The quickest way to digitise old photos is with your phone and a free scanning app, such as PhotoScan by Google Photos. Lay the photo flat in daylight, hold your phone straight above it and let the app remove glare and correct crooked corners. For large enlargements, negatives or slides, a photo scanner or a digitising service is the better choice.
Shoeboxes and old albums often hold the most precious memories: your parents' wedding photo, the first family holiday, grandad as a young man. As long as they only exist on paper, you can't share them, and they can fade or get damaged. In this article you'll read how to digitise old photos, which method suits you and how to store them safely afterwards.
Which way to digitise old photos suits you?
There are three ways. Which is best depends on how many photos you have and what you want to do with them.
| Method | Best for | Quality | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phone with a scanning app | Prints from albums, lots of photos quickly | Good for screens, sharing and a photo mosaic | Free |
| Flatbed or photo scanner | Prints you want to have printed large | High, especially at 600 dpi or more | A one-off scanner |
| Digitising service | Negatives, slides and whole boxes at once | High | Per photo or per box |
How to digitise old photos with your phone in 5 steps
For most people, scanning photos with a phone is the quickest route. With a good app you can digitise around a hundred photos in fifteen minutes.
- Install a scanning app. PhotoScan by Google Photos is free for iPhone and Android. It takes several shots of one photo and uses them to remove glare and reflections.
- Find good light. Work by a window in daylight and don't put a lamp directly above the photo. Direct light causes shiny spots, especially on glossy photo paper.
- Lay the photo flat. Take photos out of albums with plastic sleeves if you can. If that isn't possible, scan through the plastic and let the app correct the glare.
- Hold your phone straight. Keep the phone parallel to the photo. The app straightens the corners and crops the edges.
- Check and save. Make sure the photo is sharp and rotate it if needed. Save the scans in a separate folder, for example by year or by person.
When should you choose a scanner or a service?
If you want to print a small passport-sized photo as a big picture, scan it with a scanner at 600 dpi or higher. That keeps enough detail to enlarge it. Negatives and slides need a film scanner, or you can have them digitised by a service. That's also handy if you have several boxes and no time to do it all yourself.
How to store your digitised photos safely
- Keep every photo in at least two places, for example in the cloud and on an external hard drive.
- Give folders a clear name with the year and the occasion, such as "1985 mum and dad's wedding".
- Keep the originals dry and dark, ideally in acid-free sleeves.
- Share the folder with your family. Someone else often remembers who is in a photo.
What can you do with old photos?
Once your old photos are digital, you can do much more with them. A lovely example is a photo mosaic: one big photo made up of dozens or hundreds of smaller photos. For a 70th birthday gift or a gift for grandparents, you can combine old album photos with recent photos of the grandchildren.
Good news: for the small tiles in a mosaic, phone scans are more than enough. Only for the main photo, the big picture, is it worth choosing the sharpest scan. Read more about choosing your photos in how to make a photo mosaic.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best app to scan old photos?
PhotoScan by Google Photos is free and removes glare well, because it combines several shots. There are also paid apps that scan whole album pages at once. For most people, PhotoScan is a great place to start.
What dpi do you need to scan photos?
For viewing on a screen and sharing, 300 dpi is enough. If you want to enlarge a photo or print it in a large size, scan it at 600 dpi or more.
Can I scan photos that are stuck in an album?
Yes. Scan them with your phone through the plastic. An app like PhotoScan removes most of the reflection. Don't try to pull stuck photos loose, as they can tear.
Are phone scans good enough for a photo mosaic?
Yes. In a photo mosaic, each photo becomes a small tile of 8 to 20 mm, depending on the size. A phone scan is more than enough for that. Do pick the sharpest version you have for the main photo.
How long does it take to digitise old photos?
With a scanning app you can do about a hundred photos in fifteen minutes. A scanner takes longer, because you place each photo separately. So plan it in stages, for example one album per evening.
Read next: photo wall ideas and our poster size guide.
Collected your old photos? Make a free preview of your photo mosaic and see straight away how they come together in one picture.