Best Apps to Scan Old Photographs to Digital
When you think of scanner applications, a flatbed scanner often comes to mind. Well, they are still commonly used especially when one needs high-quality photos and precise reproduction. However, smartphones have become more powerful and handy. There is no longer a need to invest in a large scanner if you’re not using it professionally. Also, you don’t have to visit your office store supply and pay them to scan photos for you.
All you need to do now is download one of the below applications and have your scanner in your pocket. The only catch is that you might have to trade in the quality and resolution of your pics with convenience. You won’t get similar results as with a dedicated scanner neither will you get access to advanced settings like resolution, brightness, color mode, etc.
But these mobile apps are handy to scan your old photo collection if you don’t need them in high resolution and top quality. They are very easy to use so you don’t have to know about scanner settings and setup.
Google PhotoScan
Google products are always high-quality and from a trusted source. At some point in our lives, we have used Google so the interface and layout are familiar. PhotoScan is very easy to use and gives you good quality photos. They promise you a glare-free scan, smart rotation, and automatic cropping. And the best thing is that it’s integrated with Google so your photos are stored safely.
However, our only quibble with them is that the photo resolution doesn’t make them good for printing. The sharpening also can be quite harsh.
Photomyne
It is one of the best apps in the market today for scanning your old photos. Their main focus is giving you high-quality photo scans and they don’t disappoint. It is AI-powered so they have taken things a notch higher. You get to scan multiple photos at a go. While the quality may not be as high as that of scanning individual pics, it saves you time when you want to store a lot of photos digitally.
Photomyne also has accurate cropping and auto-rotation of photos. Its image enhancement features are good as you can add a little bit of spice to your pics.
The only drawback is that they have a subscription playing model.
Microsoft Office Lens
Office Lens was developed to scan documents, whiteboards, business cards, and photos. With a steady hand, good lighting, and a flat surface, you’ll make a high-resolution photo scan. The photo-capture feature doesn’t apply enhanced contrast and saturation that is ideal for reading texts in documents. But, they allow you to set the camera scanning resolution making them unique from other scanning apps on the list.
It is a pretty straightforward app with minimal settings to adjust. You can adjust the flash and manually rotate or crop the pictures. Generally, Office Lens scans are 2X-4X better than other scans. Sharper, more accurate, and with great image resolution. On the plus side, it goes beyond scanning photos and it’s free.
However, you’ll get the best results if it’s part of a complete Microsoft software stack.
Pic Scanner Gold
For Pic Scanner, their main value proposition is the ability to scan multiple photos at a go. It’s true they save you time especially if you have a huge collection of old photos that need to be digitized. It’s very similar to Photomyne in that the image quality of multiple photos isn’t as high as that of single photos. But it’s decent enough.
It stands out from the pack because it comes with a full-blown photo editor. You can use a wide range of filters on your image scans. From blemish and noise removal to adding texts, overlay, frames, effects, and even converting your images to e-greeting cards/ slideshows. It’s a world of endless possibilities with Pic Scanner Gold.
We liked that you can create albums easily in the app as it organized your images for you. It has quite a sleek interface design but it’s very easy to use. The freemium version Pic Scanner has limited features but on the brighter side, the Gold one-time payment is affordable ($4.99) and you can use it for a lifetime.
Download for IOS.
You don’t have to worry about your old ‘Kodak’ moments fading away in the corner of your house. With these 4 apps, you can digitize a week’s worth of work in a few hours and share the memories with friends and family online