The flatbed scanner method
A flatbed scanner gives the cleanest result. Wipe the glass and the photo with a soft, dry, lint-free cloth — dust and fingerprints are the two most common scan flaws.
Scan at 600 DPI for a trading card. That captures far more detail than the card needs, which gives you room to crop into the subject without losing sharpness. Save as a high-quality JPG or PNG, not a PDF.
- Clean the glass and the photo with a soft, dry cloth
- Scan at 600 DPI, color, even for black-and-white photos
- Save as JPG or PNG at high quality
- Scan the photo flat and fully inside the scan area
The phone method
No scanner? A phone can do a respectable job with care. Use a scanning app that corrects perspective, or photograph the print straight-on — directly above it, perfectly parallel.
The enemy is glare. Place the photo near a bright window but out of direct sun, turn off your flash, and take several shots to get one with no reflections. Glossy prints glare the most; tilting the light source, not the photo, is the fix.
Handling old or fragile photos
Handle prints by the edges with clean, dry hands. If a photo is stuck in a sticky album page or framed behind glass, do not force it — photograph it carefully in place, or have it professionally scanned.
Minor creases and fading are part of an old photo's charm and often look wonderful on a vintage-style card. Deep damage is worth a light restoration pass in a free editor before you upload.
