ScanHome › Clean a scanned document
Clean scanned document online: straight, cropped, readable
Clean a scanned document online for free: ScanReviver straightens, crops and de-shadows up to 30 pages in one go and gives you back a neat PDF or image.
Last updated: September 2026
A phone photo of a document is rarely tidy: it's tilted, the edges of the desk show, and one side is darker than the other. This fixes that in a few seconds, needs no account, and your upload is deleted right after processing.
Your file is deleted the moment it's done. The big PDF sites keep your bank statements and IDs on their servers. Here the original goes right after processing, the result after 45 minutes, or sooner, on your click.
The edges are found for you here. Want to drag the corners yourself, reorder pages or switch between colour and black & white? Open the full scanner.
Clean your document now
Upload a JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, TIFF, BMP, GIF or AVIF photo: no sign-up, nothing to install.
Open the tool →How it works
Three steps. You only really touch the middle one.
- Photograph the page. Lay it flat, keep your own shadow off the paper and let the page fill most of the frame. A plain phone photo is enough; a scanner or a scanning app is not needed.
- Drop it in and check the corners. The four corners of the page are found for you, and in the full scanner you can drag them so the desk, your fingers and the background are cut away. Add more photos if it is a multi-page document, up to 30 pages on the free tier.
- Pick a look and download. Colour, Clean or Black & White in the full scanner (the box above uses Clean), then save it as a JPG, PNG or PDF: with a searchable OCR text layer if you tick that box.
What we see before a document even gets cleaned
What "cleaning" a document actually does
ScanReviver runs a small, predictable set of steps on your image:
- Find the page: it detects the document's four corners, and in the full scanner you can drag them to fine-tune the crop so the desk, hands and background are cut away.
- Straighten it: perspective correction squares up a page shot at an angle, and small tilts are levelled so text runs horizontally.
- Even out the lighting: it lifts the background toward white and reduces uneven shadows, so a page that was grey and blotchy reads clearly.
- Choose a look: keep it in colour, produce a clean near-white document, or go crisp black & white for text-only pages.
- Export: download a JPG, PNG, or a PDF (single- or multi-page), optionally with a searchable text layer.
What "clean" means here
"Clean" is a vague word on most tool pages, so here is exactly which four things change and which things do not.
- Perspective. A page photographed from above your chest is wider at the bottom than at the top. The four corners you set are mapped back onto a rectangle, so the page becomes a rectangle again and the lines of text run straight across. The pixels are resampled to do that, which is why a very low-resolution photo of a page looks slightly softer afterwards.
- Shadow. The lighting across the page is flattened, not erased. Your own shadow, the gradient from a window on one side and the grey blotches from a desk lamp are evened out so the paper reads as one tone. A shadow so dark that the letters underneath it are gone cannot come back: there is nothing left to lift.
- Crop. Everything outside the four corners is thrown away for good: the desk, your thumb, the second page lying next to it. Crop a little wider than you think you need if the page has text close to the edge.
- Contrast. Colour keeps the letterhead and the highlighter; Clean pushes the paper towards white for a scanned-in look; Black & White is a hard threshold that gives the smallest file and the crispest plain text.
Read more
And the other half of the answer: what cleaning a scan here does not do:
- No text is rewritten or invented. There is no generative AI anywhere in this tool. It never rephrases a sentence, corrects a spelling mistake, changes a number or a date, or redraws a signature or a stamp. What was on the paper is what comes out.
- No detail is restored. If the photo is out of focus or the text is hidden under a finger, cleaning it up cannot put back what the camera never captured. A sharper photo beats any amount of processing.
- No document is certified. A cleaned scan is a tidier picture of your page, not an authenticated or legally verified copy.
- Nothing is done in secret. The work runs on our own servers, not in your browser tab: the file is uploaded, processed, and then deleted, the original right after processing, the result 45 minutes later, on every tier.
Colour, clean or black & white?
Pick the mode that matches the page:
- Colour Document: keeps colours (letterheads, forms with coloured fields, highlighted notes) while still flattening the lighting.
- Clean Document: pushes the background to near-white for a scanned-in look; the best all-round choice for printed text.
- Black & White: high-contrast, smallest files, ideal for plain text you plan to print or archive.
What the cleanup assumes about your page
The Clean and Colour modes work by estimating the paper background across the whole image and dividing the photo by that estimate. That is what flattens uneven lighting while keeping the ink dark. It rests on one assumption: the paper is the lightest thing in the frame.
Most of the time that holds, and the result looks like a real scan. Two situations break it, and they're worth recognising:
- A mostly dark image, a photo of a screen, a slide with a black background, a page shot in near-darkness. There the estimate would latch onto a few bright pixels and push everything else towards white unevenly, channel by channel, which shows up as a colour cast. The tool checks for this and skips the correction on a dark image rather than applying an assumption that doesn't hold. If your result looks untouched, that's usually why: re-shoot with more light.
- A big dark photograph on the page. A full-width picture in a magazine article counts as "not paper" over a large area, and the correction can lighten locally around it. Cropping tightly to the text you actually need avoids it.
Cleaning is not compressing
Cleanup changes how a page looks; the mode you pick also decides how big the file is, which matters when a portal caps uploads at a few megabytes.
- Colour keeps all three channels and the most detail: the largest file.
- Clean pushes the paper to near-white. Large flat white areas compress well, so the file is typically noticeably smaller than Colour.
- Black & White is a hard threshold, so the page becomes two tones. Smallest by a wide margin, and the right choice for a text-only archive: as long as nothing on the page is faint, because a threshold either keeps a pixel or throws it away.
If the goal is "as small as possible while still legible", try Black & White first and check the smallest text on the page at full zoom before you commit. If a faint line has vanished, step back to Clean.
The same picker covers every page, free either way, and nothing about your choice is stored: the next visit starts from the same default. You can clean several scanned documents in one pass, up to ten at once in the box above, and it never needs an account, whatever the page count or file size.
A scanned PDF starts from images here: the box takes photos, not PDF files, so turn an existing PDF into images with PDF to JPG first; up to 10 documents a day are free, without an account. Searching for an AI clean of a scanned document won't quite fit this page either: there is no generative model here, only the predictable perspective, lighting and contrast steps described above.
By Sam Ridder, I build and run ScanReviver on my own hardware, on my own. Who I am.
Use it as a PDF scanner app, without installing one
Most people looking for a PDF scanner app want one thing: a photo of a page that ends up looking like a scan, inside a PDF. That is what this page does, and there is nothing in an app store to download for it. You open a web page, upload the photos, and download the file. Nothing is stored on your phone, so a phone that is nearly out of space still works.
Two things a phone app usually does that this does too: several pages in one PDF, in an order you set by dragging, and an optional OCR text layer so you can search the document later. It reads English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Leave OCR off and the PDF is image-only, which makes a smaller file.
One thing a phone app does that this does not: run on your own device. The cleaning happens on our servers, which is why the speed does not depend on how old your phone is, and also why we say plainly what happens to the file. It is uploaded, processed, and deleted: the original right after processing, the finished result 45 minutes later, on the free tier and on both passes. You can delete it sooner with the "Delete now" button.
The free tier does 10 documents a day, up to 30 pages and 250 MB per file. A free monthly pass raises that to 30 documents a day, 50 pages and 300 MB; a €5 ShinobiTools pass to 100 documents a day, 100 pages and 500 MB, and it works on the other ShinobiTools sites too.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free?
Yes. Cleaning documents is free and needs no account, up to 10 documents a day; that counter resets at midnight. A free monthly pass raises it to 30 a day and a €5 ShinobiTools pass to 100. Ads on these pages help cover the server costs.
What happens to my files?
Your file is uploaded to our own servers and cleaned there, not in your browser tab. Your original upload is deleted right after processing and the cleaned result 45 minutes later, on the free tier and on both passes, and you can delete it immediately with the "Delete now" button. Files are never used for AI training and are never sold or shared.
Can it clean a multi-page document?
Yes. Add several photos, arrange the order and download one combined PDF: up to 10 at once in the box above, and up to 30 pages in one document in the full scanner on the free tier (50 with a free monthly pass, 100 with a €5 pass). Every page goes through the same crop and lighting fix, so the set looks consistent.
Will it change the text on my document?
ScanReviver doesn't use generative AI, so it never rewrites text, changes numbers or recreates signatures or stamps. It does adjust the image (contrast, colour, black & white), so fine details can shift; always check the result before relying on it.
Which files can I upload, and how big?
JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, TIFF, BMP, GIF and AVIF, up to 250 MB per file on the free tier (300 MB with a free monthly pass, 500 MB with a €5 pass). An iPhone HEIC photo is accepted as it comes off the camera, so nothing needs converting first.
Can I clean up scanned PNG files, or only PDFs?
PNG works: upload the PNG, JPG, WebP or HEIC scan and export the cleaned page as a PNG or a PDF.
Can I get a searchable PDF out of it?
Yes. Tick the OCR box before you download and a hidden text layer is placed under the picture of each page, so you can select, copy and search the words. It reads English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Leave the box unticked and the PDF is image-only, which is a smaller file.
Which mode should I pick: Colour, Clean or Black & White?
Clean is the right default for printed text: it pushes the paper towards white and keeps the ink dark. Choose Colour when the page has a letterhead, coloured form fields or highlighter you need to keep. Choose Black & White for a plain text page you want as small as possible, but check the faintest line at full zoom first, because a threshold either keeps a pixel or throws it away.
Why does my result look almost untouched?
The lighting correction assumes the paper is the lightest thing in the frame. On a mostly dark image (a photo of a screen, a slide with a black background, a page shot in near-darkness) that assumption fails, so the tool deliberately skips the correction instead of pushing the colours around. Re-shoot with more light and it will work.
Do I need an account or an app?
Neither. There is no sign-up, no app in any store and no watermark on the result. You open the page, upload your photos and download the cleaned document.
How do I clean a scanned PDF online for free?
The box above takes images, not PDF files: turn the scanned PDF into images with PDF to JPG first, upload those and download the cleaned result. Cleaning a scanned PDF online free of charge this way needs no account and no install. A PNG works directly: upload a PNG, clean it and export as PNG or PDF.
What's the best way to clean up a scanned photo?
Upload the photo as it came off your phone. ScanReviver crops to the page, straightens it and evens out the lighting in one pass, so you don't need to fix the angle or the shadow yourself first.
Is there a free document cleaner online?
Yes. ScanReviver is a free document cleaner and works as a clean scanner online: no account, no watermark, no physical scanner, up to 10 documents a day. Ads on the page cover the server costs.
How can I turn a messy scan into a clean PDF?
Upload the photo or scan; Clean, the mode the box above uses, pushes the paper toward white, and you export as PDF. The layout and text stay exactly as they were; only the lighting, crop and angle are fixed.
How do I remove the background clutter around a page?
Crop to the page first, which on its own will remove the background: the desk, hands or anything else around it. Then run Clean (what the box above uses) or Black & White (in the full scanner) to even out the paper. That works for a document scan of any age, including old scan files.
What is a scanned document, exactly?
A flat, cropped, evenly lit image or PDF of a page, as if it came off a real flatbed scanner rather than a phone camera. When people ask what is scanned document quality, they usually mean that clean, squared-off look.
How to scanned documents look their best when the original is creased or dog-eared?
Crop tight to the page edges first, then run Clean or Black & White. That fixes lighting and tone, though a physical crease or tear still shows as a faint line, since nothing here repaints the paper itself.
Does this restore an old or damaged document?
Not in the photo restoration sense. It fixes lighting, crop and angle, but it doesn't repair torn paper, fill in missing ink or recolour faded print.
Can it clean a PSD file?
No. A PSD file (Photoshop's own format) isn't a supported upload; export it as a JPG or PNG first. PDFs also need converting to images first, with PDF to JPG.
Can I clean scanned PDF pages that look grey and blotchy?
Yes, in two steps. Turn the PDF into images with PDF to JPG, upload them here and keep the Clean mode, which lifts the paper toward white and evens out the shadows. Then save the result as a new PDF.
How do I clean up and straighten scanned photo pages of a document in one go?
Upload the photos and check the four corners: the page is cropped, squared up and evened out in the same pass, so you do not need to fix the angle in a separate step.
How do I edit a document that has been scanned?
A scan is a picture of the page, so the words have to become text first. Tick OCR before you download to get a searchable PDF, then convert that PDF with PDF to Word and edit the text there. Without OCR you can only crop, clean or annotate the pages, not change the words.
Limitations
ScanReviver improves readability; it does not certify or authenticate documents. Very dark shadows, text hidden under objects or fingers, and severe blur may still look imperfect after cleaning. If automatic page detection misses, you place the four corners yourself in the full scanner. It is a cleanup tool, not a way to recover detail that the photo never captured.
Once a scan is clean, enhance scanned document sharpens contrast and text further. If shadows from a phone camera are the real problem, remove shadow from document targets exactly that. Working from an old printed photo rather than a document? The cleanup here happens after the shot is taken, cleaning the physical print first, dust and all, before you scan it gets you a better starting image than fixing it digitally afterwards ever can.