PhotoScan by Google Photos Reviews

PhotoScan is straight up AWESOME. There are other good scanner apps out there, but this is by far the best photo scanner app I have ever used. In fact, it might even be better than actual photo scanner machines. The quality of scans is great. I scanned several old family photos and they came out clear and accurate.

It has to take a picture in the dead center of the picture, then it primos you to move to the four corners of the picture. It similar to when you take panoramic photos with your phone. By taking pictures of the center and each corner, it allows the software of PhotoScan to automatically get out any glare, but also maintain the integrity of the photo. Once you're finished with a batch you can save the photos to your Google Photos app.

I highly recommend it to anyone, but especially those who have been wanting to scan old photos, but have been afraid of the amount of time it would take as well as the money to spend on a photo scanner. Here is your answer.

so I’m one of those “I never write reviews, but” yeah I’m here because I literally got teary-eyed when I saw the results of using this app instead of just taking a photo of a photo. I have no-glare, not distorted, not faded photos of family from before I was born. I’d taken photos of these pictures before, because a lot of them are old and quite fragile and I wanted a record of their existence. The difference using this app was…like I said, a little teary-eyed.

Look, I was the girl who always had the camera, who holds reams of photos (from high school and college, especially) and puts a priority on protecting that physical print from time, wear, and tear.

The this app images are so good, they kinda look better than the print sometimes. It somehow balances the colors perfectly — not like a filter or editing black point, shadows, etc., but it just looks RIGHT. It’s better, but you wouldn’t realize it until comparing a couple of times.

I am a photo person. I love looking back at these images, because you can hear stories about people all the time, but a photo…is so much more. And PhotoScan takes that next-level by preserving them the way they really look. It is incredible, and I truly think it’s the best “photo-to-computer” facilitator ever, including things like scanners.

It’s simple to use and the results are stunning. Get it.

I don’t write reviews for apps but I am taking the time to do one for PhotoScan because I am so happy with it! I have struggled for a year with trying to get good photos of my paintings (i.e. no glare, no funky angle, etc) because I don’t have a fancy lighting so up with a tripod, etc and I can’t hold the phone still. I didn’t even have to take my paintings off of the walls to use this, even the ones that are hung way above my head (yes, I am short). It does give me a warning to try not to tilt the phone but even when I do, the scan is still great! It worked where the light was on and also where the painting only has normal indoor lighting (no lights on). I want to make a calendar with my artwork and I think this will allow me to do so very easily. So happy!!!!!

I like PhotoScan, a lot actually. It does a good job of removing glare, but you still have to have good lighting otherwise some parts of the photo will be brighter than others. But I might just be noticing that bc I like to edit photos and can run into problems if a photo doesn’t have consistent lighting. But even with that I would still give PhotoScan five stars, except that isn’t the only issue that I’ve been having. About half the time that I’m trying to do a scan PhotoScan just quits and I am sent to my homepage. I’m wondering if this is bc I have an older phone ? I Have an iPhone 6? So is it possible that PhotoScan isn’t compatible with my phone. I’m going to give PhotoScan 3 stars, only because if it takes me 3 tries to get one scan without PhotoScan mysteriously quitting then that def leaves areas for improvement . However if I hear from support on PhotoScan who can help me resolve my issue then I will change my rating to five stars. I’ve already tried deleting and reinstalling PhotoScan once before.

PhotoScan does the basic function of removing parallax from a flat image and it often removes the glare. I use it primarily to scan magazine covers and important documents.

A significant problem has been encountered when trying to position crosshairs, as they often move as I remove my finger from the screen. This occurs when the view changes to the overview, so the error is not detected until the image is magnified again.

A second problem occurs in the management of the saved images. I do not use Google photos to store the images and so local storage is the Apple photos camera roll. When I modify an image, PhotoScan requires that I replace the existing image if I want to keep it. It would be helpful to allow replacing or adding to the camera roll or just storing locally in PhotoScan . It would also be helpful to dump local storage directly to an album and then clear the storage without losing the images from the photos app.

It handles both gray and color photos just fine. Instructions are easy - you will be scanning in no time. It handles pictures in frames or behind the glass - its anti glare feature is awesome.

I wish they had a bit better border detection as I often find myself tweaking borders for older pictures. The UI for border detection could be better likewise / provide better controls as pictures could get small while it gets harder to catch the border at such scale (with my imperfect eyesight). Still, I like PhotoScan a lot.

Taking pictures in batches works faster. When scanning albums, just keep going - you can adjust borders for your batch later before saving them all in one go. This speeds things up significantly rather than taking a picture/adjusting its borders/saving one at a time.

I have been using PhotoScan to recapture printed photographs. The scanned images are of great quality however, just like anything else there are several factors that need to be considered such as room lighting, condition of original, size of the original, etc. The program does not have photo editing tools, but the scanned image gives you a good copy to start with if you then want to edit it. Most of the images I was able to touch up using google photos edit tools and was satisfied with the results. I am sure the images would look even better with professional editing tools but like I said, this program gives you a better starting point that just taking a picture of the original or even worse scanning the photo.

I was spending hours scanning photos on my Cannon Flat Bed. I can scan a photo in 3 seconds with PhotoScan! And I love that the pictures are immediately saved in both my Google Photos and IPhone Photos without being asked! Thank you for saving that step!!! A couple things to know. Click the lightning bolt on bottom of screen to turn off your flash and cancel out glare. It saves the extra seconds it takes to readjust the photo. Also don't let Google modify your picture when it pops up. It was cropping off heads and the focus of the picture when I went to look at them in my Google Photos. Thanks for making this great app!!!!!

I found out after the fact that these were saving to my camera roll. Otherwise, the options of saving within PhotoScan are minimal and one at a time. I just did the 4-point scan for hundreds of photos with PhotoScan in preparation of a wedding. Biggest struggle: glossy photos are fine (I need to adjust about 1 of every 4 because it’s unusable), but the ones that have more of the matte finish are disasters. PhotoScan cannot adjust to the grainy texture of this kind of photo. And unfortunately, I had a lot of these. I’ve also had to play around with the room lighting quite a bit to find something optimal. Otherwise, I do like that PhotoScan can drastically reduce/eliminate glare on the more glossy, simple photos. It’s better than just the iPhone camera/app by itself!

PhotoScan is very good and I have tried several including both phone based and also a flatbed scanner. It removes glare very well from both satin and glossy photos. It seems to auto correct for faded color which eliminates a post scan step. The auto cropping is also good.

The two suggestions would be 1) To allow an auto create of an album. 2) To allow the capture of some notes along with the picture. But these two things are minor and can also be handled after the fact.

Modified Review: the final resolution is pretty low... several other apps do significantly better... I stand by the review above... it is easy to use and does a good job of removing glare, however, the current final resolution does not allow for a good display on a full sized monitors which is should be table stakes for type of app.

UPDATE: Looks like I jumped the gun a little bit. PhotoScan did transfer all photos (original and cropped) via thunderbolt cable! However, it still needs option to export multiple photos directly from within PhotoScan .

The initial portion of PhotoScan - photo-scanning images is very good. I also like the ability to crop the images. For that, Id rate 5 stars. But it completely falls flat for what I would say is the most important part - exporting the images.

After scanning and cropping, the photos are saved to the camera roll (as cropped), but when they’re imported to a desktop via thunderbolt cable, the photos are not cropped. That’s completely useless.

There is, however, an option to extort photos directly from PhotoScan , but only one at a time!?? PhotoScan allows selecting multiple photos but then the only option is to delete. That’s a huge usability error. So the only way I can export over 500 finalized cropped photos is to export the one at a time via AirDrop.

Like I said, great on the front end but complete fail on the backend.

Developers, please add option to; A) bulk export from PhotoScan , and B) Export finalized photos from the camera roll.

There are about 1 million photo apps. And most of them work fine. This one works amazingly well. And just a few seconds you can quickly reproduce almost any old photo so that it looks beautiful in the digital universe. I sorted all my family photos, set on the kitchen floor, and and just a few minutes digitized everything I needed for a special family event. It comes in super handy whenever you want to send a photo to a friend. Also, does great with text based printed items as well. I’ve use PhotoScan since 2017, and it has never disappointed me once.

I started scanning old photos one at a time for posterity for my family. Was long and painful process. Happened to read about PhotoScan and downloaded it. Made things so much easier! I don’t even need to take pics out of albums. Just open the page, focus on desired pic, click and follow the dots. Then, just download them all from phone to hard drive. It takes a bit of getting used to so
That the pic doesn’t get overexposed but it’s not difficult. Really appreciate how PhotoScan made a huge long-term project a lot easier.

TL;DR... Pros: easy to scan pics, produces nice quality scans. Cons: glitchy, some functions are unintuitive.

I really like PhotoScan and I want to like it more. Unfortunately, the ease of use sort of goes out the window with the glitches and bugs. I’ve been able to work around most of it, but it becomes a pain to have to do it with every scan.

Developers (if Google Devs actually look at these reviews)...

Bug 1: when scanning, the corners are so far off it’s not funny. Even when putting the photo on a contrasting background so it can see the edges better. Seems like the window is too tall (in portrait) or too wide (in landscape).

Bug 2: when editing a scan, when adjusting the corner positions, the zoomed in circle is mostly filled with part of the original in-zoomed image, and I cannot see what’s under the crosshairs. It’s basically useless.

Bug 3: I occasionally need to close PhotoScan , reopen it, and then view scanned images again for them to be saved to or appear on the camera roll. This happens randomly and throws things out of sequence. Super frustrating.

I LOVED PhotoScan when it first released. It was perfect. The photos were hi res, crisp, no glare, and it cropped the images perfectly. But it has come down over the years. Now, my images constantly have glare unless I have just the right lighting in the room. And even then, I still have to ignore small glares. The pictures seem to be fuzzy now. Sometimes it better to just take a normal picture with my iPhone camera app. The biggest headache now is that the magnifying glass tool that you use to crop the images is completely broken (displays just a black dot). This makes it impossible to accurately crop your images. Makes it impossible to conveniently crop them at all. It’s so fiddly. Judging by the fact that PhotoScan hasn’t been updated in over 4 years, my guess is Google stopped caring. Such a bummer.

PhotoScan is great! Does what it says, stores files in with other photos where they can be edited(usually only to rotate) then be sent off to where they need to be in your choice of format. Takes roughly 2 seconds to capture, then your off doing whatever else you got going. No complaints, I use no other apps for capturing documents. PhotoScan works flawlessly and makes life so much easier! Definitely download! And tell your boss! Who knows, saving his time could lead to another way to make life easier/better!

This is the only app that you can take photos on your cell phone of photo albums without needing to remove the pictures. Removing pictures from albums can be destructive to the pictures. PhotoScan removes the glare by moving the camera around the picture. It only takes about 5 seconds a picture. Best of all, it directly uploads into Apple Photos. Other apps require you to use there organizer and their cloud. One wish that it had an easy way to annotate the picture as you take them.

I made several scrapbooks of my family photos before digital photos were around. But now I wanted to preserve them digitally but they are too big for my flatbed scanner. PhotoScan is great for taking digital copies of these large pages so I can view them on my iPad. Sometimes I can even scan the scrapbook pages right from their plastic overlays without any glare. PhotoScan even takes pictures of the pages and crops them automatically so just the pages are the photos, without me having to crop out any unnecessary surroundings. Great app!

The only thing I wish it would do is allow notations or captions that would “live” with the image- maybe on the small white frame that has the Google branding that gets added to the scan.
The other thing is I wish it would connect to my Google Photos account so I could back up quickly.
Otherwise, amazing app. Great quality scans. I plan on getting some fresh prints of some old pictures for some wall collages. The rest I’m just digitizing to save the family history for future generations.

I choose this app as it’s the only app I know of that does not charge me to get full access to its features that helps me get my old film camera era photos to shareable format.

It’s overall good but can be tenacious at times to get the right quality and lighting and avoid reflections though. Sometimes the edges needs to be readjusted to fit the photo. Though at least there is an option that doesn’t cost extra most others would charge for extra features or to access PhotoScan at all.

I don't remember how I stumbled onto this hidden gem of an App, but all I know is that I wished I would have sooner! My mom had an old original family photograph of her and her late father that she wanted to share on FB on father's day and as soon as I scanned it on PhotoScan, I was sold! Gone are the days of taking a picture of an old photo and spending time trying to lighten/darken/sharpen etc etc.. This is truly a digital photo album device, saving and restoring your old photos in top quality. And if you have a family like mine, that loves to share old me memories (photos) with each other across social media, you cannot NOT have PhotoScan!

My mom asked me to take a box marked “games” and donate it. When I got to the thrift store, I decided to open the box and take a quick look. In among a still-shrink-wrapped game of Yahtzee, a cribbage board, assorted playing cards, some old health insurance documents and a giant magnifying glass...3 envelopes stuffed full with old photographs: of me as a child, of my mom as a graduate student at NYU, of my father and grandparents and my earliest childhood friends. Treasures that might’ve been lost forever.... Fast forward a day, I’m using PhotoScan to scan these pictures, and it works beautifully. Thanks, Google, for an amazing gift.

The UI on PhotoScan is very simple and makes it incredibly easy and fast to scan your photos. It corrects the perspective and colors of the photo very well.

Unfortunately, the resulting image is very grainy and well below the resolution that my iPhone takes photos. I tested a photo scanned in PhotoScan vs. taking a normal photo in the native Camera app and when you zoom into the details the difference is night and day. The image quality that PhotoScan saves in will be fine if you just want to share it on social networks or other low-res applications. However, if you’re like me and want to archive old photographs in a high-quality digital form without a traditional scanner, then you’ll have to look elsewhere.

This is an amazing app! It lets you easily use your phones camera to “scan” physical photos. It auto detects the edges of the photo, works best if you put the photo on a contrasting surface (I.e. light surface for dark photo and dark surface for a light photo), so you don’t have to spend hours cropping the edges. You can then save the photos to your device or in the cloud. This is great for finally getting those old family photos online without having to mess with a printer/scanner and without paying someone else an arm and a leg!

PhotoScan is definitely the easiest way to "scan" a bunch of old photos without glare. But compared to just taking a regular photo with my iPhone camera app or using a real scanner, PhotoScan often gives lower quality results - subtle brightness and color gradations are lost and fine details get blurry. If you just need to scan a photo once in a while, I think you're better off using the camera app and be careful to avoid glare - and if you have a lot of photos to scan, consider sending them to a scanning service; you'll get the best results at maximum convenience (yes you could also buy a scanner but you probably have better things to do than spend days just scanning and tweaking photos).

Google updated PhotoScan a few months ago so that it automatically syncs with your photo library. Now whenever I attempt to manually edit the corners of the captured image, PhotoScan crashes when updating the photo in my iOS photo library. After that PhotoScan is never useable again. It crashes every time I reopen it and this behavior survives through force-quitting PhotoScan and reboots. The only way to get it to work again is to uninstall and reinstall. Of course if you ever edit a photo manually again you’re back in the same boat. So frustrating and disappointing. I keep PhotoScan on my phone in hopes that someday Google will issue an update to fix it! This used to be one of the most useful apps I’ve ever had.