How to Digitize Old Film Photos Using your Smartphone?
Do you have a box of old film photos lying around your house? Maybe they were taken by your parents or grandparents, and you want to find a way to digitize them so you can enjoy them on your smartphone. Well, you’re in luck! In this blog post, we will show you how to do just that using nothing more than your smartphone and some free software. So gather up those old photos and let’s get started!
3 Effective Ways to Digitize Old Film Photos
There are a few different ways to digitize old film photos, but in this blog post, we will show you how to do it using your smartphone and some free software.
The first thing you need to do is find a scanner app for your smartphone. There are a lot of different scanning apps out there, but we recommend using the Camera Scanner app. Once you have downloaded and installed the app, open it up and follow the instructions on how to scan your photos.
Now scan your photos, you will need to download and install some photo editing software. we recommend using the GIMP software. Once you have installed the software, open it up and follow the instructions on how to edit your photos.
Here we will discuss a few important applications or software, digitize the old film photos using your smartphone to restore these old memories.
1. Google Photoscan

Google Photoscan is for Android and iOS users are one of the very less known and uncommon apps for scanning photos. This application provides you with features like crop, rotate, and some filters, these are the most common features, but pretty useful ones. This app is fast and easy to use, it is very simple to use as well.
It uses your phone’s camera to scan photos for digitalizing them. Once you permit to access the camera through the applications, four large circles will appear on the screen in each of the corners of the photos.
Now, you just need to adjust your phone so that the four circles are exactly over the corners of the photo (just don’t tilt your phone too much to adjust). Once this is adjusted, tap on the thumbnail, to scan the photo.
Now you can adjust the corners, rotate the image, or delete the image to try again. Now, either you can save the image by just tapping ‘Done’, or you can tap at the arrow ‘<-‘, present on the left upper side of the screen.
You can also share those scanned photographs using this app.
Let us find out the pros and cons of this application. So, we’ll start with the pros first.
Pros:
- So this is app is free, maybe there are some in-app purchases features, but leaving those this is a free app. You can just download it from the app store or play store, and use it.
- Made for only one use. It is only for scanning photos, and that’s it.
- Use syncs to store the scanned files. After scanning the picture it stores the files in google photos.
- Very useful while eliminating the glares. This is app is very fast and can eliminate the glares while scanning.
Cons:
- Has only one use. This app is only for scanning photos; we can’t use it for editing.
- People, who value their privacy, have a disadvantage. As this is a google built application that would need the permissions that are usually google asked for. So, if anyone loves their privacy too much would have a disadvantage.
- As previously stated there are some in-app purchases features, if you need to use those then it will cost you something.
Also Read, The Benefits of Owning a Smartwatch
2. Microsoft Lens

Microsoft Lens is application software, used to scan photos. Not only photos, but you can also use this application to scan paper documents, business cards, whiteboards, etc.
If you want a high-resolution photo scan, and your hands are steady, then this app is a good choice. Also, if you have a flat surface and ample lighting, it will provide you with the best scanning. This app has one photo scanning mode where the saturation and contrast do not apply enhancement, which is ideal for the texts on the documents.
The most important feature of this application is that it let you adjust the camera’s scanning resolution which is omitted by most the scanning applications so that your device can be operated to its maximum capability. In this app, the flash can be switched on or off or maybe put to automatic.
While using the app, use the shutter button to scan the photos, and there is an orange circular button, which takes the user to the next process of scanning. If the user wants to scan another photo or document then they need to tap Add on the application.
This application provides features like filters, users can apply different filters on the scan photos, users can also adjust the corners and the sides, just by using the crop, and also if we want to rotate the picture, we can just use the rotate option.
Next, the user either can save the picture on the photo gallery of the device or also can use the OneDrive to save those if the scanned picture is not good, then the user can just delete the previously scanned photo, by taping the delete option and can retake another one.
So, this application is really simple and very easy to use, along with a lot of added features, and functionality.
Moreover, this application’s scans are sharper and provide much higher image resolution, likely two to four times greater than most of the scanning applications(obviously depends on the device’s megapixels too). And this application also provides the user with good color accuracy.
Pros:
- Not only just scan photos. This app not only scans photos but also this app can scan documents, whiteboards, etc. Also, provide users with a bit of photo editing features.
- Free to use. It is a free app on the Google play store and app store. The user will just need to download and use it. There may be some in-app purchases with Microsoft, but most of the features are free.
- Easy and fast to use. This application is really fast and very easy to use and can be faster if use some basic edit tools.
- Provides much more scanning resolutions for sharper images. As previously discussed that this application can provide you with much more scanning resolution than most scanner apps.
- Provides the user with very good color accuracy.
Cons:
- Not the best app for scanning photos. This app is good for scanning photos, but it is mostly suitable for scanning documents, business cards, etc.
- Though this is free to use app, most of the features are available in the in-app purchases.
3. Photomyne

Photomyne is an application software with the ability of a flatbed scanner. The benefit of flatbed scanners is that they can identify multiple photos in a single shot, and can separate them after the scan. Using this app can save you a lot of time, especially when you are digitalizing a photo album and several pages of physical photographs.
This application can detect the edges of the photos, and can automatically crop and rotate the scanned photos. But, if the user wants to adjust the scanned images manually as per their choices, they can freely do that too. This application gives you the option to include names, descriptions, dates, and locations on the scanned photos.
This application’s overall color accuracy is good, though it’s not as good as previously mentioned applications, as those apps were better at minimizing the amount of noise or grain.
This application provides a limited number of free albums (for those users who don’t have subscriptions), but nothing to worry about you can easily export the digitalized photos to your device’s gallery, google drive, or any other synced applications.
Pros:
- The app provides you with a very easy and time-saving interface as it can scan multiple hard copy pictures in a single click.
- This is a great application to save your scanned photographs.
- This app can crop and rotate accurately, without any external effort.
- This app has a lot of features that other scanners don’t provide you, like including the details of the images like names, place, description, or date and time.
Cons:
- This is app a little bit expansible as it not only provides in-app purchases but also provides you with the subscription model.
- This is not as good with the quality of the scanned images as the previously discussed applications. But you can surely edit the scanned ones with some good editing applications to adjust as per your choice.
Conclusion
So, these are applications someone can use to scan old photographs and restore memories forever. There are many more applications for scanning old photographs. These applications are most authentic, easy, and best than the others.