Digitization has made old film strips/negatives irrelevant. But these nostalgic remnants of a bygone era have been infused with a new breath of life by technology that can instantly convert them into digital images. You can now retrieve those pictures with just a smartphone and a film scanning app, to revisit those memories.

One such app is 'Helmut Film Scanner'. This Android-based mobile app, developed by codeunited.dk, is specially designed to transform your smartphone into a photo film scanner. The app lets you scan black and white film negatives, colour negatives or pick a photo from the gallery on the go. It comes with basic tools to edit and add more quality to the images, and also lets you share your scanned photos to other apps like Dropbox, Flickr and Facebook. 

How to convert film strips into digital

* Place your old films on a flat surface that illuminates the film. For example, keep your film negative on the laptop, tablet or smartphone with a plain white screen background and maximise the brightness of the screen. Make sure that film is evenly illuminated for better image quality.

* Open the Helmut app, frame the film strip inside the camera and take a snap of the film (don't use flash)

* Crop the picture, tweak it with basic tools using adjust/scan menu and apply scan.

* Once the picture is scanned into digital format, share it with your friends via other photosharing apps.

Rating: * * * * *

Availability: Google Play store

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