Google presents the PhotoScan app, to digitize your old photos
Google has launched a new photography tool for Android and iOS, which turns your phone into a portable scanner, scanning a digital image of your printed photos. The new PhotoScan will allow you to convert your old printed photos into digital ones, with the power of computational photography.
According to Google, PhotoScan detects edges, straightens the image, rotates it to the right spot, and removes blur. It also includes new, advanced editing tools, including a better “auto enhance” feature, tools for making adjustments to the lighting and color of photos, and a dozen new photo filters. The filters are also powered by machine learning and will process the photo based on its brightness, darkness, warmth, and saturation before applying the new style.
«We all have old albums and boxes full of photos, but we don’t digitize them because it’s quite difficult to do it properly», said Jingyu Cui, software engineer at Google Photos. «We don’t want to lose our photos, but buying a scanner is expensive and time‑consuming and if we try to take a picture of the printed photo, we may end up with crooked edges and a blurry result»
To use the app, simply open it, place the photo in the correct spot and that's it. From there on, Google's software handles the rest, removing any glare, cropping and leaving you with a high‑quality digital image.
You can save scanned photos to your phone's internal storage or to Google Photos for organized, searchable storage. Google Photos currently offers unlimited photo storage. However, PhotoScan does not automatically upload photos to Google Photos.
Now you can download PhotoScan for iOS from the App Store or Android from Google Play for free.
