Every restoration, colorization and animation starts with a scan. Get the scan right and everything downstream gets easier; get it wrong and even the best AI cannot recover detail that was never captured.
This guide covers how to scan old photos properly: flatbed scanner settings, DPI for prints and negatives, TIFF vs JPEG, phone scanning apps, glare-free lighting, and how to name and back up the files — plus what to do after the scan to bring the photos back to life.
Before You Scan: Clean Gently, Handle Carefully
Two minutes of prep makes a visible difference. Dust specks and fingerprints become permanent features of the scan — and restoration AI may treat them as damage.
- ✓Remove loose dust with a soft brush or a blast of compressed air held at an angle.
- ✓Handle by the edges with clean, dry hands. Skin oils leave permanent marks on old prints.
- ✓Wipe the scanner glass with a microfiber cloth before each session.
- ✓No liquids on prints. Never wipe a photo with water or cleaning products — if a print is stuck to glass or another photo, do not force it; see our damaged photo salvage guide.
Flatbed Scanner Settings for Old Photos
A flatbed scanner is the best tool for old prints: even lighting, no perspective distortion and precise DPI control. When you scan old photos on a flatbed, set the scanner to photo mode (not document mode, which applies aggressive contrast meant for text), turn descreen off unless you are scanning printed halftones from newspapers or magazines, and disable any automatic sharpening — restoration tools do that better later.
Scan in color even for black-and-white prints. Old monochrome photos have subtle sepia and silvering tones that color mode captures faithfully, and it costs you nothing downstream.
DPI Cheat Sheet: What Resolution to Scan At
The logic is simple: DPI exists to give the final image enough pixels. A wallet photo scanned at 600 DPI produces a small file; scanned at 1200 DPI it becomes genuinely useful for restoration and upscaling.
TIFF vs JPEG: Which File Format to Save
- • Lossless: every captured pixel is preserved
- • Large files, so it is best kept as your master copy
- • Ideal when you plan to restore or reprint the photo
- • Much smaller files, viewable everywhere
- • Lossy, but high-quality JPEG is fine for sharing
- • Save once; every re-save loses a little more detail
A workflow that works for most families: scan to TIFF as the master, then make a high-quality JPEG working copy for colorizing, animating and sharing. Whatever you do, avoid sending the only copy through messaging apps — their compression is designed for screenshots, not archives.
No Scanner? How to Scan Old Photos With a Phone
Phone scanning apps have become genuinely good, and for a shoebox of family photos they are often the fastest way to digitize. Three well-known options:
- 1.Google PhotoScan — a free app built specifically for photos. It captures the print from several angles and combines the frames to remove glare and crop automatically.
- 2.Microsoft Lens — a free document scanner that trims, flattens and enhances captures, and works well for prints in good light.
- 3.Apple Notes scanner — iPhone users have a document scanner built in; open a note, add a scan, and save the result to Photos.
Phone scans are perfect for sharing the family archive quickly. If a photo is headed for restoration, upscaling or animation, a flatbed scan at 600 DPI is still the better source — and a slightly soft phone scan can often be rescued by an AI upscaler.
Beating Glare and Bad Lighting
- ✓Never use flash on prints. Glossy finishes bounce it straight back as a white hotspot.
- ✓Use even, indirect daylight — near a window on a bright cloudy day is ideal for phone capture.
- ✓Shoot straight down when photographing a print, with the phone parallel to the photo to avoid perspective skew.
- ✓Let the app do glare removal. PhotoScan-style multi-frame capture beats any single snapshot.
Name Files and Back Them Up
A shoebox of anonymous scans is almost as hard to use as a shoebox of prints. Name files while you remember who is in them — a simple pattern like 1948-smith-grandma-marie-01 keeps the archive searchable forever. Add surnames and approximate years; skip spaces in favor of dashes so the names survive every operating system.
Then protect the work: keep three copies of the archive on two kinds of storage — for example an external drive plus a cloud service — with one copy elsewhere. Scanning takes hours; copying files takes minutes.
After the Scan: Restore, Colorize, Animate
A scan preserves your photos; the rest of the pipeline makes them shine. The recommended order:
For the full restoration workflow from damage assessment onward, see how to restore old photos, and before animating, run through the 5-rule preparation checklist.
FAQ: Scanning Old Photos
What DPI should I use to scan old photos?+
Scan standard prints at 600 DPI — high enough to restore, crop and reprint later. 300 DPI is an acceptable minimum if you only plan to view photos on a screen, but it limits enlargement. Use 900–1200 DPI for small prints like wallet photos, and 2400 DPI or higher for negatives and slides, which are tiny and need the extra resolution.
Is it better to scan photos as TIFF or JPEG?+
TIFF is lossless, making it the archival master format — no detail is thrown away, at the cost of large files. JPEG is fine for everyday sharing if you save at the highest quality setting. A common strategy: keep a TIFF master of each scan, then export JPEG copies for restoring, sharing and animating.
Can I scan old photos with my phone instead of a scanner?+
Yes. Google PhotoScan is designed specifically for photos and removes glare automatically; Microsoft Lens and the scanner built into Apple Notes both work well for documents and prints. Phone scans are great for quick family sharing, but a flatbed scan at 600 DPI still gives the best starting point for AI restoration.
How do I avoid glare when scanning glossy photos?+
On a flatbed, glare is rarely a problem because the light source moves with the sensor. When photographing with a phone, avoid the flash, use even indirect daylight, and let a scanning app like Google PhotoScan handle glare removal — it captures multiple frames and combines them.
Should I clean my photos before scanning?+
Gently, yes. Dust and fingerprints show up in scans and can read as damage to restoration AI. Use a soft brush or a blast of compressed air to remove loose dust, and handle prints by the edges with clean, dry hands. Never use water or cleaning products on the print surface.
What resolution does AI photo animation need?+
Aim for a face that is at least 300–500 pixels tall in the final image. Scanning a standard print at 600 DPI almost always clears that bar; small or low-resolution scans should be run through an AI upscaler before animating. See our preparation checklist for the full set of rules.
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