Photo scanners allow you to turn your old photos into digitized photographs or film slides. You can then share your photographs on social media or email them to friends and family. Old photographs can become easily damaged. Turning your photographs digital using a photo scanner will give you a backup, so you can rest assured you will always have a copy.
Historians use photo scanners to catalog old photographs. Artists use photo scanners to incorporate old images into their art. What will you use your photo scanner for? More importantly, how do you choose the right photo scanner for you? With so many features and designs to choose from, choosing the best photo scanner can feel daunting. To help you decide what product to buy, we have created a list of the best photo scanners in 2025.
Check them out below!
Scanning with the Plustek Photo Scanner is fast and easy. The Plustek Photo Scanner scans several sizes of photographs, including 3×5-inches, 4×6-inches, 5×7-inches, and 8×10-inches. The Plustek is also capable of scanning an A4 piece of paper. You could convert 1000 photographs to digital photographs in the space of an afternoon. You can also use this scanner’s image enhancement functions to bring your old faded photos back to life.
| Scans different sized photos | |
| Scans documents | |
| Image enhancement functions |
The Epson FastFoto is suitable for scanning receipts, postcards, and photos. It will scan your photos exceptionally quickly- as fast as one photo per second. The Epson Fastfoto includes software that will restore and organize your beloved photos and memories. Wireless connection allows for flexibility in where you can use this scanner. The perfect imaging system allows you to restore color, reduce red-eye and crop your digital photos.
| Can scan receipts, postcards, and photos | |
| Editing software included | |
| It takes as little as one second to scan a photo |
The Kodak Slide N Scan Scanner is made specifically to scan film. This scanner allows you to scan negatives and view them on an attached 5-inch LCD screen. You can adjust the brightness of your photos and assign a date and time, so all your digital photos are organized. You can then save your photos to an SD card; however, this is not included. Continuous load action is achieved by quick-feeding tray technology.
| Scans negative film | |
| Viewing screen | |
| Save photos to an SD card |
The Doxie Go SE is a photo scanner that can scan receipts, paper, and photos. This is a portable and lightweight device about the size of a rolled-up magazine. It runs on a rechargeable battery and will hold 4000 full digital pages before you need to transfer the digital info to make space. In addition, the Doxie Go SE will send photos straight to your chosen editing apps so you can make your old photographs look new.
| Portable photo scanner | |
| Scans receipts, paper, and photos | |
| Battery operated | |
| Can hold up to 4000 images before needing to be transferred elsewhere |
The Munbyn Magic Wand Portable Scanner lets you scan receipts, photos, and documents. It possesses a high image resolution of 900 dpi and is battery-operated. Batteries are not included, and you must buy two AA batteries. It comes with a 16G SD card so that you can save thousands of photographs and documents. However, the OCR (optical character recognition) software is only supported on Windows. Sorry, Apple fans!
| Portable scanner | |
| Battery operated | |
| 900dpi image resolution | |
| 16G SD card included | |
| OCR software |
The Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner is only recommended to scan photos. It has an image resolution of 600dpi. This scanner allows you to scan photos of up to 8.5×11-inches. In addition, It creates industry-standard jpg files so you can email your digital photos to friends and family. This device requires you to save your photos to an SD card (included). As such, you do not necessarily need a PC to use this photo scanner.
| Scans photos | |
| Image resolution 600dpi | |
| Save photos to SD card | |
| SD card included |
The Canon CanoScan Lide 300 Scanner can scan photos, receipts, business cards, and paper. It has an impressive 2400 dpi resolution. Give your old photos a new lease of life with image enhancements such as fade correction and dust reduction. In addition, the Canon CanoScan has a PDF button that automatically changes your digital photos to PDFs, making them easier to send via email.
| Scans photos, receipts, business cards, and paper | |
| 2400dpi resolution | |
| Image enhancements |
Want to know more about photo scanners? Make sure you check out our handy buying guide below.
There are several reasons why using a photo scanner is better than using a phone scanner app.
Your phone camera works by capturing reflected light to the lens. However, taking a photo of a photo can cause it to be too dim or too harsh and will not allow you to see the picture clearly. A scanner creates the perfect lighting conditions to make a copy of the photograph crystal clear.
It is more difficult to focus with a camera phone. For example, if you snap an image of an old photo on your phone, you rely on a steady hand so the image does not blur. With a photo scanner, this is not an issue.
To get the best copy of your photograph, you need to make a copy at the perfect angle. Unfortunately, a lens on the phone is difficult to get directly above a photograph and at a perfect angle. In this respect, a photo scanner does all the hard work for you.
Many photo scanner apps will automatically crop your photo for you, but they don’t always get it right. Depending on the color of the photograph you are using and the background you take it on, your phone camera can become confused. You need not worry about cropping issues with a photo scanner.
The image quality is simply superior on the scanner. Cameras do a great job at portraits & scenery but not on photos of photos or documents.
If you want to send a scanned photo via email, a copy from your phone will have a larger file size than a copy from a photo scanner. This is despite the scanner’s better image quality.
If you didn’t like the look of any of the photo scanners we suggested, we could still help you out. With so many varieties of photo scanners to choose from, there is bound to be one that suits your requirements. Read the things you should consider when purchasing a photo scanner below.
Drum scanners: Specialized imaging bureaus use drum scanners. They are expensive and will probably be way more than what you need. Flatbed scanners: High-resolution flatbed scanners are made to scan at ultra-high resolutions. They also often come with accessories such as adapters for scanning transparencies, slides, film, and negatives. A great bonus of a high-resolution flatbed scanner is that it will often also come with correction and photo-enhancing software. Budget flatbed scanners: If high-resolution flatbed scanners are out of your price range, several decent budget flatbed scanners are available. These aren’t the fastest or largest and don’t scan transparencies well. However, these scanners do the trick for document and daily photo scanning. All-in-one printer and scanner combo: Many printers also have a scanner. If you have a printer, double-check that it doesn’t have a decent scanner before ordering one. Portable scanners: Portable scanners are for scanning documents and will not give the best results for a scanned photograph.
If you plan to scan transparencies and nothing else, you can buy a small transparency scanner, which should be all you need. However, if you plan to scan a variety of different-sized photos and transparencies, you will need a flatbed scanner.
Scanner resolution is measured in dpi (dots per inch). The higher the dpi, the better quality your photos will be. If you are enlarging a scanned image, we recommend buying a scanner with at least 3200 dpi. 1200 bpi is needed for high-quality photo scanning.
Speed may be an important factor for you if you have a lot of scanning to do. The speed at which a photo scanner scans varies. You can find out this speed on the manufacturer’s website.
If you also want to use your photo scanner to scan documents, check the scanner’s specifications to ensure it can do so.
If you have the option to buy a product with a warranty, make sure you do! A warranty ensures that you get your money back or a replacement if the product becomes faulty, usually within 2 years. It is good to test your product as soon as you receive it to ensure it is in working order.
Read customer reviews once you have found a product you like the look of. You can read customer reviews on shopping sites like Amazon or the manufacturer’s website. If most customer reviews are low, you will probably not be happy with the product either.
You can purchase a decent photo scanner for between $70 and $430. The two photo scanners with the highest customer reviews we found on Amazon cost $253 and $367, respectively.
An everyday flatbed scanner will not automatically scan your negative photos. This is because your negatives need to be backlit. You can place silver card stock underneath your negatives to scan them. The light from the scanner will reflect off the silver card and create a backlight.
There are many photo scanner brands available. They include Epson, Canon, Kodak, and Plustek. If you chose, you can do a quick Google search to find more photo scanner brands.
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