Have you been putting off scanning your family's old photos? Digitizing prints with a conventional scanner can be a mind-numbing, laborious process. Now there's a new iPhone app that may make the job a little easier. (Android version to come.)
It's called Shoebox. It uses your phone's camera as a miniature scanner. You can shoot a snapshot and the software finds the edges and corrects the perspective. You can also manually crop, straighten, rotate, caption and tag the image.
I tested the app by scanning a 3x5 inch glossy picture of Anne Rudin with an iPhone 4 camera (right). The process is easy and quick, and the software automatically crops pretty well. But there can be glare from an indoor light source -- something that won't happen with a flatbed scanner.
Items scanned with Shoebox are saved in the cellphone and sent automatically to 1000memories, a free social media site where individuals and families can post pictures and organize them in timelines and family trees. You can also send pictures directly to Facebook.
And while we're on the subject, The Bee wants your
family snapshots. Not recent ones, but vintage photos of your ancestors.
The pictures don't have to be set in the Sacramento region (though that
would be nice). And they don't have to be professionally done. Just be
evocative of a historic period (through period clothing, vehicles,
buildings, etc.).
Take a look at Scott Craig's contributions to the Bee's History User Photo Gallery.
His family has lived in the region for many decades and he uploaded
some interesting examples from his collection. You can add yours,
too. Just fill out the form below the gallery, browse to the scanned
(jpeg) photo in your computer and hit "Upload File".
PHOTO CREDITS: (top) Former Sacramento Mayor Anne Rudin in 1969 when she served as a City Council member. Sacramento Bee archives. The Craig Family, circa 1930s. Courtesy Scott R. Craig.
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