I was recently looking for a good, easy, and fun way to add impact to some images for a presentation, and I stumbled across what just might be the cutest photo application for creating Polaroid-style images. It’s called Poladroid, and the emphasis is on fun!

A couple of years back, Jackson wrote about the Mac version of the application, but I’m really pleased to have discovered a Windows version since then. It’s not the most frequently updated program, but it works just fine. Jump in any time and have a go.

Getting a copy

Easy. Visit the website, download in the usual fashion, choosing the platform you need. For Windows, unzip the download, and run the installer.

Click on Poladroid in your Start menu, and the rather weird application will drop a camera on your desktop.

First use

It doesn’t get much easier than this. Find a file, and drag it to the camera.

A rather dark-looking image will start to develop. Wait. Give it a shake. Wait some more.

Drag another one while you wait. It’s not a digital technology, guys.

Poladroid will eventually complete the processing of your image, and will drop the result in your default photo location (usually My Pictures), along with a little cross on the developing Polaroid image to show it’s finished. Enjoy.

The resulting Polaroid image comes out at 1392 x 1692 pixels, including the classic Polaroid-style frame, and if necessary, some borders are added to the original image. Don’t use too small an original, or you might think it’s time to visit your optometrist when you look at the result.

You should also expect some cropping on non-square images, like this, but actually I rather like the effect.

Having a little more fun

If you’re anything like me, you just might be interested in the partially-processed images that you’re watching on-screen. If you right-click an image, a sample of it at the current state can be saved.

Those images show up in the same place as the final copies, and at the same resolution. The just have less contrast, with the amount depending on your trigger finger.

Changing the way things work

As great as this is at its defaults, there are still a number of settings which can be tweaked.

Click on the small blue circle above the camera, and you’ll be presented with a menu. Most of it is pretty self-explanatory, but go ahead and click Settings”¦ There are three tabs which allow you to modify things to work better with your mind:

Not a whole lot here, but you can set the resulting Polaroid images to be put back in the folder the originals come from, or in some other specified folder.

Important settings here is: Auto-rotate. If your camera knows when you’re taking a portrait, then Poladroid can pick up on the information and get things the right way around in here.

I really like these sound effects.

If you have some time”¦ tinker. In here you can determine whether or not any blurring happens, whether to put stripes on the image or the frame, and how much vignetting (that’s darkening of the outlying areas of the image) should occur.

Go on. You know you want to.

More

I have uploaded the “˜Poladroided’ images to my Flickr collection just here if you want to take a closer look.

If you like the idea, but would like to try some other options, take a look at Pixisnap and Instantizer.

That’s about it. Have any problems? Got some samples to link to? Anything Mac folks might need to know that’s different to the Windows version? Let me know in the comments.

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