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How to Digitize Old Photos With Your Phone

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Bring memories back to life by taking your old pictures into the future. We tested three popular photo scanning apps against a scanner.

WIRED

Photograph by Yevgen Timashov/Getty Images

 

With digital imagery we don’t have to worry about limited shots, whether we put the film in correctly, or what will come back from the drugstore. The cloud holds all, ready to share on a screen near you. For older folks, memories are often linked to aging images chemically fixed on paper and slotted neatly into frames or plastic pockets. Digging out favorites and digitizing them makes them available to share on screens, through messages, or on social media. It can unlock forgotten days for everyone who was there and bring moments to life for those who were not.

I recently scanned a selection of old photos, many lying forgotten in an old shoebox, and spent a happy couple of hours reliving special days with my wife as our kids looked on incredulously. “Is that really you? Mum looks so beautiful. You were such an emo dad.” (For the record: Yes, still is, and I was heavily into grunge). It’s an exercise I recommend, stirring long-dead relatives, old friends, and younger versions of ourselves into the digital photo frame mix. It’s also easy and only requires your smartphone or a scanner and a free afternoon.

Photo Scanning

By far the easiest option for digitizing old photos is to use your phone. You can simply snap a photo of your old photos, but you can get better results with a photo scanning app. I tested three popular photo scanning apps on a Google Pixel 6 against an affordable photo scanner and compared the results with several old photos. Judging photos is always subjective, so I got a blind second opinion from senior WIRED writer and reviewer Scott Gilbertson.

You can also use photo digitizing services, but they are expensive and require you to send your photos away, so we aren’t covering them here. But I have included tips on how to prepare your images for the best results and what to do with them after scanning.

Google PhotoScan (Free)

 

PhotoScan. Google via Simon Hill

 

The first app I tested is a natural choice for anyone who uses Google Photos because it automatically backs up scans into your Photos library. The app is free and easy to use, but scanning photos is time-consuming because you must scan them individually. The process requires you to take multiple images, which are then stitched together to produce the best quality picture. When you tap the scan button, you will see four circles (one in each corner), and you hold the phone over each until it fills to capture the photo.

If you are scanning many photos, it will take you hours with this app. Google also claims PhotoScan will produce glare-free results, but I found that wasn’t always the case. By default, the app uses the flash and a glare-free tool (both can be toggled off). A couple of my photos printed on grainy super-reflective paper came out with some glare. Good natural lighting produces better results with these tools turned off.

While it was the most cumbersome, PhotoScan produced mostly detailed images and did a decent job subtly enhancing them, removing some blemishes. I liked the results from PhotoScan on a couple of the test photos, but it did a poor job with an old black-and-white shot, and graininess was an issue throughout. It is handy to have them automatically uploaded to the Google Photos app, though you can always upload images to edit in Google Photos from other apps if you want to.

Microsoft Lens (Free)

Microsoft Lens. Microsoft via Simon Hill

 

This popular scanner app is great for documents and business cards but can also handle photos. Microsoft subscribers who use OneDrive for backups will appreciate that the app can upload directly to the cloud or export into Microsoft documents. It’s completely free and straightforward to use. All you need to do is set it to Photo mode, line up your photo in the viewfinder, and tap the scan button.

It’s relatively quick and easy to scan photos, though you must do them one at a time. Technically, you could scan multiple photos and save them in a single PDF, but then you would have to crop each one out unless you want collages. The Lens app has some basic editing tools and filters, so you can clean your images up.

Most of the results were passable, and Microsoft Lens was consistent, but it ultimately came bottom of the pile. Glare was an issue with more than one image, and you must be very careful of your lighting and angle to avoid reflections. The Lens scans also seemed to preserve the most blemishes of all our test subjects.

Picture Scan App by Photomyne ($5 per month)

Picture Scan App by Photomyne. Photomyne via Simon Hill

 

Our final app was Picture Scan App by Photomyne on Android (the iOS equivalent is Photo Scan App by Photomyne). This app was by far the easiest and fastest to use. You can simultaneously scan multiple photos with a single tap, and the app automatically crops and processes them (though the results are better if you scan one at a time). Basic editing tools allow you to rotate, crop, apply filters, or colorize black-and-white shots. And it’s easy to upload photos to the cloud, share via email, or save on your device.

The results were impressive: It delivered the best color rendering and really nailed skin tones. The autocropping is a bit hit-and-miss, and I did find that I sometimes had to adjust the corners. Some of the images also picked up slight reflections and glare. But this app produced the most pleasing results across the board and was the quickest and easiest to use.

There is a catch. The range of apps and subscriptions that Photomyne offers is a little confusing. There’s a free trial, but if you want unlimited use of the tools and unlimited cloud storage, you must subscribe. Subscriptions cost $5 per month or $40 for a year. Promotional offers are frequent, and you can choose to pay separately for specific tools, such as the colorize feature for black-and-white photos.

Canon CanoScan LiDE 400 Photograph: Canon

 

Relatively affordable and very popular, this compact flatbed document scanner from Canon is a good choice if you want to go the hardware route. It draws power via USB, so you can plug it into your computer and start scanning. It is slow, as you must position photos and tap the button to scan one at a time, and each scan takes a few seconds. Thankfully, it can upload scans directly to your cloud service of choice.

The scanner was the clear winner for a couple of our test photos. It did the best job with an old black-and-white photo and nailed a color group shot. The detail was consistently good, and results were probably closest to the original photos, though that isn’t always a good thing. The scanner does pick up every blemish, and several images had to be cropped.

Aside from the comparatively high upfront cost, scanning photos with the scanner is slow and cumbersome. You also don’t get automatic processing or editing tools, though you can upload to something like Google Photos to backup and edit your shots later.