This makes sharing scanned photos on Facebook a much better prospect than it was. It allows you to share higher resolution pictures with friends and family, with the potential of getting better quality prints made.

Source: Facebook.

If you’re into photography, or even have a passing interest, the chances are you’ve either heard of HDR photography, or seen some of the amazing images that can be produced by it.

HDR is a technique that allows for greater dynamic range of luminance (the limit of luminance a digital camera is capable of capturing) between the darkest and lightest areas of a photograph than a standard digital camera can capture. The affect is vivid images with a lot more visible  detail. To create an HDR image, we take multiple photos of the same scene using different exposures, then we combine the photos into one HDR image. A roundup of HDR tutrials can be found at here, and some stunning examples are available in Flickr.

If you’re not so into doing it yourself, but still want to see what it’s all about, the new Apple iPhone 4 allows you to take HDR photos without having to do a thing. If you’ve got an older iPhone 3G or 3Gs you can try out Pro HDR and TrueHDR from the App Store.

The Photo Album Story Teller is a novel device that lets you record voice notes for your photos. It does this by using colour coded stickers to identify the photo. You have to stick the colour coded sticker next to your photo, then scan the sticker to playback your voice notes associated with the photo. Although it’s not a bad idea, it would have been much better if the device used image recognition which would have done away with the need for the colour coded stickers. It also only comes with 500 stickers, so you’re really limited to how many stories you can tell.

At US$99, it’s a cute and innovative gadget – but is severely limited by the colour coded stickers.

Well, if you download the latest version of Google’s Picasa, you can make a “Face Movie”. The new “Face Movie” feature uses face recognition to help you create a movie or slideshow where a person’s face is aligned in each photograph. Below is a fantastic example of a child growing up. There has never been more possibilities for your old photos!

This film clip was created by Kodak in 1922, 7 years before the first Academy Awards, and 13 years before the first full length colour film.

Kodak Blog.

“World Photography Day is all about celebrating photography and remembering how special a photograph can be.

Today, we take our photographs for granted. But next time you’re flicking though photos from your last holiday, remember that there was once a time when photography didn’t exist. A time when those precious moments couldn’t be captured, uploaded and shared.

On August 19th, celebrate photography and share your world with the world!”

www.worldphotoday.org

Basically, you attach two toilet rolls to a polarize filter, with the class removed, to your Digital SLR camera. Next, you attach plastic 35mm slide mount with opened sides to the end, so the film can be slid though.

This is a great way for the tinkering enthusiast to scan in some old negatives. Alternatively, you could use Love My Pics‘ negative scanning service. We use good old high-end scanning equipment to do the same job.

As a child I loved looking over these albums and would get them out periodically to pour over them.  Typically there were always stories to go along with the pictures, so having a running commentary from Mum or Dad made it all the more special.

My parents recently moved, so the various albums of our family history were brought out.  Once again I perused over the old pictures of my youth.   After over thirty-five years, the albums, and more importantly the photos, unfortunately are not in the best shape.  Time has done considerable damage.  Photo scanning and negative scanning of these old pictures is a new project  now assigned to me; make them safe! They are too precious to lose.

I found myself studying my old photos with a new purpose.  When you have a child of your own, your own childhood takes on new specialness.  I studied my own baby pictures, looking for the resemblance I am sure exists between my son and I – even though I‘m continually reminded he is the spitting image of his Daddy!

I have only recently become a mother, but I have taken hundreds, (I’ll tell the truth, probably thousands) of pictures of my gorgeous little boy.  Like any new mother will tell you, mine is the most adorable child in the world.   Unlike my parents in the 1970s, thankfully I am not restricted to 24 photos per (costly) film roll.  Thanks to the wonders of the digital camera, I don’t need to worry about taking a photo of my boy running in the other direction – he does this, a lot.  I can just delete and re-shoot.   I took 20 photos of him running around the yard today to ensure one of them was good enough!

But has the wonder of technology made us unappreciative of the images we have captured? Thousands of photos taken of my beautiful son sat on the computer or on the camera itself.   His lovely smiley face, smiling for no one to see!  How could I rob the world of this wonder?!

Thank goodness I was given a voucher to spend on a photobook.   I am not the most creative person in the world, but with my son as the subject matter, I unearthed a whole new talent hidden within myself.  It had to be special for his sake.  I spent two months on this project, and I took it very seriously.  I titled the book “his first 12 months” and dedicated a page to every month of his event -filled first year of life.

Oh what fun I had! I scrolled through endless pictures (many repetitive of him doing the same thing from various different angles, from about six different sources).   I found pictures documenting events I had entirely forgotten about.  He was only a year old and I had forgotten how dark his hair was when he was first born!  I’m a failure as a mother, thank goodness I have the album to remind me of these things I have shamefully forgotten .

I was extremely happy with the end result.  A lovely, compact, full colour, professional looking, glossy, bound book dedicated to my firstborn.    Momento Photobooks was the service I used, and their programme is terrific.  Very user-friendly.  I don’t know of anyone else in Australia who has anything close to the quality they produce.

I have inspired myself to create a new “family” album every year, so I can rest assured all the wonderful memories I am yet to make with my own family will be captured, and handed down, as mine were to me.   However, due to the wonder of technology in 2010, the photo books that will be passed down my family tree will not be dog-eared, faded and spotty with time – and if they are, then I have the album on file and another can be easily printed in its place!

Thanks to photo scanning services, my old family photos can be saved from further ruin and restored to their former glory.  I’m going to be busy, I have another photobook project I can also start to work on, reliving the days of my childhood once more as I pour over the old photos once again.

RedCamper have some funky uses for old slides. It looks like the use 35mm and 127 slides in their products. If you have slides like these, remember Love My Pics can scan them for you.