Photo to Scanned Document Converter
Turn a phone photo of a document into a clean scanned look.
Drop a photo here or click to select
Converts any phone photo of a document into a clean scanned look
Higher = more aggressive background whitening
About Photo to Scan Converter
Instantly make any photo of a document look like it was professionally scanned. The tool converts your image to grayscale, auto-corrects the levels to whiten the background and darken the text, boosts contrast, and optionally sharpens edges. Works on phone photos of books, handwritten notes, receipts, answer sheets, and any paper document.
Use Cases
Making phone photos of exam answer sheets look like scans, digitising handwritten notes, cleaning up photos of receipts or invoices, making whiteboards shots look sharp, converting photos of books or PDFs into clean readable images.
How It Works
Uses the HTML5 Canvas API to read pixel data, converts to grayscale using luminance weights, applies auto-levels by detecting the histogram black and white points, boosts contrast with a contrast factor formula, and optionally sharpens with an unsharp mask (2-pass box blur).
FAQs
Will it remove shadows from the photo?
The auto-levels step significantly reduces uneven lighting and shadows by stretching the histogram, but extreme shadows (very dark corners) may not disappear entirely. For best results, photograph under even diffuse light.
Can I use this on colour documents?
Yes, but the output will be grayscale — all colour information is removed as part of the scan simulation. For colour output, use the Image Converter tool instead.
What is the Photocopy preset?
The Photocopy preset applies aggressive contrast and clipping to produce a high-contrast B&W result like an old photocopier — bold text but some fine detail is lost. Use Document Clean for a more faithful scan look.
Does it fix perspective/skew?
No. This tool only applies tonal adjustments. For perspective correction, photograph the document as flat-on as possible before using this tool.