Refoto: Scan & Restore Photos

Refoto turns a shoebox of old prints into photographs you can share, using the camera you already have.

Lay a handful of prints on a table and take one photo. Refoto finds each one, straightens it, and repairs the fading — then you keep the results, at full size, for a single payment.

SCAN A HANDFUL AT A TIME
Most photo scanner apps make you photograph one print at a time. Refoto detects every print in the frame and outlines them before you press the shutter, so you can see it has found all four before you commit. Each one is separated and squared up on its own.

IT FIXES THE LIGHT YOU SCANNED IN
A phone held over a print never lights it evenly — there is a lamp on one side and your own shadow on the other. Refoto measures that gradient from the surface around your photos and divides it out, so a print comes back evenly lit instead of bright in one corner.

RESTORE WHAT AGE TOOK
Refoto looks at each print and tells you in plain words what it found — faded, yellowed, speckled — then sets the sliders to match:

• Colour — removes the yellow cast old prints acquire as the dye layers fade
• Contrast — recovers the depth a faded photograph has lost
• Dust and scratches — clears specks and fine marks without smearing detail
• Grain — reduces noise while keeping edges sharp
• Sharpness — brings back definition, gently

Drag the divider across the photo to compare before and after on the same face. One slider moves everything together; open the adjustments if you want to work stage by stage.

ALSO
• Import photos you already have, from your gallery
• Rotate prints that were lying sideways
• Warns you when a capture came out blurred, while the prints are still on the table
• Save to your photo library, or share straight from the app
• Your original scan is never overwritten — restoration is always a separate copy

EVERYTHING HAPPENS ON YOUR PHONE
Refoto does all of its work on your device. Your photographs are not uploaded, not sent to a server, and not used to train anything. There is no account to create.

Android will list Refoto as having network access. That is Google Play's billing library, which is how the one-time purchase is verified — it is the only part of the app that uses the network, and it never sees your photographs.

ONE PAYMENT
Scanning is unlimited and free. So is previewing a restoration. You get five free saves to see whether you like the results, and one payment then unlocks unlimited saves at full resolution — permanently, on any device signed in to your Google account.

No subscription. Digitising a shoebox is work that finishes, and you should not still be paying for it next year.

WHAT REFOTO DOES NOT DO
It does not invent detail that is not there. Glare on a glossy print has no photograph under it, so Refoto tells you to tilt the phone rather than painting something in. It does not colourise black-and-white photographs. And it does not touch your original scan.

Recent changes:
• Fixed a crash when restoring very large photos
• Small reliability improvements