Hi, and welcome. Thanks for deciding to take this on — whether you’re archiving old magazines, cataloging forgotten pages of print history, or just curious how it’s done, you’re in the right place.

Before we dive in, make sure you’ve got the basics:

  • A scanner
  • A computer
  • A copy of Adobe Photoshop (any CS or newer version should be fine)
  • And, of course, something worth scanning — old magazines, in our case.

Now let’s break this down. The scanning process has three major phases:

  1. Scanning
  2. Editing
  3. Auditing

We’ll take them one by one. Let’s start at the beginning.

1. Scanning

First things first: get familiar with how your scanner scans.

Personally, I like to place the magazine so the scanner picks up the bottom of the page first, scanning from bottom to top. Why? Because the image shows up right-side-up on my screen, which makes life easier later when editing. Then I just slide the magazine over to scan the other side — no flipping, no rotating.

This helps keep things consistent. I always know which page I’m on, and I’m way less likely to miss or duplicate a scan.

Next, you’ll want to scan as straight as you can. You’ve got a couple of options here:

  • Line up the magazine with the bottom edge of the scanner glass.
  • Or use the side edge — whichever works best for you.

The goal is to give yourself a clean, predictable boundary. Many modern scanners will auto-crop if your edges are clear, but even if they don’t, a well-aligned page will make your editing phase much easier.

Now, if you notice that one side of a scan is blurry, don’t panic. Sometimes it’s just a dusty scanner — give it a quick wipe. But more often than not, the problem is that the magazine wasn’t laying flat. To fix that, I recommend a simple trick: use a heavy book to press the magazine down. Think big, thick, heavy. A cookbook works. An old dictionary. Something serious.
If part of that book ends up in the scan, no big deal — you can crop it out later.

Scan at 300 DPI.
Always. Trust me — when you’re editing later, you’ll be glad you did. Yes, the file sizes will be bigger (1–2MB per page is normal), but it’s worth it.

Finally, I suggest scanning everything in one go before you start editing. It keeps you focused. Scanning is its own headspace, and jumping between scanning and editing just invites mistakes.
They’re not fatal, but they are annoying — and someone will probably notice.

2. Editing

This is where the magic (and the complaints) tend to happen.

If you’ve ever looked at older scans and thought, “Why does this look so grainy and full of dots?” — you’re not alone. A lot of that comes from scanning at low resolution. But since you started at 300 DPI like a champ, you’re already ahead of the game.

🛠 Before You Begin

Let’s set up Photoshop so we’re all working from the same base:

  • Go to View > Rulers and turn them on
  • Then go to View > Snap and turn it off

Look at the left-side toolbar:

  • The Marquee Tool (dotted rectangle) lets you select part of the image
  • The Move Tool (arrow icon) moves objects or layers
  • The Hand Tool lets you pan around when zoomed in — doesn’t affect the image itself

And on the right-side panel, make sure you can see these:

  1. Navigator / Info / Histogram
  2. Color / Swatches / Styles
  3. History / Actions
  4. Layers / Channels / Paths

a. Rotation / Cropping / Joining

I. Rotating

Start by opening your first scan. I recommend organizing everything into one folder per item — it just keeps things tidy.

Double-click the Hand Tool to fit the image to screen. Or use the Navigator panel if you prefer a more controlled zoom — I like working at 25%, but go with what feels good.

Now let’s talk guides:

  • Pick a horizontal line and drag a horizontal guide down from the top ruler
  • Pick a vertical line and drag a vertical guide from the side ruler
    (Tip: don’t place the guides right on the lines — offset them slightly so they’re easier to see.)

Here’s what might happen next:

1. Everything’s straight already
Nice! Use the Marquee Tool to draw a box around the full image, just making sure you catch everything relevant.

2. Everything’s tilted
No worries. Go to the Layers panel and unlock the layer (double-click it and hit OK). Then press Ctrl + T to enter Transform Mode.

  • Use the 5th input box from the left (rotation) to gently rotate using the UP/DOWN keys
  • Use your guides to help you eyeball straightness

3. Horizontal is fine, but vertical’s off
Use the 6th input box to skew vertically.

4. Vertical is fine, but horizontal’s off
Use the 7th input box to skew horizontally.

II. Cropping

Once the image is aligned, time to crop:

  • Use the Marquee Tool to draw a box.
    Before releasing the mouse, hold SPACEBAR — this locks the size and lets you move it precisely into place.

  • Adjust the bounding box to include all relevant image content, with a thin margin if needed.
    Don’t worry about white borders around panels — what we care about is the edge of the original page, not the design layout.

  • You might lose some irrelevant background, and that’s totally okay.
    But never crop out relevant content, no matter how messy it looks.

III. Joining

Ah, joins — the bane of many scanners. You’ll want to handle these manually, ideally as you come across them.

Here’s how I do it:

  1. Open both sides of the spread
  2. Copy one half
  3. Create a new canvas (File > New), make it extra wide (e.g., 4500px)
  4. Paste both halves and align them visually
  5. Use the Layers panel to toggle visibility and align manually
  6. Once satisfied, delete the overlap on the top layer and merge down
  7. Use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) to bridge gaps — I use a 21px soft brush at 100% zoom
  8. For color gradients, try the Patch Tool:
    • Select area with Marquee Tool
    • Right-click > Feather (15px)
    • Then use Patch Tool to blend

Once it’s clean:

  • Rotate the final image (if needed), crop normally
  • Save as PSD, then save a JPG copy
  • Move both out of your working folder so they don’t get batch-processed later

b. Color Editing

1. Cover (or Front Page)

This is the first impression — so let’s make it pop.

  • Open the image and run Levels (Ctrl + L)

    • Use the black eyedropper to click on something that should be black
    • Use the white eyedropper to clean up light areas

  • Then go to Hue/Saturation (Ctrl + U)

    • I typically bump saturation to +30 here — go with what looks best

If you notice moiré (those annoying dots), you can use Filter > Noise > Despeckle or Smart Blur to clean it up. I personally don’t mind a bit of texture — it keeps that printed-paper vibe — but it’s up to you.

Now resize the image:

  • Image > Image Size
    • Set resolution to 150
    • Then set width to 1024px
      (Do it in this order so the width doesn’t shift when you change resolution.)

Want to tag your scan? Now’s the time.
A subtle watermark or tag in the corner, or over a barcode, works nicely.

Finally:

  • Save As (overwrite the JPG)
  • When Photoshop asks about saving the PSD, say no
  • Move this image to your final folder

2. Interior Pages

We want consistency — especially across a full spread.

Pick one “good” page as your template (clear blacks, clean whites), and use Actions to automate the rest.

Here’s how:

  • Go to the Actions panel
  • Click the little folder icon to create a new set (name it however you like)
  • Click the new page icon to create an action — name it something logical (e.g. issue_001)

Once the red circle starts recording:

  1. Run Levels (Ctrl + L)
  2. Run Hue/Saturation (Ctrl + U) — I usually go for +15
  3. Optional: use Despeckle or Smart Blur if needed
  4. Resize image: resolution to 150, width to 1024px

Now press the Stop button (square icon) to finish recording.

Important: Don’t forget to exclude any special pages like joins or covers before batching!

To batch:

  • File > Automate > Batch
  • Choose your Action Set and Action
  • Set Source to Folder, and choose your interior scans folder
  • Hit OK and let it run

3. Joins (Color Editing)

Joins are wider than normal pages, so your batch process won’t work on them.

Here’s the quick version:

  1. Open the join manually
  2. In the Actions panel, delete the image resize step
  3. With the join open, press the Play button (triangle) to apply color edits
  4. Manually resize: set resolution to 150, and width to 2048px

c. File Naming

This might sound minor, but it matters.

Use a consistent naming format — like:

magazine_issue001_00.jpg

magazine_issue001_01.jpg

When done, compile the images into a PDF instead of a .zip or .rar.
You can use Photoshop’s File > Automate > PDF Presentation, or tools like Adobe Acrobat, PDFsam, or even command-line scripts.

Recommended final format: magazine_issue001_(yourname).pdf

It’s clean, readable, and platform-friendly.

3. Auditing

This might just be the most satisfying part of the whole process.

Once your final PDF is ready, open it up in your preferred viewer — something like Adobe Reader, SumatraPDF, or even ACDSee if you’re still working from JPGs.

Here’s what to look for:

  • Any skipped pages? Unlikely — but it happens.
  • Do any pages look drastically brighter/darker than the rest?
  • Are the crops consistent?
    You shouldn’t be seeing stray white edges from the original page unless you intentionally left them for layout reasons.

If you spot anything off — weird alignment, page order issues, inconsistent tone — don’t stress. Just reopen the file in Photoshop, make your fix, and replace the page in the PDF.

And that’s it.
You’ve officially completed your first full restoration!

🎉 Well done.