Scanning photos

This chapter covers scanning printed photos — both individual prints and batches.

If you’re scanning a single photo for the first time, the Getting Started walkthrough is the fastest path. The sections below cover what to do once you have a stack of photos to get through.

Scanning multiple photos at once

Most flatbed scanners are big enough to hold 3–4 standard prints at a time. VueScan can detect each photo, crop them out individually, and save each as its own file.

For the full procedure, see How to scan multiple photos on a flatbed.

Old, faded, or damaged photos

VueScan has filters and AI features that help with photos that haven’t aged well:

  • Filter | Restore colors brings back faded color casts.
  • Touch Up removes dust, scratches, and small tears.
  • Autocrop + auto-deskew straightens photos that weren’t placed perfectly square on the bed.
  • DPI: 300–600 for snapshots, 600–1200 for prints you may want to enlarge.
  • Format: JPEG for sharing, TIFF for archives.
  • Bit depth: 24-bit for normal photos; 48-bit if you plan to do heavy editing later.

For more on resolution choices, see Choosing the right resolution.

Connecting your scanner
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Scanning slides and negatives