Document Scanner

Image ToolsPremium

Turn a photo of a document into something that reads like a scan.

Nothing Is UploadedRuns In This Browser TabNo Account Needed

How It Works

1

Upload / Input

Select your files or paste your content to get started.

2

Process

The work happens in this browser tab. Your file never leaves your device, so nothing is queued, stored or transmitted.

3

Download / Result

Get your results instantly. Download files or copy output in one click.

Features

Four enhancement modes: auto, greyscale, black & white, colour
Brightness and contrast sliders with live preview
Black & white forces true black text on true white paper
One image at a time, downloaded as a PNG
Runs in your browser — the photo is never uploaded

How to use Document Scanner

  1. Take the photo first

    Photograph the page with your phone’s own camera app, square-on and filling the frame, then upload the image here. There is no in-browser capture and no edge detection, so getting the framing right is your job and it takes two seconds.

  2. Pick an enhancement mode

    Black & White forces every pixel to pure black or pure white, which is what makes a photo read as a scan. Greyscale is gentler, Auto applies a mild contrast and brightness lift, and Colour leaves the tones alone.

  3. Fine-tune brightness and contrast

    The preview updates as you drag, so you can watch the paper go properly white before you commit.

  4. Download the PNG

    Save the enhanced image. To turn several pages into one document, enhance them one by one and then run them through JPG to PDF.

When to use Document Scanner

  • Returning a signed form without access to a scanner
  • Capturing receipts for an expense claim
  • Digitising letters and paperwork for storage
  • Sending a copy of an ID document or certificate

FAQ

No. Take the photo with your phone’s own camera app, then upload the image here. There is no in-browser capture step — the tool works on the picture you give it.
No. There is no edge detection and no perspective correction, so shoot the page square-on and fill the frame. What the tool does is tone: contrast, brightness and colour mode, which is the part that makes a photo read as a scan.
Not here. This tool handles one image at a time and gives you back a PNG. Enhance each page, then combine them with JPG to PDF to get a single multi-page document.
Three things, and only the third happens here: light the page from the side rather than overhead, shoot it square-on so the edges are already straight, then apply Black & White so the background goes truly white. The tool supplies the tone; the geometry is down to how you took the picture.
Almost always lighting. Overhead light casts the phone’s shadow across the page, and mixed daylight plus lamp light creates a gradient. Even, side-on light plus Black & White fixes it; the brightness and contrast sliders can only compensate so far for an uneven original.
A PNG, always. PNG is lossless, which keeps thresholded black-and-white text crisp — JPEG would put compression fringing around every letter. If you need a PDF, run the result through JPG to PDF.
Not from enhancement alone — the output is an image. Run it through OCR Online to get the text out, or through OCR PDF once you have combined the pages into a document.

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About Document Scanner

The difference between a photograph of a document and a scan is perspective, lighting and contrast. A photo has a skewed page, uneven brightness, a visible background and a colour cast; a scan has square edges, a flat white background and crisp black text. This tool closes one of those three gaps — the tonal one — and leaves the other two to you. It has no edge detection and no perspective correction, so the page has to arrive square and cropped; what it does is push the paper to white and the ink to black.

That makes lighting matter more than your camera, and more than any setting on this page. The single most common mistake is shooting under a ceiling light directly overhead, which puts your own shadow across the page — and a shadow is a brightness gradient that no global contrast adjustment can remove, because one setting cannot be right for both halves of the page. Light the page from the side, shoot square-on, and the improvement is immediate.

Choose Black & White for text documents. It thresholds every pixel to pure black or pure white, which gives the highest contrast, the smallest file, and the best OCR accuracy if you later run the pages through OCR to pull the text out. Greyscale is the safer choice for a page with photographs or shading on it, and Colour is worth keeping only where colour actually carries information, such as a highlighted clause or a colour-coded chart.

Tips and limits

  • Light from the side, never directly overhead, or your phone shadows the page — and a shadow is a gradient no global setting can fix.
  • Shoot square-on and fill the frame. There is no perspective correction, so a skewed photo stays skewed.
  • Black & White for text: highest contrast, smallest file, best OCR accuracy.
  • Crop the photo before enhancing if the background is in shot — Crop Image does that.
  • For a multi-page document, enhance each page, then combine the PNGs with JPG to PDF.