240 bitmap graphic (.bmp) for each customized border 
• The transparent area (where the picture will show though) should be set to RGB (254,254,254). 
• The large pictures should be named “TMP_L1. BMP” and “TMP_L2. BMP” while the small pictures should be named “TMP_S1.BMP” and “TMP_S2.BMP”. 
• Store the borders to a folder named “Border” at the root directory of the memory card. 

So, what you need is a program that can create/save BMP files. I used Photoshop Elements, but you can use any program you like.

Start by making a very simple border first - don't spend a lot of time creating a fancy border until you get this process working.

On your computer

1. Create a new document, and specify the dimensions to be 1216 pixels wide and 912 pixels high. 
2. Select a color from the color palette, and adjust it so that the RGB values are 254,254,254. Then use the fill or paint bucket tool to cover the entire picture with this color. This special color will be transparent when your frame gets applied (the picture will show through any spot that is this color). It will look white. 
3. Now paint whatever border items you would like to have on the border using any color other than RGB(254,254,254). Remember that whatever you paint simply appears on top of the picture, blocking whatever is underneath. Also, you can paint anywhere in the frame, not just on the edges if you want to. 
4. Save the document in the regular Photoshop or whatever format for safekeeping. 
5. Then export the document and choose BMP format to get the file that you will end up loading on the camera. Name the exported version "TMP_L1.BMP". 
6. Now, re-scale the image to 320 pixels wide by 240 pixels high. 
7. Export the file again and name the file "TMP_S1.BMP". 
8. Close the file without saving at this point, to preserve the large version that you saved earlier. 
9. Take your SD card out of the camera, making sure that there's at least one photo that you took with the Polaroid camera on the card. Put the card into your card reader. 
10. Create a folder at the root level of the card and call it "Border". 
11. Put the two BMP files into that folder. 
12. Load the card back into the camera.

On the camera

1. Turn the camera on in playback mode. 
2. Press the "print" button and scroll to one of your images. 
3. Press the "menu" button and select "add border". 
4. Press the up or down key to scroll through the available borders. At this point there will be a significant delay while your new border is loaded, but when the delay is over your new border should magically show up as one of the available options. 
5. The new border will be available until you load another border using the steps above, even if you remove the SD card and replace the battery, etc. 

Notes

If you make a fancy border and use a gradient, make sure that there is no chance that the gradient passes through RGB(254,254,254) as one of its steps, since these pixels will become transparent when loaded on the camera. This can happen if you apply special effects to your bitmap such as "glow" or even "drop shadow" sometimes.

Polaroid PoGo repair

Polaroids new mini zink printer is about to go on sale soon. Meanwhile many of us are still using our old pogo printers. I was using mine recently and it made a horrible grinding sound and stopped  working. After an Internet search I found this site [http://retromcsmart.com/2011/05/21/how-to-repair-your-polaroid-pogo-printer/] which helped me fix it. I was very surprised to discover that a tiny speck of metal on one of the plastic gears had caused it to jam just like in the photo on the blog site. Miracle of miracles- I put it back together and it works perfectly again.