Archive Your Photos With ShoeBox By 1000memories
Shoebox by 1000memories (Free) by 1000memories is a very cool app for bringing your old film photographs to the digital age. So dust off that old shoebox or that crumbling photo album, and find a forever home for the images within.
Start by setting up an account with 1000memories. Once you have an account set up, you can start scanning those old photos. It really could not be easier to do with your iPhone, or any iDevice with a camera running iOS4.1 or later. Simply set your photo down where there is plenty of natural light. Be sure to get all four corners of the photo in the shot. Don’t worry about trying to take the picture straight on; you will fix the perspective in the next step. After taking the photo, you’ll see four dots, which you move to each corner with your finger. The app creates a perfectly cropped, aligned photo.
The photo will be uploaded to the site, where you can ask your friends and family to view your photos. They can add tags, comment, share a memory, etc. The site is also designed to help (possibly long lost) family members find one another. You can create a family tree, write your backstory, follow people, and have people follow you.
You’ll also notice a “Featured” button. It’s kind of like the “Popular” page in Instagram. I’m not sure what the criteria are to get your photo Featured, but it’s a nice way to see photos that others are posting.
Although it connects with Facebook and Twitter, it really is its own social media site, with a focus on archiving your irreplaceable photographs. I noticed that some iTunes reviewers were concerned about privacy and gave the app very low ratings as a result. I took a look at the company’s privacy policy, and it looks to be about as private as Facebook, which is to say, not very, although there are some settings that allow you to limit others’ ability to see your photos. You can read their privacy policy for yourself here. To me, this website and app are for people who want to share, not just save their memories, but each person has his or her own comfort level.
1000memories is devoted to being a safe and free place for you to store your memories forever. In fact, they teamed up with The Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library, to help preserve everyone’s memories. I’m a big believer in backing up everything, so why not store a digital version of your favorite, precious old photographs here?
