We’re used to just taking more and more photos with top-class cameras on our smartphones: in cafes, on birthdays, on trips — and where and how those images are stored, and whether we’re ruining their quality by not securing them a safe place to rest, we don’t really care much about that, right?
That’s why one of the safest ways to save your precious moments from forgetting is to digitize old photos. So, if it happens that your real, original photos end up in some damp basement and get damaged, your memories will still be there.
So how do you do it? The process is very simple and all you need to do this task successfully is a good application that digitizes old photos. To help you, here are some of the best applications that will help you to quickly, easily, and simply digitize your old photos and save your memories.
CamScanner
CamScanner is the number one application when you decide to digitize old photos. In addition to being able to accurately scan a photo, the app also offers different types of processing of the photos themselves, as well as the option of storing files in the cloud. What’s most interesting here is the photo processing itself, which includes cropping, and adjusting the lighting and mid-tones.
For example, the Gray Mode option is great if you want to reduce the reflection on a photo, and you can always use Smart Enhance to automatically improve the image quality.
You can sync CamScanner with multiple different platforms and use it on all your devices. If you want, you can scan some documents or letters through this application. Note that all documents and photos you scan will be saved as PDFs. The application doesn’t offer the ability to save the scanned document as JPEG.
CamScanner is free for Android and iOS users, but there’s a premium version, which costs $4.99/month and offers more storage space and additional options in document processing.
Google PhotoScan
Google’s PhotoScan works quite simply and allows you to easily digitize an old photo. In addition to the ability to adjust colors and remove glare from photos, there are also options for recognizing the edges of the photo and improving perspective.
The app takes several photos in a row and chooses the best one for you, increasing the quality. And, of course, the app syncs to Google Photos.
Speaking of Google Photos, after uploading the image, if you want to embed it in a website, open the image and click on the Share button in the top right corner. Then, click on “Get link” and copy the generated link. After that, open the Bytenbit app, paste the link, and hit on the submit button. It will generate the image URL suitable for any HTML page.
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Photomyne
You probably haven’t heard of this app yet because Photomyne only has a beta version for Android users for now, while it’s free when purchased as part of another app for iOS users. Although relatively unknown, it’s a great choice if you want to digitize old photos.
The main advantage of the Photomyne app is that you can scan multiple photos at once. There’s, of course, an option to do it with each photo individually but why not take advantage of such a handy option?
There’s also an option that allows you to process all the photos later and beautify it with some of the offered filters. You can also write a little story about each photo and thus, completely personalize your albums.
Pic Scanner
Pic Scanner is an application through which you can digitize old photos but only if you have an iPhone or iPad. This application can scan up to three photos at the same time without decreasing the resolution of any of them.
The photo processing options that Pic Scanner has are very impressive: photo rotation, brightness and contrast adjustment, an offer of several quality filters, image sharpening, and several other tools. Photos stored and processed this way look really impressive.
Shoebox
Shoebox is a symbolic name for this free app because we often keep our old photos in shoe boxes. This app acts as your personal assistant when you digitize old photos and gives you the ability to enter some additional information about the photo itself and thus, tag the file. This way you can indicate where that photo was taken as well as when and who’s in it.
Shoebox has no filters and doesn’t offer a change of contrast and color but it’s very easy to find the edges of photos, correct perspective, and easily recognize the faces that are in the photo itself. All this makes it very easy to tag people in photos.
Ancestry, the company behind this app, offers you the option to save photos for free within their domain and create your family tree there. Another option is to save the photos in the gallery on your phone, of course.
