Photos and Slideshows

Do you have boxes of old family photographs on slides cluttering up your closet? If you do, you're not alone. They were great at the time. Now they seem to be an unnecessary source of clutter and an impractical media format. The good news is that they can be easily converted to convenient digital photographs.

There are numerous services on the Internet that will convert your slides for you. It's also likely that there is a service near your home. This may be the best choice if you don't have too many. Otherwise, at twenty to thirty cents or more per slide, you might prefer to do it yourself.

There are numerous slide copiers and scanners on the market. If you have thousands of slides, this might be the best option. It's even possible that you could make some money copying slides for others. Here's an inexpensive slide copying instructions document and here are a few links for slide copiers from Amazon.com.

Sometimes I wonder if we have it too easy, with all our modern technological gadgets. I don't think so. I like easy. Still, it is best to not entirely forget our past and the simple pleasures it provided. Cameras are a good example. I like modern digital cameras and their ease of use. I especially like the way digital photographs can be stored, processed and shared electronically. I'm a bit spoiled and don't really know much about the cameras and photographers that preceded me. I decided to remedy this situation by doing an online search about old cameras and camera collecting. Here are some links I found useful.

Collecting and Using Old Cameras: This site features photo galleries of collectible cameras. Detailed descriptions and usage tips are provided.

Camera Collecting and Restoration: Here you will find detailed information about many old cameras and how they can be repaired so you can actually use them. He makes the point that many older cameras can be purchased inexpensively, yet take better pictures than many of the far more expensive cameras on the market today.

Antique and Nineteenth Century Cameras: It's kind of fun to browse through all these photographs of antique cameras. This site also features information and links for the camera collector.

Putting a slideshow together isn't very difficult. I use Open Office software. It's free and relatively easy to use. It's also useful for much more than slideshows. It can also be used for text documents, spreadsheets and databases. It's good to know that you can insert clickable links into your slideshow. This is useful for promoting websites that have similar content.

Finished slideshows can be uploaded to SlideShare. This is a great way to share it with the world. It's an active community, so you will likely get comments on your production and meet people who post their own slideshows for you and others to enjoy.

I have decided to start including some public domain picture on this site. Public domain pictures are free for the public to use. Nobody owns the copyright on them. See this Wikipedia article about public domain. They are useful for adding to your website or for making slideshows or videos. You can click on the Public Domain Pictures label link to see what I have so far. (As time goes on, I will add Public Domain Pictures 2 and so on. Check the labels in the sidebar to access all the pictures.)

Wikimedia commons is a great place to find public domain pictures and other media types that are in the public domain. I usually use a search term like sunsets public domain to weed out the results that may be free to use, but still have some kind of copyright restrictions. It is still a good idea to check the information on the file to ensure that it is really in the public domain. Sometimes, it will be requested that you include an attribution on the picture, especially if it is from a government agency. I will be including links on the picture posts so you can check for yourself the status of the pictures.

Here are some other other sites I like that have good quality public domain pictures.

PD Photo
Gimp Savvy
US Fish and Wildlife Digital Library System
NASA Images

The process is very similar to embedding videos. If you have a Blogger Blog, it involves copying and pasting the embed code into your blog post. To get the embed code, simply go to the bottom of the slideshow and place your mouse cursor over the tab that says embed. A little pop up link will appear that says "get embed code". Click on that. A window will appear with the code. If you click on the "copy embed code" button, it will be copied onto your clipboard. You can then paste it into your blog post.

You can also click the "view" link on the bottom of the slideshow. This will take you to the slideshow's page at Slideshare. To the right of the slideshow will be a window with the embed code. There will also be a window with an embed code for Wordpress blogs. You may find this video to be helpful, if you have any problems. The bottom of the slideshows have other tabs to help you post them to places other than Blogger or Wordpress.

The opinions expressed in the slideshows or other embedded media may not be the same as the website owner. The information on this site is general information only. It should not be viewed as a substitute for professional or legal advice. No guarantees are made about the accuracy of the information on this blog. No guarantee is made about the copyright status of any image or other media file on this blog, including images that are believed to be in the public domain. Please do your own research before reusing any images or other media files.

Welcome to my slideshow blog. This is a place to explore an exciting and growing media format. I hope this blog will serve as a visual feast for the eyes and an enjoyable opportunity to learn about our world. I often prefer these slideshows to videos. They make it easy to go through pictures and text at your own rate.

Please make use of the labels in the right hand column to help you find the kinds of slideshows you are most likely to enjoy. This blog will focus on slideshows that have a nice visual appeal, including art, nature, geography, and world culture. There will also be some slideshows that are humorous or education.

I hope you enjoy your stay. Your comments are always welcome. Happy clicking!