snitscanner | Jesper GB Henriksen

snitscanner

A virtual flatbed scanner, as a Mac app and in your browser. A scanline sweeps across the image and copies one thin strip of pixels per frame into the result. Drag, zoom or rotate the image while it scans and the output smears and stretches.

Mac app on the App Store Open in the browser Mac: free download, 7 days free, then a one-time unlock · macOS 14 or later · no subscription
Browser: free, no account, nothing to install, fewer features
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Workspace on the left, result on the right.

The browser version is free. The Mac app is the bigger one.

Both scan the same way: same scanline, same inks, same paper and dust. The browser version is a single page, so it stays small. It takes three images on a 1520 px square page, and when you close the tab the work is gone. The Mac app is where the rest went.

Pinch and twisttrackpad

Two fingers scale and rotate the image while it scans. In the browser the mouse drags and the wheel zooms.

Projects.snit

Images, videos, settings and the result in one file, with Open Recent. The browser keeps nothing between visits.

Undo40 steps

Runs, moves and settings. Fewer steps on very large pages, to save memory.

Imagesup to 8

Each with its own opacity, brightness, contrast and invert. The browser takes three.

Page sizeup to 8000 px

Presets from square to 9:16, and print sizes from A5 to A2, Letter and Tabloid at 150, 300 or 600 dpi. The browser page is 1520 px square.

Remove backgroundon the Mac

Lifts a person or object out of a photo without uploading it. The original comes back with one click.

Video and webcamas layers

A video file or the live camera on the glass. Set it to play only while the line scans and one pass becomes a stretch of time.

Record the scanmp4 · gif

One pass, or the workspace and the result side by side.

Four steps.

Load an image

Pick a file, drop it on the page, or paste from the clipboard. It lands on the scan bed.

Run the scan

The scanline starts sweeping. Loop mode repeats forever, single mode does one pass and stops.

Move it while it scans

Drag, wheel-zoom, pinch, rotate. The output records whatever you do to the source.

Export a PNG

The result renders at 1520 px and downloads straight to your disk. Clear and go again.

The controls.

Directionvertical / horizontal

Which way the scanline travels. Horizontal gives the classic flatbed drag, vertical smears sideways.

Scan speedslider

How far the line moves per frame. Faster means thicker strips and chunkier output.

Inkcolor / xerox

Xerox pushes each strip through a luminance curve: crushed blacks, blown highlights, hard grain. Color leaves the tones alone.

Layeringreplace / stacked

Replace overwrites what is already there. Stacked composites each new strip with darken, multiply or screen, so repeated passes build up.

Noise / grainslider

Per pixel luminance noise added after the strip lands. Stronger in xerox mode than in color.

Paper backgroundcolor picker

The colour of the scan bed, so the empty area around your image reads as paper.

Examples.

High contrast black and white scan of a portrait, stretched and torn into offset bands with heavy copier grain. — Xerox ink, stacked layering, grain at full.

Colour scan of a portrait smeared horizontally into repeating bands, the face stretched and duplicated across the frame. — Colour ink, same drag.

Animation of the scanline sweeping while the source image is dragged, showing the result building up strip by strip. — The scan building up strip by strip.

Your images stay on your machine.

There is no backend

When you add an image, the file stays local. There is no upload, no server call and no form post. The processing, the strip copying, the xerox curve and the grain all happen on canvas elements inside the page. The PNG export is generated in the browser and downloaded straight to your disk.

snitscanner is one static HTML file. I have no backend set up for it, so there is nothing on my side that could store or view what you scan.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no sign up, no login, no email. Open the page and use it.

Does it cost anything?

The browser version is free. The Mac app is a free download with seven days of everything; after that the result and exports carry a “trial” mark until you unlock it once. No subscription.

Does it work offline?

Once the page has loaded, the scanning and exporting work without a connection. The two web fonts are the only thing fetched from outside.

Which browsers?

Safari, Chrome and Firefox on desktop. It is developed and tested primarily in Safari on macOS. Touch works, so it runs on a tablet or phone, with one finger to drag and two to pinch zoom.

Can I use the output commercially?

Yes. Whatever you scan stays yours. I make no claim on the output.

One file, two canvases.

The effect is one line repeated: copy a thin strip of pixels from the workspace canvas to the same position on the output canvas, every frame, while the user moves the source underneath. The output is never cleared during a scan, so the strips accumulate into the final image. The xerox curve, the grain and the blend modes are applied to each strip after it lands.

Internal resolution is 1520 px square regardless of how big the panes look on screen, so exports stay sharp. No framework, no build step and no dependencies beyond two Google Fonts.