with digital images We don’t have to worry about limited footage, whether we put in the film correctly, or what’s returned from the drugstore. The cloud has it all, ready to share on a screen near you. For older adults, memory is often associated with aging images chemically fixed to paper and neatly placed in picture frames or plastic bags. Unearth favorites and digitize them so they can be shared on screen, via messages, or on social media. It can open up forgotten days for everyone present and bring life to those who are not.
I recently scanned some old photos, many of them forgotten in old shoe boxes, and I spent hours reliving the special day with my wife, the kids watching in disbelief. “Is that really you? Mom looks so pretty. You’re such an emotional dad.” (For the record: yes, still, and I’m so into grunge). Here’s an exercise I recommend incorporating long-dead relatives, old friends, and younger self into a digital photo frame set. It’s easy too, all you need is your smartphone or scanner and a free afternoon.
photo scan
By far the easiest option for digitizing old photos is to use your phone. You can simply take a photo of an old photo, but you can get better results with a photo scanning app. I tested three popular photo scanning apps on the Pixel 6 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) against an affordable photo scanner and compared the results to a few old photos. Judging photos is always subjective, so I got a second blind opinion from WIRED senior writer and critic Scott Gilbertson.
You can also use photo digitization services, but they are expensive and require you to send your photos out, so we won’t cover them here. But I provide tips on how to prepare your images for best results and what to do with them after scanning.
Google Photos Scan
Google via Simon Hill
The first app I tested would be a natural choice for anyone using Google Photos, as it automatically backs up scans to your photo library. The app is free and easy to use, but scanning photos is time-consuming because you have to scan them individually. The process requires you to take multiple images and then stitch them together to produce the best quality picture. When you hit the scan button, you’ll see four circles (one in each corner), and you place your phone on each circle until it fills up to take a photo.
