How to Digitize Old Photos, Prints and Albums

To digitize old photos well, sort them first, then copy each print with a flatbed scanner at about 600 ppi (1,200 ppi for small prints you may want to enlarge), or photograph it with a camera on a stand under two even lights. Save the results as TIFF or high-quality JPEG masters with clear file names, and scan the backs too, because the handwriting there is often the only record of who and when. A steady pace of one small batch at a time finishes collections that a weekend marathon never will.

Triage the collection before you copy anything

A shoebox of 2,000 prints is not 2,000 equal jobs. Before you touch a scanner, spend an hour sorting, because the order you digitize in matters more than the method. If you stop halfway, you want the half that is done to be the half that matters.

1. At risk first. Prints that are fading, curling, cracking, stuck in self-adhesive albums, or stored somewhere damp. Instant prints and colour prints from the middle of the last century often shift colour faster than black and white prints. These go to the front of the queue.
2. Irreplaceable next. The only surviving picture of a grandparent, a wedding, a house that no longer stands. Anything that exists in one copy and cannot be reshot.
3. Everything with people you can name. Family snapshots where someone alive can still tell you who is in the frame. That knowledge is disappearing faster than the prints are.
4. The rest, selectively. Twelve near-identical frames of a lake from a car window do not all need to be digitized. Pick the best one or two.

While you sort, group prints by size so you can scan runs of the same size at the same settings, and keep each envelope together with any notes that came with it. If the negatives for a set of prints survive, set those prints aside: the negative holds more detail than any print made from it (see the film section below).

Flatbed scanner, camera copy stand or phone

There are three practical ways to turn a print into a file. None is best for everything; the right one depends on how many prints you have, what condition they are in, and how much quality you need.

A sensible plan: a flatbed or camera setup for masters, and a phone only for things you cannot take home, such as a cousin’s album you see for one afternoon. Phone scanning apps that combine several shots to suppress glare help, but treat those files as reference copies, not masters.

A scanning service saves time but means shipping originals. If you use one, ask for at least 600 ppi and uncompressed or high-quality files, and keep the most precious prints at home.

How much resolution each print size needs

Scan resolution is measured in pixels per inch (ppi) of the original; many scanners label it dpi, which for a scan means the same thing. Work backwards from output: for a sharp print, about 300 pixels per inch of print is the usual target. You can read more about the difference between the terms in DPI vs PPI.

The math is simple. Pixels across = inches across the original multiplied by scan ppi. Printable size = those pixels divided by 300.

• A 4×6 inch print scanned at 600 ppi becomes 2,400 x 3,600 pixels (about 8.6 megapixels). Divided by 300, that prints at 8×12 inches, twice the original size.
• A 2.5×3.5 inch wallet print at 1,200 ppi becomes 3,000 x 4,200 pixels, enough for a 10×14 inch print. At 600 ppi it would only reach 5×7.

Why not scan everything at the maximum? A typical print holds only so much real detail. Beyond roughly 600 ppi for snapshot-sized prints, higher settings mostly record paper texture and dust at a bigger size, while files grow fourfold every time you double the ppi. The print size calculator does the same arithmetic for any pixel count.

Most prints are fine at 8 bits per channel. Scan badly faded or very dark prints at 16 bits per channel, so heavy correction has more tonal steps to stretch without banding (see bit depth).

Flatbed settings that protect the original look

For archival masters, switch off most of the scanner software’s automatic help. The goal is a faithful copy of the print as it is today.

• Use the professional or manual mode so you control resolution, bit depth and file type yourself.
• Turn off automatic colour restoration, sharpening and dust removal for masters. They cannot be undone once baked in, and infrared dust removal only works on film, not prints.
• Turn on descreening only for printed matter, such as newspaper clippings and magazine pages, where a halftone dot pattern would otherwise cause moire. Real photographic prints have no dot pattern and do not need it.
• Scan slightly past the edges. Include the border and a sliver of the scanner lid around each print. You can crop later; you cannot recover an edge you cut off, and the border itself can help date a print.
• Clean the glass with a lint-free cloth before each session and dust prints with a soft brush. Never use liquid cleaners on the prints themselves.

Scanning several prints per pass saves time. Leave a finger’s width between them, keep them square to the glass edge, and split them into separate files afterwards.

Photographing prints with a camera

A camera copy setup is the fastest way to digitize large collections and the gentlest way to copy albums and prints that will not lie flat. The same principles apply whether you are copying a family snapshot or photographing artwork.

Lighting: two lamps at 45 degrees

Place two identical lights, one on each side of the print, aimed at it from about 45 degrees and at the same distance. Light reflects off a glossy surface at the same angle it arrived, so light from 45 degrees bounces away to the opposite side instead of up into the lens, and two matched lights keep every corner equally bright. Turn off room lights so mixed colour does not creep in.

Check evenness by photographing a plain grey card before you begin. If one side is brighter, move that light back. Window light works for a small batch, but it changes by the minute; lamps give consistent files across hundreds of prints.

Glare, texture and glossy prints

Glossy prints and textured silk or pebbled finishes are the hardest to copy because every tiny bump catches light. If glare persists, move the lights lower or further out, and put a black card with a hole for the lens above the print to kill reflections of the camera. The fully effective fix is cross polarization: polarizing film over both lights and a polarizing filter on the lens, rotated until the reflections vanish. It removes surface glare almost entirely, at the cost of more light and a little more setup.

Squareness, sharpness and colour

The camera sensor must be parallel to the print, or rectangles become trapezoids and one edge goes soft. A simple check: lay a small mirror flat in the middle of the print. Looking through the camera, you should see the reflection of the lens centred in the mirror. If it is off to one side, the camera is tilted.

• Lens: a macro lens is ideal because it focuses close and has little distortion. A normal focal length zoom works for larger prints. Avoid wide angles, which bend straight edges (see lens distortion).
• Settings: base ISO, an aperture around f/5.6 to f/8 for edge to edge sharpness, raw format, a two-second timer or remote release, and manual focus once you have nailed it.
• Colour: photograph a grey card or colour reference card at the start of each session and whenever the lighting changes. Setting white balance from it in your editor makes every file in the batch neutral in one click. How to use a color chart covers the method.

Camera resolution translates directly into effective scan resolution. A 24 megapixel sensor records 6,000 x 4,000 pixels. A 4×6 print filling the frame gets close to 1,000 ppi, more than a snapshot needs. An 8×10 fits its 8 inch side across the 4,000 pixel short dimension, about 500 ppi. Shoot very small originals close enough to fill the frame.

Albums, stuck prints and fragile originals

Photo albums carry information that loose prints do not: the order, the captions, which pictures someone chose to put side by side. Before removing anything, photograph or scan each full page as it is. That page copy preserves the arrangement and the handwriting even if you later scan the prints individually.

Self-adhesive albums, with a sticky page under a clear plastic sheet, are common and troublesome. The adhesive yellows and hardens over time, and prints stuck to it often tear or delaminate if pulled. If a print lifts with gentle pressure, fine. If it resists, stop. Do not slide a knife under it, do not heat it, do not force it. Copy it in place instead: a camera setup is ideal because nothing presses on the album, and the plastic overlay can often be peeled back carefully to reduce glare. The guide on how to store old photos covers what to do with those albums afterwards.

For fragile originals, move the camera, not the print. Cracked, flaking or tightly curled prints should not be pressed flat under a scanner lid; photograph them where they lie. Glass plates, tintypes and mouldy items deserve a conservator’s opinion before further handling.

File formats and names for your masters

Every print should produce one master file that you never edit. Restoration, cropping and colour correction happen on copies, so the untouched master is always there when better tools come along.

• TIFF is the safest master format. It is lossless, widely readable and supports 16 bits per channel. Lossless compression inside TIFF saves space without losing anything. See TIFF.
• High-quality JPEG (the top one or two quality settings) is a reasonable master for large volumes of ordinary snapshots when storage is tight. It is lossy, so save it once from the scan and never re-save the same JPEG repeatedly, since each save discards a little more.
• Raw files from a camera setup are excellent masters, but save a TIFF copy too, since raw formats are camera-specific.

The image file formats guide compares the options in detail. For names, start with the best date you know in year-month-day order, so files sort chronologically, followed by a short description and a number: 1968-07_lake-cottage_004.tif. If you only know the decade, say so honestly (1960s_lake-cottage_004.tif) rather than inventing a precise date. A full naming and folder scheme for an entire family collection is laid out in how to organize and preserve a family photo archive.

Scanning the backs of prints

The back of a print is often worth as much as the front. Names, places and dates written by someone who was there are frequently the only record of who is in the picture, and many photo labs printed a processing date or batch code on the back, which can place an undated print within a few months.

Scan every back that has anything on it. The same file name with a suffix keeps the pair together: 1968-07_lake-cottage_004_back.tif. Handwriting does not need high resolution; 300 ppi is plenty. Then type what the back says into the front image’s description metadata, so the information travels with the picture even if the back scan is ever separated from it. How to modify metadata explains the fields.

If the writing is in pencil and nearly invisible, try a camera with a single light raking across at a low angle. The shallow light catches the indentation of the pencil strokes and can make faint notes legible.

Film negatives and slides

If you find negatives or slides among the prints, digitize them rather than the prints wherever you can. A negative contains more detail and dynamic range than any print made from it, and slides are the original exposed film itself. The methods differ, though: film is lit from behind, needs much higher resolution (roughly 2,400 to 4,000 ppi for 35mm frames) because the frames are tiny, and colour negatives need to be inverted and have the orange base removed. Scanning with a film holder on a flatbed, a dedicated film scanner, or a camera and backlight all work. The full workflow is in scanning film negatives.

A pace that finishes large collections

Big digitizing projects rarely fail on technique. They fail when an enthusiastic first weekend is never repeated. Plan for a pace you can keep.

• Short, regular sessions. At 100 prints an hour, a 3,000 print collection is thirty weekly sessions: finished in under a year.
• Leave the setup assembled if you possibly can. Rebuilding a copy stand and lights each time is the biggest brake on momentum.
• Separate capturing from editing. Capture a whole batch at fixed settings, then crop, straighten and name in another sitting.
• Back up each session’s files the same day. A thousand scans on one drive is a single point of failure; the photo backup guide shows a simple system.
• Involve the people who remember. Show a parent or grandparent each session’s scans and record names and stories while you can.

Common mistakes

• Scanning in random order. The shoebox gets half done and the at-risk prints are in the other half. Fix: triage first and start with damaged and irreplaceable prints.
• Too low a resolution for small prints. A wallet photo at 300 ppi can never be enlarged. Fix: 1,200 ppi for anything under about 3.5 inches.
• Letting automatic enhancements into the master. Heavy sharpening and colour fixes cannot be removed later. Fix: capture a faithful master and restore on a copy.
• Glare on camera copies. Fix: two matched lights at 45 degrees, and cross polarization for stubborn glossy prints.
• Prying prints off sticky album pages. Tears and lost emulsion are permanent. Fix: copy them in place.
• Ignoring the backs. Names and dates vanish with the handwriting. Fix: scan every back with writing or stamps and transcribe it into metadata.

Try this

Take 20 minutes and ten prints of mixed sizes from one envelope. Scan or photograph the first print at 300 ppi and again at 600 ppi (or, with a camera, from farther away and then filling the frame). View both at the same enlarged size on screen and note where the extra detail stops being real detail and becomes paper texture. Then set your chosen resolution, digitize all ten prints plus any backs with writing, name them with dates and short descriptions, and type one caption into the metadata of each. You will finish with a tested workflow, a sense of how long a print really takes you, and a realistic plan for the rest of the box.

Frequently asked questions

What resolution should I scan old photos at?

600 ppi for typical 4×6 and 3.5×5 snapshots, 1,200 ppi for small prints you may want to enlarge, and 300 to 400 ppi for 8×10 and larger. That gives enough pixels to print at about twice the original size at 300 ppi for most prints.

Is it better to scan or photograph old photos?

Both give excellent results when done well. A flatbed is simpler and more consistent for loose prints. A camera setup is faster for large volumes and is the gentler choice for albums, framed prints and fragile or curled originals.

Should I keep the original prints after scanning?

Yes. Keep them, stored in archival enclosures somewhere cool and dry. Scans can be lost or become unreadable if nobody maintains them, while a well-kept print can last generations. The originals are also your source if you ever want a better scan.

Can I scan photos that are stuck in an old album?

Yes. Scan or photograph the whole page in place. A camera on a stand is best because it needs no pressure on the album. Do not force prints off sticky pages, because they can tear or lose their image layer.

Related guides

• How to organize and preserve a family photo archive: what to do with the scans once you have them.
• How to store and care for old prints, negatives and slides: keeping the originals safe after digitizing.
• Scanning film negatives: the complete workflow for negatives and slides.
• How to fix colors in old photographs: correcting faded and shifted colour on your copies.
• How to fix an old photo: repairing scratches, dust and tears.
• How to back up your photos: protecting the files you just created.
• Image resolution and file sizes: how pixels, ppi and file size relate.