Adobe Scan Can Now Search for Documents in Users’ Photos with Use of Machine Learning

There are many photo scanning apps available on the Play Store, and some OEMs like Xiaomi even include their own photo scanning apps in their ROM. However, up till now, free photo scanners on the Play Store did not automatically search for documents in user photos, which meant users had to manually upload their photos to be scanned in the device.

This changes today, as Adobe has updated the company’s Adobe Scan photo scanning app, with a new feature that leverages AI. Adobe Scan was released in June with versatile features such as OCR, and the app has already been downloaded four million times, according to the company.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are technologies that will shape our future, with wide potential of improving many of our mundane tasks of today. Google already uses AI to power Google Photos, Drive, and other products of the company. Smartphone camera makers use AI to improve photo quality by using computational photography. Huawei even included a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) in their in-house HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC on the Mate 10 series. Skeptical observers raised the question whether AI was important enough to build dedicated hardware for it, and for now, that question still remains unanswered.

Increasingly, though, AI has been acclaimed as the real deal, as its applications increase with new developments in hardware and software. Now, Adobe Scan uses the company’s Sensei AI and machine learning technology to analyze all photos in a user’s camera roll to surface only the ones that appear to be documents.

Adobe states that there is no longer a need for users to sift through a potentially huge number of images to find what images containing documents. The company notes that Adobe Scan is the only free app that automatically searches for documents, receipts, business cards, etc.

The new document discovery feature isn’t the only change in the updated Adobe Scan, as the company has added the capability to search files by name or date. Moreover, scans can be accessed even when a user is offline on the Android version of the app. Also, Adobe has improved the image cleaning in Adobe Scan, “specifically for shadows and folds, so [users’ scans] will look clearer and cleaner”, the company noted.

Finally, Adobe added that Document Cloud subscribers have more features to play with in Adobe Scan. These features include editing and organizing documents, collecting signatures and digitally signing and sending documents from any device.

Download Adobe Scan on the Play StoreSource: Adobe

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