Photo Negative Scanner: View &

In-app purchases
4.3
4.03K reviews
1M+
Downloads
Content rating
Everyone
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About this app

Hi. Let's rediscover your old memories.


Photo Negative Scanner uses your phone camera to do real time conversion of your photo negatives into digital images. Think of it as a magic loupe that you can use to see film negatives through. Instead of seeing the inverted colors of a color negative, you will see the original photo.
Push the capture button to capture a crisp digital image ready to be shared with friends and family.

If you shoot film with an analog camera this is also a great tool for proofing and previewing home-developed negatives.

When you scan a film negative the photo is saved to your phone. You can view all the scanned negatives from your existing gallery app and share your photos directly to Facebook, Instagram etc.

The app is free, but adds a small watermark unless you purchase the app.
Which we appreciate you considering as it helps us make great apps for all our users.
So thank you.

Getting started


The quality of your scans is determined by the camera in your phone and the light source used to backlight your negatives.

1. Find a good way to backlight your photo film.
A quick solution is to use a laptop, phone or tablet with a white screen. Set the device to maximum brightness. Even better results can be achieved using a light table.

2. Develop photos!
Using the app, scan and convert negatives quick and easy. You can also import photos of negatives that you have made using a DSLR camera or a flatbed scanner.

3. Share your memories.
With your newly developed photos, all that's left to do, is to share and rediscover memories with your friends and family.

More features


• If the image has a blue or red tint, then manually adjust the temperature balance for the perfect photo.
• Photo Negative Scanner supports both black/white and color negatives. Just press the black and white button within the scanning interface to toggle between color and black and white mode.
• Use the light box feature on a second phone as a light source for developing your film negatives.
Updated on
22 Dec 2020

Data safety

Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. Data privacy and security practices may vary based on your use, region and age The developer provided this information and may update it over time.
No data shared with third parties
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No data collected
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Ratings and reviews

4.3
3.96K reviews
Joshua Sparks
16 December 2022
Fun & easy to use. With a little bit of work making a backlight box, or using a tablet with a white screen app, I was able to bring old negatives from the 40s and 50s back to life that we found after my Mom died. *Little trick I learned was to crop the picture of the negative a little bit bigger than needed, & then crop out the watermark afterwards. 😉 Cons - Wish it had more ability to make color adjustments after they have been restored. Probably able to do it with better prep work tho.
32 people found this review helpful
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A Google user
20 February 2020
This app is extremely useful. I had over 200 negatives from both sets of grandparents, taken from 1923-1950. Using my pc screen as a backlight I ultimately got clear, crisp positives of every single picture. It has some annoying bugs, like not focusing on the first try, and every so often the images appear with black and white lines running through the bottom - have to redo those. On the whole, I feel it's worth the paid version for the trouble and cost it saved me.
206 people found this review helpful
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A Google user
5 January 2019
I downloaded this app because I have a lot of old, large negatives that don't fit into my Kodak Scanza. Instead of spending a couple of hundred dollars on a new scanner, I decided to try this app and the results have been GREAT for me. The image quality is really good for the price and it is very easy to use. I know some people were complaining about the watermarks in the comments, but the watermark is honestly very unobtrusive, and I was more than happy to pay the extra couple of dollars to remove it. Thanks to this app, I was able to digitize many of my family's photos from the early 1900s. The coloring and resolution didn't always turn out perfect, but if I retried a few times I was able to get good photos for the most part!
95 people found this review helpful
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What's new

Improvements and bug fixes