Convert Photos To Digital To Reveal The True Story
Behind The Scenes With The Von Trapp Family
Who could resist a girl like Maria?
Certainly not Captain von Trapp or his seven adorable children. “The Sound of Music” has long been an iconic movie musical, well-known and loved around the world. Countless children – and adults – have sung its catchy tunes and dreamed of a happily-ever-after that mimics Maria’s. They have gone on to convert photos to digital, a way to share movie memories with a whole new generation of fans online. In this picture, a beaming Julie Andrews sings to the children she is charged with caring for, stealing the show with her radiant portrayal of Maria.
In the movie, Maria arrives at the Von Trapp family home to serve as governess to the kids (their father, the captain, is a widower). The film continues to be a beloved classic today, but it turns out the true story behind it is just as interesting, if not more.
The real-life Maria actually was hired by the captain to tutor his sick daughter, also named Maria, who had been stricken with scarlet fever. But because filmmakers felt having two characters named Maria would confuse moviegoers, they changed the daughter’s name – and also the names, ages and genders of the other children.
In her eponymous autobiography, Maria von Trapp shares that she did not love Captain Georg von Trapp when she married him. It was his children she adored, though she later grew to love her husband deeply. They had three children together.
It turns out Maria and the von Trapp kids disapproved of the captain’s portrayal in the movie. He was not cold and distant, as the film would have you believe, but actually quite warm and doting. As for Maria, she wasn’t as sweet as the character portrayed by Julie Andrews, either. Also, the family did not travel to Switzerland but to Italy, and they made it no secret when they left for America.
Of course, such revelations don’t make the film any less entertaining. Thanks to technology, we can convert photos to digital to spread the rich appeal of the vocally talented von Trapp family, both on and off the big screen.
With those thoughts fresh in your mind and maybe a little extra time with the kids in school, it is the perfect time to finally gather up some of those old photos and send them in to ScanDigital. This time of year is a great reminder to everyone that all of those graduation, college, and even Grandma and Grandpa’s old school photos are just lying in the closet slowly deteriorating, and they could be used for so much more. Do not wait for next school year, scan them today and preserve them forever. Little Billy may never be a kindergartener again, but with that picture of his first day in digital format you can always remember when he was your little boy. 
It was always a beautiful day in the neighborhood whenever Mister Rogers appeared on the tube. His easygoing manner made him a television personality loved by millions of children, who later turned their own kids onto his magic.
1. GIMP, also known as “the poor man’s Photoshop,” is packed with advanced features that will help you retouch and/or manipulate images just as Photoshop would. This is a great option for those with more experience in photo editing that need more complex tools. Another great advantage of GIMP is the fact that it’s an open source project, meaning it is constantly being updated with new features by generous programmers.
2. Paint.net is my personal favorite. It has all the main features of GIMP such as magic wand, clone and heal, but with a simpler interface. If you are just looking for “auto-everything” to retouch images, this might be a little overkill. However, if you are looking for rich-featured software with basic experience in photo editing this might be a good one to try out.
3. Picasa, from Google, is perfect for those with no editing experience that love to share photos. With features like one button sync to Google photos, you can share photos in a snap. Picasa does a good job at doing minor touch-ups, such as auto-contrast, crop/rotate, and red eye removal. Some features that also caught my attention were, “Timeline” which organizes all your old scanned photos by month and year; and collage, which lets you pick a group of photos and create a collage in a matter of seconds. 
