How to Scan a Photo for Restoration

How to Scan Photos for Restoration – 3 easy steps

The quality of your initial scan is the single most important factor in achieving a high-quality final result. Providing a high-resolution, sharp scan ensures the most accurate restoration quote and saves you money by eliminating the need for me to fix digital artefacts caused by poor capture methods.

Last updated: 19 April 2026

“All-in-one” printer/scanner

Don’t Have the Right Equipment?

If you are unable to scan the photos yourself, you have two professional alternatives:

Purchase Advice: Read my scanner buying guide for expert recommendations on the best current hardware.

Let Me Do It: I offer professional scanning services at Image Restore. You can send your original photos (bulk or single items) directly to me, and I will digitize them using professional-grade equipment.

Step 1: Prepare

• If your photo is in a frame, carefully remove it from its frame before proceeding.
• Gently remove any dust or lint from the photo with a soft cloth or brush. Do this away from the scanner to prevent any dust from settling on the glass.
• Clean the scanner glass with a soft lint-free cloth or soft clean brush or air duster.
•  Make sure the image is flat on the glass. If necessary, add a book to the lid to keep it flat.
• Make sure that your original fits within the scanning guides of your scanner to ensure that the full area of the photo is captured. If the photo you are attempting to scan is too large to fit your scanner, see my blog post about scanning large images for some tips and suggestions or consider taking my in-depth course on scanning oversized photos. Alternatively, you can send me your photo to scan or visit your local print/copy shop who may be equipped to help.

Step 2: Scan

• Use the software that came with your scanner to configure your equipment for the best results. Don’t press the “Scan” button on the front of your scanner as this will typically cause the scanner to revert to its basic default settings, resulting in a low-resolution image that is not good for photo restoration.

Scan in colour. Even for black and white images, scanning in colour will capture more information, making your restoration better.

Automatic enhancements OFF Turn off all auto settings as these can produce unreliable results.

 Step 3: Crop and Save

• Check that you have scanned just the image and not the whole scanner bed. Try to use your scanning software to crop or trim the image to remove extra blank space beyond the borders of your image, if needed.
• Before saving, check that you have selected the TIFF (or TIF) file format. While the TIFF format typically produces very large files, this is a good thing for restoration work since the data in the file is not compressed, resulting in the best possible quality. 
• If you can’t find the TIFF option, save as an uncompressed JPG.

Congratulations!

Now you’re ready to send me your scanned image.

If your scanned image file is too large to email, you can use the free wetransfer.com file transfer service to send me your file(s).

Scanning Troubleshooting Tips

Even if you follow the 7 steps to better scanning or the steps in my scanning guide, you may find that you see some strange features on your scans. You may see lines that run across your scan that do not appear on your actual photo. You may find you have overly jagged edges or even sparkly edges in areas of high contrast. Sometimes you might see diffused bands running across your images. To read all about these scanning problems and what they might be and how to solve them, read the blog post on scanning problems. For what types of media and images we can scan, see our photo restoration services blog post. 

More scanning tips from the Image Restore Blog