Though we have oft lamented the passing of Polaroid into photographic history, a new application called Poladroid allows you to recreate that nostalgic look and feel of the instant film for free.
Once installed, Poladroid places a hovering Polaroid camera over your desktop onto which you can drag and drop any digital photo to convert it into a "poladroid". As the photo emerges from the camera, it continues to develop in front of your eyes, just as Polaroid film does — and if you want to speed up the process even further, you can shake the picture from right to left using your mouse.
The program applies a range of effects such as vignetting and colour shifting to the image, and outputs the final picture in a square Polaroid frame. You can also halt development at any stage and save an image of your poladroid in the process; just click and save for that underexposed look.
To stay even more true to the original format, Poladroid only allows you to make 10 photos at a time — the same number of frames in a pack of Polaroid film.
Download Poladroid for free from poladroid.net or view some examples of poladroids on the flickr group page.