How to scan an old
photograph at home.
You don't need a flatbed scanner. A modern phone is enough for most restoration work. Five minutes, a window, and a dark surface gets you to a usable scan.
A flatbed scanner at 600dpi will always be better. But families rarely have one. And we'd rather receive a good phone scan today than wait three weeks for a borrowed Epson V600.
Here's what gets us to a usable scan, in five minutes, with a phone you already own.
1. Find soft, indirect window light.
Open the curtains on a north-facing window if you have one. Otherwise, any window that isn't in direct sun. Direct sun creates glare on the photograph's surface and blows out the brightest tones. Overcast British weather is, for once, an advantage.
2. Lay the photograph on a dark, matte surface.
A dark wood table works. A piece of black card from a craft shop works better. The dark background helps your phone's camera judge exposure on the photograph itself, not the surrounding surface.
If your phone's camera keeps trying to focus on the surface texture instead of the photograph, tap the photograph on the screen to lock the focus there.
3. Hold the phone parallel to the photograph.
Look down at the photograph from directly above. Get the phone as flat as you can — perpendicular to the photograph's plane. If the phone is tilted, the resulting scan will be a trapezoid rather than a rectangle. We can correct mild perspective in restoration, but it costs sharpness.
If your photograph is larger than A4, consider scanning it in two halves and we'll join them.
4. Set the camera to its highest resolution.
iPhone: open Settings → Camera → Formats → tap "Most Compatible" (JPEG) and ensure resolution is set to 48MP if your phone offers it. Pixel / Samsung: open the camera app, switch to "Pro" or "Expert" mode, set the resolution to maximum.
The default camera settings on most phones compress the file to save space. We need the uncompressed version for restoration. The difference between a 1MB scan and a 12MB scan is the difference between "we can work with this" and "you can crop the great-grandparent out of the background and they're still in focus."
5. Take three scans, not one.
Slight differences in focus and exposure mean the first scan isn't always the best. Take three. Look at all of them at 100% zoom on the phone screen. Pick the sharpest one and send it.
When your phone scan isn't enough.
If a photograph is very small (under 5cm wide), very damaged (active flaking, mould), or a non-standard format (a daguerreotype, a glass plate, a tintype), please don't try to phone-scan it. Write to us and we'll send you a Royal Mail Special Delivery kit. For these formats we use a flatbed scanner at the studio, and the difference in result is worth the few extra days it takes to post.
A note on the dedicated scanning apps.
Apps like Google PhotoScan or Microsoft Lens are marginally better than the default camera, mainly because they correct perspective automatically. They are, however, also designed to "enhance" the photograph — increasing contrast, sharpening, reducing noise. Those enhancements are exactly what we need to do ourselves, with intent. If you use an enhancement app, please send the original photograph too if you can. We'd rather restore from the unedited file.
Send your scans to hello@keptandkin.com or begin an order at keptandkin.com/order. We write back the same day, by hand.