Techniques are described for creating and manipulating software notes representative of physical notes. A computing device comprises a processor and a note identification module executable on the processor and configured to separate an input image into a plurality of channelized input images. Each of the channelized input images are associated with a different color. The note identification module is configured to apply edge detection and feature extraction to identify polygons within each of the channelized input images and select, from the polygons from the channelized input images, a representative polygon for each of the physical notes in the input image.