COPIERHow to Get Clean Scans: Shadows, Curled Pages and Glare
Most bad scans have one of a handful of causes. Here’s what goes wrong when you scan a page with your phone, and how to fix each one, both before you press the shutter and afterwards.
The page is gray or yellow
Why: the camera exposes for the whole scene, and indoor light is warm. White paper comes out gray, beige or yellow.
Fix: choose a look that evens out the paper. In Copier, Auto works out the color of the paper all over the page and makes it white while keeping colored ink. Black & white goes further and keeps only the text. If it’s too strong or too weak, tap the picked look again and move the slider.
There’s a shadow across the page
Why: your phone and your hand sit between the light and the page.
Before: move so the light comes from the side, or scan near a window. Holding the phone a little higher helps too, since the page is straightened afterwards.
After: Copier evens out the light across the page in small patches, so a soft shadow disappears, and it follows the edge of a harder one too. A very dark shadow can still hide faint pencil, so even light is always best.
The page is curled or bent
Why: a page from a notebook, a receipt from a wallet, or a sheet held in your hand is never flat.
Before: press the page flat on the table, or hold it by its edges and pull it gently taut.
After: Copier follows each edge of the paper. When an edge bows, it straightens the page along that curve instead of just its four corners, so lines of text come out straight.
Fingers are in the picture
Why: you had to hold the page down.
Fix: hold it by the very edge. Copier recognizes skin-colored patches touching the edge of the page and paints them as paper, so fingers at the edge disappear. Fingers covering text still hide the text.
There’s a bright spot
Why: the flash, or an overhead light, reflecting off glossy paper or a laminated card.
Fix: turn the flash off and tilt the phone a little so the reflection moves off the page. The perspective is corrected anyway, so a slight angle costs nothing.
The text is blurry
Why: the phone moved during the shot, the lens is dirty, or it’s too dark.
Fix:
- Wipe the lens with a soft cloth.
- Let the app take the picture. With Auto on, Copier waits until you’ve held still for about a second.
- Add light, and only then try the flash.
The edges are in the wrong place
Why: the page blends into the table, or something on the table looks like the edge of a page.
Before: put the page on a darker, plain surface.
After: open Crop and drag the corners to the paper’s corners. Copier keeps every page’s original photo, so you can crop again at any time after saving, even weeks later.
The file is too big to email
Why: a color page at high resolution makes a large file.
Fix: use Black & white for text documents, which compresses much better.
A quick checklist
- Clean lens.
- Even light, no lamp behind you.
- Page on a darker surface.
- Phone roughly above the page, all four corners in view.
- Hold still and let the app take it.
- Auto for most pages, Black & white for text.
With those six habits, scans from your phone will look like they came off a flatbed scanner.