Best Photo Scanning Apps

If you’ve been holding onto a box of old photos, slides, or negatives and wondering what to do with them, PC Mike Wendland is here with the answer.

As he reports, there are a number of apps that can be used to scan those older forms of media and keep the images they hold preserved digitally.

PhotoScan by Google Photos is for those who like fast and easy. Simple and to-the-point. Just follow the prompts to position a photo within the frame before pressing the shutter button. PhotoScan takes the five snapshots and stitches them together, correcting everything. The whole process takes less than 30 seconds for one photo. The app is free for iOS and Android.

Photo Scan App by Photomyne offers the ability to scan multiple photos at once. This makes quick work of scanning and identifying separate images in each shot. You can still go in and make manual adjustments, as needed. and add details like names, dates, locations, and descriptions. It limits the number of free albums for non-subscribing users, but you can easily export digitized photos for safekeeping. The app is free for iOS and Android.

Microsoft Office Lens is an all-purpose mobile scanner that excels at photos, especially if you’re interested in high-resolution reproductions. Office Lens is simple and straightforward; there’s minimal settings to adjust and only manual rotating/cropping to perform. The app is free for iOS and Android.