HDR

HDR or High Dynamic Range Imaging is a relatively new thing in digital world, but it was developed in the '30s and '40s.

I discovered it this mourning, and i had to try it. All you have to do is to make 3 images with different exposures, and mess a little bit with settings and you'll get a masterpiece. Probably the best tool to do this is Photomatix. You can try it for free.
I'm amazed what you can do with photos, even if they're really poor quality like so:
Original

and HDR