Google Launches PhotoScan for iPhone: Digitize Old Prints, Glare-Free

Google PhotoScan for iPhone has been released to make it easy for users to digitize their old photos in an enhanced way.

Once you launch the app, it’s really easy to use. You just line up your print photo within the frame, then snap the first shot, as a reference frame. After, it’ll guide you to take more images of your print by moving your iPhone over four dots in each quadrant of your image.

These additional images will scan your image down to the pixel level, to determine where glare is and eliminate it, based on the multiple images taken, using various algorithms.

Google told Engadget when you move the phone to each dot, PhotoScan takes multiple images of the print to eliminate glare from light sources, which the company says is the main factor in horrible digital scans of prints.

PICTURE PERFECT AND GLARE FREE

Don’t just take a picture of a picture. Create enhanced digital scans, wherever your photos are.
– Get glare-free scans with an easy step-by-step capture flow
– Automatic cropping based on edge detection
– Straight, rectangular scans with perspective correction
– Smart rotation, so your photos stay right-side-up no matter which way you scan them

We just gave PhotoScan a quick test and it works pretty well. While the process of moving your iPhone to each corner of your print takes time, you do end up with a glare-free scan.

What’s unique about PhotoScan is you don’t need to integrate saved photos to Google Photos—you can save them directly to your Camera Roll, to keep your photo data private.

David Lieb, product lead for Google Photos, told the WSJ the new app is to aimed to compete with companies which offer to digitize your photos, since this solution is fast and free, saying “We make the scanning quick and we do all the work sorting your photos, and the app is free.”

Check out the video below for more:

Here’s a more in-depth look at how PhotoScan works:

Click here to download PhotoScan for iPhone in the App Store. This is a pretty cool app from Google.