In a world of cell phones with 8 megapixel digital cameras and regular cameras that take pictures in such high resolutions that they look better than in real life, the film camera is a dying breed. What if you used a film camera for years and you don't want to lose all of those precious memories? After all, just because you have moved on to a new digital camera doesn't mean that all those old pictures are irrelevant.

This is the exact reason why ShoeBox is available from the iTunes App Store. It allows users to easily take their old pictures and scan them with their iPhone camera and have all those pictures stored safely in the cloud. Even if you don't use this as a way to replace the physical photos, it is at least nice to know that if something terrible happens to them, you will have a safe digital version stored away.

One thing I need to mention is that the pictures on their site are public, so they will feature them in the app. If you are concerned with other people seeing your pictures, this may not be the app for you. If you want to show your pictures off to the world, then this app is perfect.

Installation & Set Up

ShoeBox is available for free from the iTunes App Store. Simply search for "ShoeBox" or click here to download the free application.

Once you have the application installed, you have to make a ShoeBox account. Making an account couldn't be easier. You can either make a new account with your name and email address, or sign up with your pre-existing Facebook account. Whichever way you choose, setting up your account is quick and painless.

Scanning Photos

Scanning photos in the application is very easy. Simply choose the scan option in the middle of the screen and set your photo down in a well lit area where there will not be any glare on the image. Hold your iPhone over the image and click the scan button. Make sure to have the image lined up properly before you take the shot.

After you have taken the picture, the program will open up the crop part of the scan. This is where you remove any background from the image to make it as clean as possible. To crop the image you simply need to drag the box around the image. When you click on one of the cropping corners, the application will automatically show that part slightly zoomed in so you can get the cropping precise.

After you finish cropping, you are given the option to rotate the image in increments of 45 degrees. This allows you keep the image wide if it was originally taken that way.

The last step is sharing and giving a description to your image. You can enter the people in the image and the time and place the image came from. You can also share the image on Facebook and Twitter. As I said before, they may feature your image, so no matter what, it will be somewhat public.

Viewing Photos

The application keeps all your images for easy access later. On the bottom of the screen there is a section called "My Shoebox".  In here, you will see any images you have scanned. You can sort the pictures by the people in them or the tags you attached to them when you created them.

You can also look at the featured images page to see some of the best scans from other users. There are some cool pictures on there, so it is an interesting place to look around.

Conclusion

If you have many old photos that are sitting around collecting dust, or you want an easy way to put all your photos in the cloud so if anything terrible happens to the physical copies, ShoeBox is a cool app that is worth checking out. If you do not want others to be able to see your photos, this may not be the app for you, but if you don't care, or even prefer to show your photos off, I recommend downloading this app.

Image Credit: Shutterstock