Adjust areas and Smart erase

Sometimes one corner of a page is the problem: a coffee stain, a faint stamp, a shadow from a fold, a hole punch. Adjust areas lets you draw around that part and fix it there, leaving the rest of the page as it was. Smart erase is the same tool set to erase: circle something and it becomes clean paper.

What it is

You draw around one or more areas with your finger, pick an effect and tap Apply. That makes one step. You can add more steps, undo them, and come back later to change them.

Effect	What it does
Brighten	Lighter, white stays white
Darken	Darker, black stays black
Sharpen text	Crisper text and more local contrast
Whiten	Cleans a stain or crease toward paper white, and keeps the ink
Text boost	Darkens faint print
Erase	Replaces the area with clean paper that matches the page

Every effect has a Strength slider, except Erase. The edges of each area are softened, so the fix blends into the page.

Your page is never overwritten. Paperwise keeps the page as it was and your list of steps, and shows the page with the steps applied: on screen, in search, and in every PDF and JPG you share. If you later change the page’s look, crop or rotation, Paperwise puts your steps back on the new page.

When to use it

A stain, a crease or a yellowed patch on part of a page (Whiten).
A faint stamp or a pale line of print (Text boost, Sharpen text).
A shadow across one corner (Brighten).
A hole punch, a sticky note’s shadow or a doodle in the margin (Erase, or Smart erase).

Step by step

Adjust an area

Open the document and tap Edit → Adjust areas. On Review, right after a scan, tap Adjust in the toolbar. On the Tools screen, tap Adjust areas under Edit and pick the document.
Pinch to zoom in. Move with two fingers.
Draw all the way around the area with one finger. To mark several areas for the same fix, draw around each of them. Tap an area to select it, then Delete to remove it.
Pick an effect and set the Strength.
Tap Apply. The step is added to the list under the page, and the page updates.
Repeat for other parts of the page, or use the page strip to move to another page. Each page keeps its own steps.
Tap Save, or the arrow next to it and Save as copy to keep the original as it was. (Opened from Review, the button is Done: the steps are saved with the scan.)

Use Undo and Redo to step through what you did. Reset all removes every adjustment on the page (you can undo that too).

Smart erase

Open the document and tap Markup → Smart erase (or Tools → Smart erase).
Adjust areas opens with Erase already picked: “Circle what to remove, then Apply. Pinch to zoom.”
Draw around the stain, the hole or the mark. Leave a little paper around it.
Tap Apply. The area becomes clean paper, with the paper’s own grain and shading, so it doesn’t look pasted on.
Tap Save.

Erase rebuilds the paper from what’s around the area, so it needs paper around it. It can’t erase a whole page (“Erase needs some paper around the area.”).

Without drawing

With VoiceOver, or if you’d rather not draw:

Whole page makes the whole page the area.
Rectangle adds a rectangle you can move and resize by dragging its corners, or with the VoiceOver actions Move left, Move right, Move up, Move down, Grow and Shrink.

Free and Pro

Adjust areas and Smart erase are free.

Privacy

Everything happens on your iPhone. Nothing is sent to our server.
Your steps are saved with the page, encrypted by Paperwise with its own key. If sync (Pro) or the encrypted iCloud backup is on, they travel inside the document’s encrypted details, and your other devices apply them themselves.
In a private vault, Adjust areas is the one edit you can make (from the document’s Edit menu). The page is worked on in memory only, nothing readable is written to disk, and screenshots are blocked. In a vault the editor ends with Done rather than Save as copy.

Tips

Zoom in before you draw around small things. Very small areas are dropped: “That area is too small. Zoom in to draw around small things.”
The end of your line doesn’t need to meet the start exactly: if it comes back close to where you started, or crosses itself, Paperwise closes the shape for you.
One step can hold up to 20 areas, and a page up to 50 steps.
Whiten keeps the ink and only cleans the paper; Erase removes everything inside the area, ink included.

What if…

What if my shape disappears?

The line didn’t go all the way around: “Draw all the way around the area.” Draw again and come back near where you started.

What if Erase leaves a smudge?

Draw a little wider, so the area has plain paper all around it. On a busy page (a table, a photo), Whiten may look better.

What if the old version of the page shows for a moment?

After a change on another device or a new look, Paperwise applies your steps again on this iPhone. The page shows without them for a moment, then updates.

What if I see the change on my iPhone but not on another device?

Older versions of Paperwise don’t know some effects and show the page without them. Update Paperwise on that device.