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Ditch the scanner, this iPhone app digitizes and restores faded photos

Unfade is a new iPhone app that takes the chore out of scanning old photographs. It uses an iPhone’s camera to digitize the prints, and brings them back to life by restoring the vibrant colors of the original print.

If you’ve ever attempted to restore an old photographic print, you know it’s not an easy task. Getting rid of the unwanted tints and bringing back to life the faded colors not only requires knowledge of how the image should look, but also the skills and time to get the job done in Photoshop.

There might not be a need for all that hassle any more, thanks to a new app called Unfade. Developed by the team behind the Scanbot app, Unfade is a new iPhone app that scans old photos with your iPhone’s camera and restore the vibrant colors and aesthetics of the image.

Rather than having to load the print into your scanner, scanning the image, saving the image, then importing it into a photo-editing software, Unfade simplifies the process through the automatic detection and cropping of photos. Simply lay the print down on a flat surface, open up the app, put the image in the frame, and Unfade will do the rest of the work using its “Magic Color” filter.

Once the image has been scanned and edited, it gets placed inside dedicated albums within the app. These albums can then be sorted to your liking and shared with friends and family.

There’s not much to the app, but that’s the point. It’s a simple design with a simple purpose. More features will be added in the near future, but no specific ideas have been mentioned by the development team. If you don’t mind reading into things though, from a teaser icon on Unfaded’s website, it looks like the developers might soon add layers, manual edits, an undo feature, brushes, and even a movie mode.

Unfade is currently on sale in the iOS app store for $5 – 40-percent off what it will eventually retail for.

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