Tag Archives: pic scanner

photo-scanner

Easy way to scan photos and picture albums

Scanning old family photos and albums can take a Herculean effort. Even if you are tech-savvy and have all the paraphernalia (a desktop scanner, computer, Photoshop), it can take weeks or months to scan, crop, edit, label and organize photos spanning many decades.

But there are easier ways too…

Photo scanning services

You could “outsource” this task to a photo scanning service They will scan photos and put them on CDs or DVDs for you. However, you can’t just send them your albums: You will need to take photos out of albums, sort by size, flat-pack and courier them. It will then take a week or more to get your original and scanned photos back, and you will then need to put photos back into your albums, and organize and caption the scans. The scan quality will generally be very good. Check on the internet to find out which photo scanning services are available in your country, and how much they charge. Do read their terms and conditions carefully.

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Scan photos yourself…there are apps for it!

A faster and easier option to scan photos is to use an iPhone or iPad and a photo scanner app. The apps we will discuss here are: Pic Scanner, Pic Scanner Gold and Photo Scanner Premium.

Pic Scanner is a simple yet powerful app. It is ideal for quickly scanning photos, especially if you have an older model iPhone or iPad. The app lets you scan and auto-crop multiple photos at a time, perform basic edits, create albums and add captions for in-app viewing. It also lets you freely share and save photos to Photos app, Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox etc. Pic Scanner costs US$1.99 for unlimited use [Website] [App Store link]

Pic Scanner Gold is a much advanced version of Pic Scanner. It does everything Pic Scanner does, plus it can scan photos at higher resolution, has a  powerful 19-tool editor, lets you import pictures from Photos app for pooling with scanned ones. It can also convert photos into slideshows, e-greeting cards and shareable albums; and allows many more ways to share and save photos. It costs US$4.99 for unlimited use. [Website] [App Store link]

Photo Scanner Premium is identical to Pic Scanner Gold, but is priced differently. Initially, a US99¢ download allows 24 scans and use of all features. Once you have tried out the app and decide you like it, you can upgrade to unlimited version for US$4.99 [App Store link]

Advantages of these apps: 1) Far less expensive than other alternatives. 2)  High quality scans, as long as you follow the in-app scanning tips. 3) Fast: No need to remove photos from albums. 4) Photos don’t leave your home: No risk of loss or damage in transit.

Scanning photos ensures they are preserved for future generations, and also makes them easy to enjoy and share. It can be a rewarding, fun exercise. Take a trip down nostalgia lane!

pic scanner help troubleshooting tips

Pic Scanner Help and Troubleshooting

Pic Scanner Help & Troubleshooting guide provides answers to the most commonly asked questions. If your question isn’t answered here, email us at support (at) picscannerapp.com.

Important: Check that you have the latest version of iOS and Pic Scanner installed. For in-app tips, tap Menu button on Camera screen. For ready reference, print our 5 Minute Guide.

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PIC SCANNER – HELP & TROUBLESHOOTING

APP INSTALL & UPDATING HELP

A1) How to transfer Pic Scanner to my new iPhone or iPad, along with the photos, captions and albums? It’s easy! See illustrated, step-by-step procedure here.

A2) Will updating to a new version of iOS or Pic Scanner affect my photos? No. All photos, captions and albums will stay intact – as long as you don’t delete and reinstall Pic Scanner.

A3) I have many photos and albums in Pic Scanner. If I buy Pic Scanner Gold, can I transfer them to the new app? Super-easy. With both apps installed on your device, launch Pic Scanner and tap Menu button. Select Migrate. All cropped photos, albums and captions will be transferred to Pic Scanner Gold. After this you can delete Pic Scanner to save space on your device. If you have more than 200 photos, this post provides an alternative method.

A4) The app is frozen. Double click Home button > You will see ’tiles’ of all open apps > Slide Pic Scanner tile upwards to close it > Press Home > Launch Pic Scanner. It will work normally.


SCANNING HELP

S1) Can’t scan. All I see is a white screen: You need to allow Pic Scanner access to the camera. Go to Settings > Privacy > Camera > Turn on Pic Scanner.

S2) Can’t save cropped pictures to Photos app: Go to Settings > Privacy > Photos > Turn on Pic Scanner.

S3) iPhone or iPad camera won’t focus, scans are blurry: Camera should auto-focus within a second of pointing it at the photos being scanned. Otherwise tap the screen to focus it.

S4) Scans look dull and of low resolution: Read this post for illustrated tips on how to get pro quality scans.

S5) Is Pic Scanner suitable for left handed users? Yes. On iPhone: With the phone in portrait mode, the scanner button is at the bottom; for landscape, hold the phone with Home button to the left, and the scanner button will also be on the left. On iPad: With iPad in portrait mode, the shutter button is on the right. Left handed users can get the shutter on the left side by turning the iPad upside down. For landscape, rotate the device until the button is at the bottom.


CROPPING HELP

C1) The photo I scanned isn’t on Cropped screen: Check Originals screen for uncropped photos. If the photo is on Originals but not Cropped screen, it wasn’t scanned properly. Also see this post on how to avoid wrong or no cropping. For now, re-scan the photo, or crop it manually by using Trim at the bottom bar of Originals screen.

C2) Cropping is wrong: See this post for illustrated tips on how to get accurate auto-cropping. You can also manually crop photos from Originals screen.

C3) Can I disable automatic cropping? Auto-cropping is a real effort-saver in Pic Scanner. If you follow the tips in C1 above, automatic cropping will be very accurate. If you have to use uncropped photos for editing/sharing, transfer them from Originals to Cropped screen.


BUYING HELP

B1) How much does the app cost? How to buy unlimited scanning? Pic Scanner costs $1.99. This one-time price is for unlimited scanning and sharing/saving – no recurring or hidden charges.

B2) I have the trial version you used to offer. How to check how many free scans I’ve got left? Check the counter on top right (See photo: Here, 4 out of 12 free scans remain):

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B3) Cannot purchase Pic Scanner. Help! In App Store, tap Settings > iTunes & App Store > Apple ID > Sign Out. Sign back in, relaunch Pic Scanner > Buy Unlimited.

B4) Do I have to pay separately for using the app on iPhone and iPad? No. If both devices are linked to the same Apple ID, you pay only once. If you buy the app on iPhone, the message Buy Unlimited vanishes after purchase. Download the free version on iPad > Tap Menu button on Camera screen > Buy Unlimited > Restore Purchase. Unlimited scanning is enabled.


SAVE & SHARE HELP

T1) How to save scanned pictures to Photos app or Dropbox? Tap Select on Cropped screen > select thumbnail(s) > Export > From sharing options, select Photos, Dropbox or others.

T2) How to share photos from Originals screen? On Originals screen, tap Select > choose photos > tap Move. Photos are saved on Cropped screen, and you can use them as you like.

T3) I want to export 150-200 photos. Can I do it all at once? Transfer in batches of 30-40 when saving on-device (Photos app) and 20-25 over the internet (Dropbox, email etc.) Facebook only lets us upload max. 10 photos at a time.

T4) How to export albums and captions? This option is not present in Pic Scanner. Please consider upgrading to Pic Scanner Gold, which offers this and many other advanced features.

T5) Where are the photos I uploaded to Dropbox saved? In App > Pic Scanner folder.

T6) How to transfer scanned pictures to my computer? On Cropped screen, tap Select > choose photos  > Export > In sharing  options, select Photos. If you have iCloud and Photostream enabled, photos will automatically sync to iCloud and your computer. If you have a very large number of photos and albums, please email us for alternative method.

T7) Does Pic Scanner work with OneDrive, Google Drive, Google Photos, Box and other cloud services? You can transfer photos from Pic Scanner to any such service by first saving them to Photos app (Camera Roll) on your iPhone or iPad, then syncing to your preferred cloud service. For iCloud, see T6 above. For OneDrive, follow these steps. Pic Scanner Gold users can directly transfer photos to the above-named and all other cloud services.

T8) Why doesn’t Pic Scanner have direct connections to all cloud services? So as to keep Pic Scanner uncluttered and easy to use. However, Pic Scanner Gold users can directly transfer photos to the above-named and all other cloud services.


ALBUMS HELP

A1) How to create albums and save photos in them? There are two ways:

Method 1. First create new album: Cropped screen > Albums > Create new album > In pop-up box, type name of album > Save > Empty album is created. Now add photos to it: Tap the empty album > Tap ‘Add photos’ > Tap ‘Cropped album’ (On top of Albums screen) > Select the photos you want to add to album > Done. Photos will be added to your album.

Method 2: One-step album creation: Start on Cropped screen > Tap the photos you want to put in the album (They’ll get tick marked) > Tap Add (bottom left) > Tap ‘Add to New Album’ > In the pop-up box, type name of album > Save > The album will be created.

A2) How to add more photos to an existing album? Start on Cropped screen > Select > tap to select and tick mark photos > Add > Add to existing album > tap on the album to which photos should be added.

A3) I am adding photos to albums. How to keep track of which photos I have added to the album and which I haven’t? In Cropped gallery, select all the photos you want to put in an album > Albums > Add to existing > Select album name. This will add only those photos that aren’t already there in the album, without duplicating those you had added earlier.

A4) How to delete an album? On Albums screen (The one that shows album covers i.e. names and number of photos in each album), swipe left on the album to be delete > Tap Delete.

A5) How to make my scanned photos into a photo book, greeting card or calendar? Save photos to Dropbox or computer as explained in T1 and T6 above, then log into your preferred photo printing website and upload the photos. Also read this blog post.

A6) How to rearrange the photos in an album or for showtime slideshow? This feature is not available in Pic Scanner (old app). Please check out our new app Pic Scanner Gold.

ShowTime SlideShow

S1) How to play/mute music with ShowTime slideshow? Tap the screen while slideshow is playing. A bar appears. Tap the loudspeaker button on it.

S2) Can I create a slideshow using some photos scanned with Pic Scanner, and others I have on my computer? Yes! Save the selected photos from Pic Scanner to Photos app on your iPhone or iPad, and sync to computer. Now open iPhoto, and follow this easy tutorial.


GENERAL HELP

G1) Is the resolution good enough for printing photos? If you plan to make reprints, scan one photo at a time (not 2 or more at a time). This will give you sufficiently high resolution scans to make 240-300 PPI (pixels per inch) prints.

G2) Trying to send message through the contact form, but it says ‘Failed. Try again’. This can happen if you are not on wi-fi. To avoid this problem when away from wifi, go to Settings > Cellular, and ensure that Pic Scanner is ON. Note that data charges may apply.

G3) In which format are the scanned photos saved? The pics are saved as JPEG (.JPG) files. Scans are optimized to give best quality (pixels) with the smallest file size (bytes).

G4) I have scanned many photos, and am running out of space on my iPhone/iPad. What to do? Free up space by deleting unneeded original files. Tap the Originals button on bottom left of Cropped thumbnails screen, and delete the original photos you no longer need.

G5) Why do you recommend saving scans to Photos app, then deleting originals from Pic Scanner? To save space. For each scan, we save the original photos. These are only needed if you need to manually crop any photos. Otherwise you can delete them safely.

G6) Is it necessary to save scanned photos in Dropbox or computer? Yes. Archiving scans in cloud or computer is a good idea so your photos stay safe even if you lose your iPhone or iPad – or accidentally delete Pic Scanner.

G7) How to uninstall Pic Scanner? Lightly press any app icon on your device for 2 seconds. All icons will get marked (x) and start jiggling. Tap Pic Scanner icon, and confirm deletion. Note that this will permanently delete your scanned photos, albums and captions.

G8) I deleted my scanned photos. Is there a way that to recover them? If you have backed them up to iTunes on your computer, yes. Go to iTunes and see when the last back-up was done. Procedure for restoring photos is similar to this. If you don’t have a back-up, you can’t get photos back. By default, we save photos in the app itself, not on a remote server. So when you delete the app, all of its contents get deleted. To prevent such accidents, you must periodically save scanned pictures to your computer or in Dropbox.

Any other questions, problems or suggestions, email feedback @appinitio.com

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Exporting from Pic Scanner Gold to Google Photos

Exporting photos from Pic Scanner Gold to free cloud and photo storage services such as Dropbox, Flickr, Photos etc. and social network sites such as Facebook, Instagram etc. is easy. You select the photos, tap Export button, and choose the destination.

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The most-used services are displayed first (Grey screen above), and to access all other weird and wonderful photo apps installed on your device, you tap Show all.

Most cloud and photo storage apps appear on one of these two screens, but Google Photos seems to “hide” itself! But no worries: Exports from Pic Scanner Gold to Google Photos can be done, as long as you have Google Drive and Google Photos apps on your device.

From Pic Scanner Gold to Google Photos

1) Log in to Google Photos and Drive apps on iPhone or iPad

2) In Google Photos app, tap Menu > Settings > turn Google Drive ‘ON’. Create a new folder, give it same name as your Pic Scanner Gold album.

3) In Pic Scanner Gold, go to Gallery > Select > (choose photos) > Export > Select all > Google Drive > My Drive > Google Photos > (album folder) > Save here > Upload.

After upload is complete, the photos will be visible in both Google Drive and Google Photos.

Give it a try, and let us know if you have any problems uploading from Pic Scanner Gold to Google Photos or any other photo storage service you want to use.

Pic Scanner to Pic Scanner Gold Migration

Upgrading from Pic Scanner to Pic Scanner Gold? Obviously you would like to transfer all your scanned photos, albums and captions to the new app. It’s easy.

Pic Scanner – Migrating from old to Gold

There are two ways to do it. Which one is better for you will depend on how many scanned photos you have in Pic Scanner.

For light users:

If you have up to 250 photos in Pic Scanner’s Cropped gallery, proceed as follows (Expected transfer time: 1 minute):

1) Download Pic Scanner Gold on the same device as Pic Scanner.

2) With both apps installed, launch Pic Scanner (old app). Tap Menu > Migrate. All cropped photos, albums and captions would be compressed. After a moment, sharing options would be shown. Select Pic Scanner Gold.

3) Pic Scanner Gold will open, and everything will be saved in it.

4) Check Photo Gallery and Albums in Pic Scanner Gold to ensure everything looks good. After this, you can delete the old app to free up space on your device (Please note that Originals will not be transferred.)

For heavy users:

If you have too many photos and albums, your iPhone or iPad may not have enough processing power to handle such a large data transfer, and the app may fail. If this happens, please proceed as follows (Expected transfer time: 10 minutes):

1) Create a folder named Pic Scanner Temp on your computer’s desktop.

2) Connect your device (iPhone or iPad) to computer with USB cable. Launch iTunes on computer, and select your device [See (1) below]

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3) Click Apps in iTunes sidebar on the left [See (2) below]. Then in the right pane, scroll all the way down to File Sharing section (3). Locate and click Pic Scanner (4). The right side will show some folders and files e.g. original_images, splitted_images, etc. Select them all, and drag them into Pic Scanner Temp folder on desktop.

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4) In Pic Scanner Temp folder, click on splitted_images folder. Check that your photos are in it, then delete original_images folder.

5) In iTunes on the computer, click Apps in left sidebar, then scroll down the right pane to File Sharing (Same as in step 3 above). Click Pic Scanner Gold. The right side will show some folders.

6) Select all folders and files in Pic Scanner Temp folder on the computer. Drag and drop them alongside the existing folders in iTunes Pic Scanner Gold folders (Care: Don’t drag Pic Scanner Temp folder into iTunes: only the files and folders within it.) In the warning pop-up box [See (5) below], check mark the Apply to all box, and click Replace. Voila! You are done!

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7) Launch Pic Scanner Gold on your device. Check that all photos, albums and captions are there. Now you can delete Pic Scanner (the old app) to avoid duplication and free up space on your device.

Any problems, drop us a line. We think you will enjoy your move from Pic Scanner to Pic Scanner Gold!

How to transfer photos from old iPhone to new

Got yourself a new iPhone or iPad, but have lots of prized old photos scanned with Pic Scanner on your old device? Want to transfer photos from old iPhone to new one? Also albums and captions? Piece of cake!

Here’s How

The directions below say iPhone, but they also apply to iPad.

A) Ensure that you have the latest version of Pic Scanner on the old phone. Also the latest version of iTunes on your Mac or PC. If not, update.

B) Create a folder named Pic Scanner Temp on your computer’s desktop.

C) Connect old iPhone to computer via USB cable. Launch iTunes on computer, and select your iPhone [See (1) below]. Check that Summary pane is selected in left column. In Backups on right side, select This Computer, then Back up now [See (2) and (3)]. When done, Latest backup time below Backup Now button will be updated to current time.

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D) With the old iPhone still connected to computer, click Apps in iTunes sidebar on the left [(4) below]. Then in the right pane, scroll all the way down to File Sharing section (5). Locate and click Pic Scanner (6). The right side will show some folders and files e.g. original_images, splitted_images, etc. Select all, and drag them into Pic Scanner Temp folder on desktop.

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E) In Pic Scanner Temp, click on splitted_images folder. Check that your photos are in it, then return to iTunes and click Eject near top left to disconnect the old iPhone from the computer.

F) On the new iPhone, download Pic Scanner (free) from the App Store. Launch Pic Scanner, tap Menu > Buy unlimited > Restore purchase. You will be upgraded to the unlimited version. It won’t yet have the old photos, so let us now restore them.

G) Connect new iPhone to the computer with USB cable. In iTunes, select your new phone, click Apps in left sidebar, then scroll down the right pane to File Sharing. Click Pic Scanner. The right side will show some folders, but they will all be empty (zero KB)

H) Select all folders and files in Pic Scanner Temp folder on the computer. Drag and drop them alongside the empty folders in iTunes File Sharing window (Care: Don’t drag Pic Scanner Temp folder into iTunes: only the files and folders within it.) In the warning pop-up box [See (7) below], check mark the Apply to all box, and click Replace.

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I) Click the Sync button (8).

Voila! You are done. Go into Pic Scanner on your new iPhone and tap the lighthouse thumbnail on top left. Enjoy your photos!

Any problems, drop us a line.

Introduction to Photo Scanning

If you have an iPhone or iPad, photo scanning is super easy with Pic Scanner app. To scan with your smartphone or a digital camera, remember a few things and you’ll do just fine:

  • Lighting: Ensure good ambient lighting. If you can, scan in natural daylight. You don’t want the sun shining directly on the photos, but indirect or reflected light; so scan near a window. It’s harder to avoid glare and reflections under artificial (electric) light. Colors will also not be reproduced faithfully, especially if scanning under fluorescent light. Can you guess which of the following scans was done by daylight and which under a table lamp?

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  • No flash: Never use flash while scanning, for precisely the reasons mentioned above regarding electric and fluorescent lighting. Turn OFF flash before you scan. See the reflections and flash glare in the photos below:

glare reflections scanned photo      scanned pic with flash glare

  • No zoom: Using the digital zoom on your smartphone will reduce image resolution. Bring the camera closer to the photo being scanned, instead of holding it further away and zooming in. As photozxels.com explains, “Digital zoom….takes a central portion of the image and enlarges it, thus ‘simulating’ optical zoom. In other words, the camera crops a portion of the image and then enlarges it back to size. In so doing, you lose image quality.”
  • Steady hands: Since the photos being scanned are close to the camera, you must hold the iPhone or iPad very steady while scanning. Can be difficult, especially with iPad. An easy solution is to place the iPhone or iPad on a locker stand, and position the photos below it.

Ready to start photo scanning? Get Pic Scanner app. It helps you take care of some of the above things, and also automatically crops the photos for you – a big time and effort-saver. Below is a short tutorial video of this critically acclaimed app:

 

Yes, There Were Pics Before Pixels

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Life Before Digital Cameras

Remember life before digital cameras? It wasn’t so long ago that:

  • Before boarding the plane for an exotic vacation, packing enough rolls of film was as important as packing the passport.
  • You worried endlessly whether those X-Ray scanners at airports were really film-safe.
  • There were no instant previews. If a photo was overexposed or underexposed, or your eyes were half-closed, it was just too bad.
  • Reloading film outdoors involved either a changing bag, or cupped hands in a shaded place.
  • It was days, often weeks before you got to see your photos.
  • Sharing photos meant putting them in an envelope and posting them.
  • You fussed about ASA and DIN as you now do about megapixels.
  • Editing, cropping and applying filters was only for professionals.

And be honest: How many times did you mix up exposed rolls of film with unused ones?

Bringing Old Photos into the Digital Era

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Digital photography has made things simpler and made the finer nuances of photography (such as editing, filters, using meta data etc.) accessible to everyone. But a lot of our old memories now languish, unseen and forgotten, in shoe boxes and picture albums.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have all your photos – old and new – in one place? Like in the palm of your hand? Well, you could if your old photographs were all scanned and catalogued. Are they? Chances are they’re not. How many times have you thought about sorting and scanning them, but never got round to it because it’s too tedious?

Preserving and organizing those forgotten, fading memories is now easy. No, it doesn’t involve bulky desktop scanners or complicated photo editing software. Nor will it take weeks of work. Now you can just do it with an iPhone or iPad! And an app.

Pic Scanner App For iPhone and iPad
Pic Scanner Blog
Pic Scanner is an easy-to-use app that lets you digitize up to four photo prints at a time. It then automatically separates and saves them as individual images.

The app also includes tools for basic editing tasks, as well as options for enhancing, captioning, organizing and sharing pictures.

Pic Scanner has won accolades from Cult of Mac, The Guardian, iPad Insight, Gizmodo and many other highly-regarded reviewers. BBC’s flagship technology program ‘Click’ also showcased it.

The full-featured trial version of Pic Scanner can be downloaded here. This free evaluation version allows 12 scans and 12 opportunities to share photos. And if you decide to upgrade, unlimited scanning and sharing only costs $2.99.

Digitizing gives old photographs a new life. It is the best way to preserve those rare, one-of-a-kind moments of your personal history. And there’s a lot you can do with digital photos. But let’s save that for another post.

How to view scanned photos on HDTV

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Scanned old family photographs? How to view photos on HDTV

Scanned those precious old photos and put them in your iPhone, iPad or computer? Now supersize the experience of enjoying the memories by viewing those photos on HDTV.

Once you have scanned and edited the pictures to perfection, transfer them to Photos app on your iPhone or iPad as follows:

Cropped > Select > (tap photos to be transferred; they’ll get check marked) > Action (bottom center) > Sharing options (Select Photos). This saves the selected photos in Pic Scanner album in Photos app (iPhoto).

There are many ways to project them on to your TV:

Method 1: If you have a smart TV, then it’s straightforward to beam photos to it from your mobile device. Open the TV’s app center (That’s what Samsung calls it; other makers may call it something else).  Then select Photos app, open Pic Scanner folder within it, and view the photos – either as a slide show, or individually.

Method 2: Transfer the photos from your iPhone or iPad to Mac or PC (See how: go to tip #T6). Now connect your computer to the TV with an HDMI cable to view the photos.

Method 3: You can also stream photos to HDTV through Apple TV, or Android or Roku set-top boxes:

How To Share Albums

“Can I share albums by email, or save them to my Computer?”

The answer is, “It depends”.

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You can bulk-export photos from Cropped screen or an album in Pic Scanner to Photos app, Dropbox, or email. To use photos from an album, open the album. Tap Edit, then tap thumbnails of photos to be sent (Or ‘Select all’ for the entire album), and tap the Action button at bottom center to display sharing options. But before pressing one of the sharing options buttons, read the following. Because there are limitations.

Firstly, other applications (Photos, Dropbox, email, Facebook, email etc.) do not support albums in the same way as Pic Scanner. So how your albums show up in these or other programs will differ. For example, Photos app allows any non-Apple app to create only one folder – and no sub-folders. So if you send an album from Pic Scanner to Photos app on your iPhone or iPad, the pictures will be saved in Pic Scanner folder in Photos. If this folder already contains some photographs, the new pics will be added to those, i.e. your album will get mixed up with earlier photos. To avoid this, you must ensure that Pic Scanner folder in Photos app is empty, before you export the album.

Second, it depends on how many photos you have in the album. Mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad have limited processing capacity and memory (RAM). Trying to transfer a large number of images at once may cause your iPhone/iPad or our app to malfunction. Below is a rough guide to how many photos you may transfer at a time:

Newer devices (iPhone 6 / iPad Air 2 and later):

  • Saving “locally” i.e. to Photos app: Up to 20
  • Sending via internet, e.g. email: Up to 6

Old devices (iPhone 5S / iPad Air / iPad 4 etc.):

 

  • Saving “locally” i.e. to Photos app: Up to 12
  • Sending via internet, e.g. email: Up to 4

We are looking at options to allow a better way to bulk-export photos and albums, and hope to offer you this feature in the future.

Any questions or suggestions, please email us.

 

 

Automatic Cropping With Pic Scanner – Get it Right

Automatic cropping feature in Pic Scanner app is a big effort saver, but what if your photos are split in odd, random places? You could re-scan, but the following tips will help you get accurate results every time (Hint: Many users get #4 wrong):

(Please note that although the screen shots in this article are from Pic Scanner, the tips apply equally to Pic Scanner Gold).

1) Use plain background:

Lay photos on a plain white or single color surface. Multicolor background can confuse the app. In the examples below, #1 may lead to wrong cropping, while #2 and #3 are fine:

2) Mind the gap between photos:

When scanning multiple photos together, keep a 1/2-inch i.e. 1-2 cm gap between them. If pictures are too close together, the app won’t recognize them as separate images. In the screen shots below, #1 is wrong, #2 is fine:

3) Ensure contrast between photos and background:

It helps to have some color difference between the photos’ edges and the background. So, for example, to scan a snow scene, place it on black or another solid color background (Not white).

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Background vs foreground contrast

4) Keep photos fully visible:

This is the most important tip: In your scan, a bit of the background surface must be visible all round the photos. If any photos reaches the edge of the viewfinder frame or extends beyond it, cropping will be wrong.

Below, #1 is wrong (Left and bottom edges touching the viewfinder’s edge), #2 is good. Note that #3 is also correct, but here the camera is held too far away  from the photo, and will result in lower resolution scan.

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How to scan and how not to scan photos

5) Avoiding perspective distortion:

If your scans are coming out skewed or distorted, it’s possible you didn’t hold the camera centered above the photos and level with them. Pic Scanner has built-in automatic perspective correction, but it’s always a good idea to avoid holding the camera off-center or at an angle to the photos.

6) Long and narrow photos

Photos with (Length > More than 2.5 times width) may not be cropped correctly. These can be cropped manually from Originals screen.

7) Special situations:

There is one more situation where automatic cropping may go wrong. See the photo below:

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Pic Scanner intelligently guesses where a photo’s edges lie. But if a photo contains prominent straight lines, these can be mistaken for edges. Below, we have highlighted these edges in yellow:

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If cropping is wrong (or a photo is missed out), you can crop manually from the Originals screen (Tap Original thumbnail > Trim > Adjust size and position of the cropping rectangle > Crop. The photo will be saved on Cropped screen.

Some users ask if they can turn off automatic cropping or share originals. Automatic cropping is a real effort-saver, and by following the above guidelines, you won’t need to crop manually. However, you can also transfer Originals to Cropped screen, and then share them. This is how:

On Originals screen, tap Select. Tap one or more photos to select them. They will get check marked. Tap Move, then Move to Cropped.

If your photos were cropped wrong and you can’t figure out why, just send us the cropped and original photos. We will analyze and guide you on what to do.