The best photo translators online. Help in learning a foreign language

Users are faced with the need to translate text from photos online. Situations can be different: there is text in a photograph that needs to be extracted from the image and translated into another language, there is an image of a document in foreign language, you need to translate text from a picture, etc.

You can use text recognition programs that use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to extract text from images. Then, the text extracted from the photo can be translated using a translator. If the original image good quality, then in most cases free online services for text recognition are suitable.

In this case, the entire operation takes place in two stages: first, text recognition occurs in a program or online service, and then the text is translated using an online translator or an application installed on the computer. You can, of course, copy text from a photo manually, but this is not always justified.

Is there a way to combine two technologies in one place: immediately recognize and transfer a test from a photo online? Unlike mobile applications (we will talk about them later in the article), choice for users desktop computers Hardly ever. But, nevertheless, I found two options for how to translate text from an image online in one place, without the help of programs and other services.

An online photo translator will recognize the text in the image and then translate it into desired language.

When translating from images online, pay attention to some points:

the quality of text recognition depends on the quality of the original image;
In order for the service to open the picture without problems, the image must be saved in a common format (JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, etc.);
if possible, check the extracted text to eliminate recognition errors;
The text is translated using machine translation, so the translation may not be perfect.

We will use Yandex Translator and the Free Online OCR online service, which includes functionality to translate text extracted from a photograph. You can use these services to translate from English into Russian, or use other language pairs of supported languages.

On mobile devices ah available to users different ways for translation from photographs. In this article we will analyze the applications Google Translator, Yandex Translator, Microsoft Translator.

To use photo translation applications on mobile phones, two prerequisites must be met: the presence of a camera on the device, which is used to capture images for translation, and an Internet connection to recognize text on the device. remote server translator

Yandex Translator for translation from pictures

Yandex.Translator integrates OCR optical character recognition technology, with which text is extracted from photographs. Then, using Yandex Translator technologies, the extracted text is translated into the selected language.

Go through the following steps sequentially:

Sign in Yandex translate to the “Pictures” tab.
Select the source language. To do this, click on the name of the language (displayed by default English language). If you don't know what language is in the image, the translator will start auto-detection of the language.
Select the language to translate. By default, the Russian language is selected. To change the language, click on the language name and select another supported language.
Select a file on your computer or drag a picture into the online translator window.

After Yandex Translator recognizes the text from the photo, click “Open in Translator”.

Two fields will open in the translator window: one with text in a foreign language (in this case, English), the other with a translation into Russian (or another supported language).

If the photo was of poor quality, it makes sense to check the recognition quality. Compare the translated text with the original in the picture, correct any errors found.

You can change the translation in Yandex Translator. To do this, turn on the switch " New technology translation." The translation is carried out simultaneously by a neural network and a statistical model. The algorithm automatically selects the best translation option.

Copy the translated text to text editor. If necessary, edit the machine translation and correct errors.

Translation from photos online to Free Online OCR

The free online service Free Online OCR is designed to recognize characters from files of supported formats. The service is suitable for translation, since it optionally has capabilities for translating recognized text.

Unlike Yandex Translator, Free Online OCR achieves acceptable recognition quality only on fairly simple images, without the presence of foreign elements in the picture.

Follow these steps:

Login to .
In the “Select your file” option, click on the “Browse” button, select a file on your computer.
In the “Recognition language(s) (you can select multiple)” option, select the required language from which you want to translate (you can select multiple languages). Click on the field and add the desired language from the list.
Click on the “Upload + OCR” button.

After recognition, the text from the image will be displayed in a special field. Check the recognized text for errors.

To translate text, click on the “Google Translator” or “Bing Translator” link to use one of the online translation services. Both translations can be compared and the best option can be selected.

Copy the text into a text editor. If necessary, edit and correct errors.

Google Translate: translating photos on mobile phones

The Google Translator application is used on mobile phones running operating systems Android systems and iOS. Install the program on your smartphone from the appropriate application stores.

The Google Translator application has extensive functionality:

translation of text into 103 languages and back;
quick translation function;
offline text translation (you will first need to download the necessary data);
translation in camera mode with support for 37 languages;
quick camera translation of inscriptions in 38 languages;
handwriting translation support;
Conversational translation in 28 languages.

Google Translate translates text in photographs, pictures, signs, magazines, books, etc. In Google app The translator uses two ways to translate text from photos:

Real-time mode - instant translation of text when you point your phone camera.
Translation in camera mode - take a photo of the text and then receive the translation.

First, let's look at the translation function in camera mode, which is most suitable in most cases.

Launch the Google Translate app on your phone.
In the translator window, select the translation direction, and then click on the “Camera” icon.

Point your phone camera at the text you want to translate. Level the camera, turn on additional lighting if necessary. Take a photo.

After performing recognition, in the next window you need to select a section of text, or click on the “Select all” button.

Two small fields will appear at the top of the window with the original and translated text. Click on the arrow in the translation field to open the full text translation in the adjacent window.

To perform quick translation in camera mode, turn on instant translation mode (the button will turn green), if necessary, turn on additional lighting, and level the camera.

A quick translation into the selected language will appear on the phone screen.

The instant translation function is inferior in quality to translation using the camera mode.

Yandex Translator: translating photos on mobile devices

The Yandex Translator application for mobile phones, like the online service of the same name, can translate text in photographs.

Key Features Yandex Translator:

online translation into 90 languages;
Offline translation support for 6 languages;
photo translation;
translation of sites in the application;
translation of spoken individual words or phrases;
automatic selection of translation direction;
dictionary;
translation of text in applications from context menu, starting from version Android0.

Launch the Yandex Translator application, click on the camera icon.

Capture the desired text on camera. In this case, I took a photo of Instagram text from my computer screen.

After performing recognition, click on the icon on the right top corner screen.

Yandex Translator offers unique functions that increase recognition accuracy. If the recognition quality is poor, select recognition by words, lines, blocks (button in the lower left corner).

In the translator window, the original text will be displayed at the top, and the main part of the screen is occupied by the translation of the text from the photo.

In the application window, you can listen to the original and translation of the test, voiced using a voice engine, dictate something, synchronize (there are size restrictions) the translation, send the translation to its destination, save the translation on a card.

Microsoft Translator: translating text from photos and screenshots

Microsoft Translator has built-in functionality for translating text in images: photographs and screenshots.

Key Features Microsoft Translator:

support for online and offline translation in more than 60 languages;
voice translation;
simultaneous speech translation for conversation in two languages;
translation of text into photographs or screenshots;
listening to translated phrases;
Translating text in other applications via the context menu.

An example of using Microsoft Translator:

In the application window, click on the camera.

Point your phone camera at the desired text. Select the translation direction. Microsoft Translator has an option to enable additional lighting.

Capture the text on camera.

A translation of the photo will appear in the application window, displayed on top of the main layer of the image.

The translation text can be copied to the clipboard. To do this, click on the corresponding icon in the translator window.

Conclusions of the article

Using Yandex Translator and online service Free Online OCR can translate text into the desired language from photographs or pictures online. The text from the image will be extracted and translated into Russian or another supported language.

In mobile applications Google phones Translator, Yandex Translator, Microsoft Translator, the user first takes a photo with the camera, and then the applications automatically translate the text from the photo.

Translating text using the usual method is not always convenient and very tedious. We've already looked at voice translators, but we haven't mentioned another one quick way translation on mobile devices. We are talking about photo translators.

Instead of entering text, you can take a photo with your phone camera and translate from it. Fortunately, in some translators the ability to convert text exists and at the same time works quite well. True, most of them only work online.

In this review, we will try to find out which photo translator from English into Russian, German, French (and other languages) best copes with its responsibilities. It is important for us that this is an application that is easy to install and use comfortably on your phone.

Review participants:

Google Translate - the most functional photo translator for Android

The photo translator built into Google Translate is available as a mobile application (iOS, Android) and online service.

To translate from a picture, you need to indicate the source and translation languages. Of course, there is an instant translation function from the camera mobile phone. For this function to work, you need to download a language pack for the selected translation language.

In other cases, the photo translator works like this:

First, you need to get an image through your phone camera,
Then use text to select the area with the text that you want to translate,
Wait a while for the image to be processed online.

Video instructions on how to translate text from a photo:

By the way, it is not necessary to receive images from your phone camera. Instead, you can load a previously saved photo into Google Translator (i.e., import). The translator will again need to specify the text zone, after which the translation will be available in the adjacent application window.

Photo translation is not available for all languages (of which there are more than 100 in Google Translator). However, it is possible to translate into English even from Japanese, Korean (not to mention French, German) and other languages into Russian.

For correct text recognition and, consequently, automatic translation, an active Internet connection is required. Offline translation in photo mode, alas, is not possible.

Yandex Translator - online application for Android

Photo translation from Yandex works in the same way as Google. The main difference is in the number of supported languages. But, it should be noted that for the most popular, and not some exotic ones, there is support for photo translation. There is no Korean or Swedish, but Japanese is available. To avoid any confusion, check in advance that the required direction is available.

In the web version of the translator, you can drag a picture into the translation window; in the Android application, you can take a photo directly on the camera and transfer it for translation, which is very convenient.

At the same time, there are features that are missing in Google Translator. For example, text recognition mode: Words/Lines/Blocks. In cases where auto-recognition fails (which is quite understandable), Yandex can be helped in this way. Block translation allows you to translate not by words, but by sentences.

Other advantages of Yandex Translator include the fact that it is convenient to save the translated text in the form of cards for further study and memorization.

For photo translation in Yandex, the picture must be clearly readable. Sometimes difficulties arise even with clearly readable text, for example, from the cover of a book in large letters. Here you also need to make allowances for the quality of the phone’s camera; sometimes it’s useful to wipe the lens.

Transfer through this application is only possible with an online connection. At the same time, there are offline dictionaries for standard text translation; you can easily download them through the Yandex Translator settings (they won’t take up much space on your phone).

Microsoft Translator - a simple and fast photo translator for Android

Although Microsoft Translator does not have any settings for photo translation (except for selecting language directions), the application is quite convenient to use and copes with its functions - of course, if the source text is legibly displayed through the phone camera. To improve the readability of the source, you can activate the camera; This is easy to do in photo transfer mode by clicking on the flash icon and then taking a photo by clicking on the region with the text.

Microsoft Translator translates an image over the original

The translation is carried out on top of the main layer. This may not be the most optimal method, but nevertheless, the translated text can be read without any problems. In any case, the translation can be copied with one click and pasted, for example, into a text editor or other application.

There are quite a few directions in the Microsoft Translator. These are dozens of languages, some of them, by the way, are not available in Yandex Translator, so you can consider Microsoft Translator as an excellent addition or replacement for it.

The application works only in online mode. You can download it to your smartphone/tablet using the link:

ABBYY TextGrabber - an application for recognizing and translating text from photos

ABBYY has released the Lingvo translator and FineReader text digitizer. Meanwhile, there is another small but useful product that is a hybrid of these packages.

TextGrabber can digitize any text fragments. ABBYY TextGrabber is best suited for

translation of texts from the screen of mobile devices and TV;
photographs taken on camera;
inscriptions, signs, road signs;
documents and books, instructions.

In addition, you can convert the resulting text into links, search on the map and, of course, translate into Russian (and not only) from more than a hundred languages, including English, French, even Japanese and Chinese.

However, it should be noted that the translation capabilities of ABBYY TextGrabber are much more modest than those of Lingvo. The fact is that photo translation is carried out through third-party services, and not through the ABBYY Lingvo server, as one might assume.

To translate, it is enough to specify the language of recognition and the final result. You can save only in “raw” text form.

There is a big plus that sets TextGrabber apart from other translators. Namely: the recognition functions in TextGrabber work in offline mode (more than 50 languages are supported). Thus, the text can be digitized, copied and transferred to another translator with offline support, for example, from Yandex or Google. It’s inconvenient, but it’s a way out of a situation where you don’t have the Internet at hand, but you urgently need to translate from a photo.

Key features of the TextGrabber translator:

You don't need to take a screenshot to recognize text;
Support text recognition for Russian, English, Korean and other languages offline;
Automatic conversion of text into the required format - link, phone number, postal address or coordinates on the map;
Online translation in more than 100 directions;
Automatic copying of digitized text to the clipboard and conversion to voice;
Saving and editing received text on your phone.

Pocket text translators are already a familiar part of our lives. What about taking a photo of the text, recognizing it, and even translating it? About what abilities a modern person is endowed with photo translator, our article today.

Google photo translator

One of the most popular applications in Google Play. Google photo translator can not only recognize text on photos(which does a pretty good job), but also allows the user to work with a regular translator. The application can be used without an Internet connection by downloading additional language packs. In addition, there is a function for translating SMS, handwritten text (you can lf;t draw hieroglyphs) and speech recognition. IN photo translator it is possible to perceive not only basic languages, but also such as Greek, Hungarian and Indonesian. Competent translation of recent languages takes much more time, so it is better to use it if the message contains frequently used information found in places of pilgrimage for tourists and in everyday life. In addition to the translation itself, the program also displays the received text and its transcription to the user. Among the still unfinished aspects, one can note a slight shift of some words of the text when scanning by about a line. It also seemed strange that if you lock the screen after the translation has been displayed, and then return the phone to working condition, the result of the translation will be lost and you will have to go through the process again.

Photo translator Lingvo Dictionaries

The mobile translator from ABBYY currently interacts not only with the text of the most popular 30 languages, but also has the ability photo translation. In addition, the program has exercises for memorizing words, professional voice acting from native speakers, and the function of adding your own word to the dictionary. Photo translator When translating photographs it works almost perfectly - in good lighting and not shooting text from the side. Otherwise, it does not try to recognize even parts of the image; it displays a message about the impossibility of doing this. IN latest version a number of shortcomings were also corrected. The application no longer crashes when there are a large number of additionally loaded dictionaries (there are in-app purchases for more exotic languages). Lingvo Dictionaries is also optimized for convenient work with a common list of words, combined with a vocabulary card.

ABBYY TextGrabber + Translator

Photo translator specializing in text recognition from photographs. A distinctive feature is that translation can be carried out from 60 built-in languages without downloading additional packages. Text recognition occurs without using the Internet, but a connection is required to translate it. The ability to edit processed text and save it on the phone is supported; in addition, they are saved in the internal history of the application, where basic operations can also be performed with them. Due to the large number of built-in languages, it is difficult for the application to recognize the language itself during the scanning process, which takes quite a long time. It is recommended to select in advance the recognition language corresponding to the original text for more fast work applications. Minor disadvantages of the program include the fact that the built-in function for downloading images from the gallery only supports standard image formats. ABBYY TextGrabber + Translator also does not format text when outputting a scanned image. That is, the text flows in a continuous stream, ignoring paragraphs and large spaces, making divisions only between words.

iSignTranslate

The app translates large signs and headlines in real time right on your phone. Created by a Russian developer (which is nice). When downloading, only basic 2 languages are available: Russian and English. The remaining 8, including German and French, can be downloaded separately for 66 rubles each. Third-party online translators from Yandex, Bing and Google are used. Therefore, you won’t be able to do without an online connection. For now, the application is unstable and sometimes displays an error, to correct which you need to point the camera at another object and return it again. Requires a text width of 5 to 30 mm and only basic fonts. On my 3rd attempt, I was able to scan the flyer and perform a good translation of basic words from Russian into English. After holding the camera motionless for about 15 seconds, a quite decent translation of the words is given. Impressive! Here's what it roughly looks like:

Translator with Photo and Scanner

Good day everyone!

Probably, almost each of us has come across photographs, pictures, and simply seen posters somewhere in a foreign language. And almost always, I would like to quickly translate and find out what is written there...

In general, in this case you can go in three ways:

open one and manually enter the desired text (this option is long, painful and dreary);
use programs for translating pictures into text (for example, ABBYY Fine Reader), and then copy the resulting text into a translator and find out the result;
use special applications and services that allow you to perform the operation of translating text from a picture (or photo) automatically (i.e., do what is described in paragraph 2 independently, without your participation).

Actually, this article will be about the third option. I note that in the article I will consider photo translators for both PCs and smartphones.

Note: I’ll immediately note that the better the quality of the source photo (picture), the better will be the quality of the recognized text from it, and the translation itself.

Online services (for PC)

Yandex translate

An excellent translation service from one language to another (it already supports more than 95 languages!). As for recognizing text in a picture, the Yandex service does an excellent job of this task (in no way inferior to the famous Fine Reader program).

In my example, I used a photo of a book page (in English). The steps for translation are quite simple:

follow the link provided above;
upload your picture with foreign text;
specify the language (usually the service determines it automatically. In my case, “Anglican -> Russian”);
then just click on the “Open in Translator” link (see screenshot below).

Left: the original text that was in the photo is presented, right is its translation. Of course, machine translation requires some work: you can copy the finished text and transfer it to Word for further development (I note that the quality of the translation also depends on the subject of the text. And since I took fiction, it is not translated very well).

Free Online OCR

Supports formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PDF, DjVu

Unlike Yandex, this service is less picky - it even supports the DjVu format (and it has quite a lot of English books, magazines, and articles).

In addition, I note that some photos (where rare fonts are used) are recognized by the service much better! And one more thing: the service allows you to use two translation options: using Google technology and with using Microsoft Translator. So, if there are pictures or photos that Yandex translator couldn’t handle, try this service!

How to use it:

go to the main page of the site (the address is indicated just above);
select the file you want to recognize;
indicate two languages: one, which is in the photo (English, for example); the second - which one you want to translate into (Russian).
press the "Upload + OCR" button (that is, upload and recognize the text on the photo).

After some time (depending on the size of the downloaded file), you will see the resulting text and several links at the top: you can select Google Translate, Bing, just download the resulting text.

By choosing Bing, I received a translation of my text (the quality is not high, because the work is fiction).

Smartphone applications (Android)

Google Translate

A very decent application for a smartphone that allows you to translate text into 103 languages (I note that it supports 59 languages offline - i.e. no Internet required!)!

The application has a built-in camera translation function in real time: i.e. Just point your phone camera at the English text - and you will see the text in Russian in the translator window! However, there is also a classic work in the arsenal: this is when a picture is photographed in a foreign language, and then the text is processed and output in Russian (for example).

It's quite simple to use:

launch the application and select two languages: the source (which is in the picture) and your native language into which you want to translate;
then click on the “camera” icon (see screenshot below, arrow No. 1);
then you need to point the camera at the foreign text (note that the application immediately displays the translation). However, if the text is long, I recommend taking a photo of it (see screenshot below, arrow No. 2).

Then click on the “Select All” button and click on the blue arrow. Next you will see your translation of the text. See screenshots below.

In general, everything is done very high quality and convenient. As a rule, almost everyone carries a phone with them, which means you can always quickly translate a poster or photo. I recommend you check it out!

ABBYY Lingvo

For free use Several languages are available: Russian, English, German, French, Spanish.

This smartphone application allows you to translate many sentences, phrases and words without access to the Internet. In total, the application supports three types of translation:

classic manual input: when you type the desired text yourself;
from an already taken screenshot, picture or photograph;
and using your phone camera (in 1 click!).

Generally, good helper for travel, study and work. You can quickly translate a small text, a postcard, a newspaper article, correspondence with a colleague/friend, etc.

Peculiarities:

"live translation": point to a word from the displayed text on the screen - immediately get its translation;
photo translation: select a screenshot or photo and get a translation of the words captured on it;
11 dictionaries are available for download to anyone (free of charge!);
convenient hints when searching for words;
the dictionary contains not only the translation of the word, but also its transcription, grammatical information about it, examples of use (you can also listen to it - very useful for those who learn a foreign language);
a history of words that you requested earlier is kept (it’s convenient to learn words by rechecking your memory from time to time!).

If you have anything to add, thanks in advance!

That's all, good luck everyone!

There are situations when you need to translate some text, but you don’t know how to enter it into the translator field, or you’re too lazy to enter it. Especially for such cases, some translators have acquired the function of translating text from photographs.

About the translation function from an image

This function began to appear recently, so it still does not work very stable. To avoid incidents during translation, you need to take a high-quality photo of the text that needs to be translated. Also, the text should be legible in the image, especially if we are talking about some complex hieroglyphs or symbols. It is also worth understanding that some designer fonts (for example, Gothic) may not be perceived by the translator.

Let's look at services where this function available.

Option 1: Google Translate

The most famous online translator who can translate from a huge number of languages: from English, German, Chinese, French into Russian, etc. Sometimes some phrases into Russian or other languages with complex grammar may not be translated correctly, but the service copes with the translation of individual words or simple sentences without any problems.

The browser version does not have a translation function from images, but in mobile applications service for Android and iOS, this function is available. All you need to do is click on the signature icon "Camera". The camera on your device will turn on, indicating the area to capture text. Text may extend beyond this area if it has large volume(for example, you are trying to translate a photo of a page of a book). If necessary, you can load a ready-made image from the device memory or virtual disk.

Google translator interface

After you take a photo, the program will offer to select the area where it assumes the text is located. Select this area (or part of it) and click on the button "Translate".

Unfortunately, this functionality is only available on versions for mobile platforms.

Option 2: Yandex Translator

This service has similar functionality to Google Translate. True, there are slightly fewer languages here, and the correctness of translation into and from some leaves much to be desired. However, translations from English, French, German, Chinese into Russian (or vice versa) are carried out more correctly than in Google.

Again, the translation functionality from a picture is only available in versions for mobile platforms. To use it, click on the camera icon and take a photo of the desired object, or select a photo from "Galleries".

Recently, Yandex Translator for browsers also has the ability to translate text from a picture. To do this, find the button at the top of the interface "Picture". Then transfer the image from your computer to the special field, or use the link "Choose File". At the top you can select the source language and the language you want to translate into.

The translation process is similar to Google.

Option 3: Free Online OCR

This site is completely focused on translating photographs, as it no longer offers other functions. The correctness of the translation depends on what language you are translating into. If we are talking about more or less common languages, then everything is relatively correct. However, difficulties may arise if the picture contains text that is difficult to recognize and/or there is too much of it. This site is also partially in English.

Instructions for using the service are as follows:

First, upload the image from your computer that you want to translate. To do this, use the button "Choose File". You can add multiple pictures.
In the lower field, initially indicate the original language of the picture, and then the language into which you need to translate it.
Click on the button "Upload + OCR".
After this, a field will appear at the bottom where you can see the original text from the picture, and below it will be translated into the selected mode.

Unfortunately, the function of translations from images is just being implemented, so the user may encounter some problems. For example, incorrect translation, or incomplete capture of the text in the picture.