The Best Photo Scanners We’ve Tested for 2025

The Canon CanoScan LiDE 400 is an entry-level flatbed photo scanner priced under $100, but it fills a useful niche for non-professional photographers who need to scan both photos and, occasionally, documents. Since it doesn’t have an automatic document feeder (ADF), it may not be the best choice for frequent multipage jobs. However, it combines document management and optical character recognition (OCR) with impressive photo scanning and touch-up software. It also saves desk space with a vertical kickstand and can stitch together multiple scans of plus-size photos.

PC users OK with a direct cable connection: The LiDE 400 lacks Wi-Fi or wired networking, but it capably serves a personal or small-office PC connected via USB.

People who need to digitize a few photos at a time: Its vibrant color and crisp detail make it a great pick for light-duty photo-quality scanning.

Want higher-quality scans of photo prints than your typical multifunction printer/copier/scanner can provide, but don’t need to scan film? Head straight for the Epson Perfection V39 II, an affordable flatbed photo scanner that also scans to editable text and searchable PDF formats. Its resolution is fine-grained enough to let you crop and enlarge a small section of a photo. And it gives you a choice between an easy Automatic mode and granular settings, such as a Remove Background option that lets you erase distracting background elements from your scanned image.

People with cramped desks: A single USB cable for both power and data, along with a semi-vertical kickstand, saves desk space.

Newbies: The Perfection V39 II is simple to operate, and it outshines its competitors at also handling the occasional short document.

Value seekers: Both casual and serious photographers will find it a good deal.

Sometimes every cent counts. Canon’s CanoScan LiDE 300 has only half the resolution and is a tad slower than the LiDE 400 that earned a PCMag Editors’ Choice award, and it lacks that flatbed’s ability to stand upright to save desk space. But it costs around a Jackson less and combines good photo scanning quality with a helpful software bundle. Its adjustable lid accommodates thicker items such as books and magazines, as well as prints.

Shoppers on a budget: We wouldn’t call the CanoScan LiDE 300 better than its model 400 sibling or Epson’s abovementioned Perfection V39 II, but it does a great job of digitizing photos on a budget.

People who need to digitize old photos: This scanner’s Fading Correction and Auto Dust & Scratch Reduction filters pep up aging prints.

College students: It’s a solid choice for dorm rooms and other low-volume scanning environments.

Got a shoebox full of snapshots? You need Epson’s FastFoto FF-680W, whose automatic document feeder (ADF) is specially designed to handle stacks of prints. (It has plastic guides with marks for 5-by-7- and 4-by-6-inch originals, and it can adjust to other sizes.) It feeds through stacks of pics without tearing or creasing them as a text-oriented scanner’s feeder might. It’s much quicker than manually placing photos on a flatbed scanner’s glass, one after the other, and it does a decent job of turning document pages into searchable PDF or Word files when you’ve emptied the shoebox.

Scrapbookers: Home archivists who want to digitize stacks and scrapbooks full of photo prints will think the FastFoto FF-680W is heaven-sent. It’s smart about scanning both sides of postcards and other items (ignoring flip sides if they’re blank).

People who need to lightly edit their scanned photos: It can help you rotate, crop, or restore images and upload them to Dropbox or Google Drive.

Family groups that have loads of pictures to digitize: The FF-680W makes perfect sense as a group purchase to pass from family member to family member, to each digitize their own cache of old photos for posterity and sharing.

Enterprise-class photo and document scanners aren’t inexpensive gear, and the Canon imageFormula DR-S350NW is no exception. But it’s worth the hefty price tag: The S350NW is a speedy digitizer that can help you convert your stacks of pics to shareable, editable, and printable files. In our testing, all the scans were clean and professional-looking, and scanned photographic images showed pleasing and accurate colors with an appropriate amount of contrast. Once you’ve tackled your lifetime backlog of snaps, you don’t have to retire it or sell it; it can serve on as an able document scanner. (Maybe you’d like to empty that stuffed file cabinet next?)

Scrapbookers: Looking to digitize a lifetime’s worth of snapshots (followed by those old paper tax returns)? The DR-S350NW is an excellent solution for photo hoarders, declutterers, genealogy enthusiasts, and scrapbookers.

Offices: This top-notch scanner is designed for office use and priced to match.

People who can split the cost: It’s also an ideal option for a shared-cost purchase among a family or a group of friends, allowing each person to digitize their paper-snapshot life in turn.

Over the years, Plustek has refined its 35mm scanners to a remarkable degree. They have essentially one purpose: to draw out the best possible digital representation of an analog piece of film. The key improvement of the OpticFilm 135i Ai is its ability to load four individual 35mm slides or a six-image 35mm film strip at one time. This eliminates the tedious and time-consuming process of loading and unloading each slide or image.

People who have 35mm negatives: If you have 35mm negatives, this scanner’s results are impressive, albeit costly. It makes sense mainly if you’re a photo pro or have loads of 35mm film to digitize. You’ll want to look elsewhere if you’re on a tight budget or trying to digitize slides of other sizes (or full-size images).

Those with extensive scanning needs: This scanner can scan multiple slides at once, making marathon scanning sessions much easier.

Plustek’s ePhoto Z300 is a sheetfed rather than flatbed photo scanner, which makes it snappy at processing a stack of prints even though, with no automatic document feeder (ADF), you must insert items one at a time. It’s also affordable—one-third the price of Epson’s FastFoto FF-680W—and scans up to letter-size prints, with a gentle feed mechanism that won’t damage old or fragile photos. Its document-scanning abilities are limited, and its photo quality is no match for fancier scanners, but it’s fine for household tasks such as archiving snapshots.

Family archivists: If you have a bunch of family photos that need digital preservation, and you don’t have the patience to place them one or two at a time on a flatbed scanner, the ePhoto Z300 and its bundled software are a handy solution.

People on a budget: This scanner is ideal if you’re on a tight budget. The FF-680W offers both higher volume and better quality, but it costs a lot more.

The Epson FastFoto FF-680W’s automatic feeder can scan up to 36 prints in one gulp. In contrast, the ClearClick QuickConvert 2.0 scans only one photo at a time. But on the other hand, it’s portable and can scan slides and negatives, as well as prints. This four-pound, battery-powered gadget features a 2.4-inch color LCD for viewing images or making setup changes, and it comes with a variety of bases and holders for everything from 4-by-6-inch snapshot prints to 126 or 110 negatives. It offers resolution up to 14 megapixels and supports both Wi-Fi and USB connectivity. (Plus, you can scan to SD memory cards.)

Archivists: Casual archivists will be satisfied with this model, though the ClearClick requires a little patience to use. It’s more for casual or everyday snapshots than prized wedding or prom photos.

Newbies: It’s a simple device to use if you don’t need professional imaging quality. For short stacks rather than shoeboxes or scrapbooks filled with pictures, it does the trick.