How to Scan Old Photos for Restoration

Why scan quality determines restoration quality

Restoration is garbage in, garbage out. AI can repair scratches, fading, and tears remarkably well, but it cannot recover detail the scan never captured. A blurry, low-resolution, or glare-covered scan hands the restoration tool a damaged version of your photo on top of the original damage — and every flaw introduced at scan time gets treated as part of the picture.

Spending ten extra minutes on a clean, high-resolution scan is the single highest-impact step in the whole workflow. It matters more than which restoration tool you use afterward.

Choose the right DPI

• 300 DPI is the minimum for a same-size print.
• 600 DPI is the recommended default — it gives restoration and upscaling tools room to work and preserves fine facial detail.
• 1200 DPI or more for small prints, wallet photos, or when you plan to crop heavily.

Scan in color even for black and white photos. Color mode captures stains, yellowing, and sepia tones that a grayscale scan throws away — and the AI uses exactly that information to separate damage from image content when it restores faded photos.

Prepare the scanner and the photos

Clean the scanner glass with a microfiber cloth — dust on the glass appears in every scan as spots and hairs. Never spray liquid onto a photo or directly onto the glass near photos.

Dust each print gently with a soft brush or an air blower. Never use water or cleaning fluids on prints. Wash and dry your hands thoroughly, or wear clean cotton or nitrile gloves, and always handle photos by their edges to avoid fingerprints on the emulsion.

Dealing with glare, curl, and stuck photos

Use a flatbed scanner rather than a phone photo wherever possible — a scanner gives even, glare-free lighting that a camera cannot match, especially on glossy prints. For curled photos, press them under a heavy book overnight, or let the scanner lid's weight hold them flat during the scan. Never force-flatten a brittle print: the emulsion cracks, and that damage is permanent.

Remove photos from frames and albums carefully. If a photo is stuck to album paper or glass, slide unwaxed dental floss under it with a gentle sawing motion to release the adhesive — do not pull. If it will not release, scan it in place.

Do not repair the print physically

Resist the urge to fix the physical photo before scanning: no tape, no glue, no trimming torn edges. Digital restoration is non-destructive, and it handles tears and missing corners far better than adhesive does. Tape yellows, glue stains, and trimming destroys information the restoration could have used. Scan the photo exactly as it is — even photos with water damage scan and restore better untouched.

File formats and scanner settings

• Save the master scan as TIFF or PNG — both lossless. Keep a JPEG copy only for sharing.
• Enable 16-bit depth if the scanner offers it; it preserves tonal range for recovering faded shadows and highlights.
• Turn off aggressive auto-crop. Include the whole print with a little border — edges matter for composition and for the restoration tool's context.
• Disable the scanner's built-in "auto enhance" filters; restoration works best on the unmodified scan.

Scan the back, then organize everything

If the back of a print carries handwriting, dates, or studio stamps, scan it too. That provenance is often the only record of who is in the photo and when it was taken — and it matters for family archives and genealogy.

Organize scans into folders and use a consistent naming scheme such as year_subject_source (for example, 1952_wedding_scan01.tif). Keep the original scan untouched as the master, and always run restorations on a copy.