Color scan online

Colour matters on documents that someone checks for authenticity. A signature in blue ink shows that it was signed by hand rather than photocopied. Official stamps and seals are often red, violet or blue. ID cards, passports and certificates with a photo lose most of their meaning in black and white. Medical reports with coloured charts, school reports with highlighted grades and bank statements with a logo also read better in colour.

For a plain typed letter, black and white gives a sharper, smaller file. Use colour when anything on the page relies on it.

The page is found against the darker background and the rest of the photo is cut away. The light is then evened out across the page, so the shadow of your hand, a darker corner or a yellow lamp tint disappears and the paper becomes white. Colours on the page are kept, and dark text becomes darker so it stands out. The result looks like a page from a flatbed scanner rather than a photo of a desk.

Each page is placed in the PDF at the width of an A4 sheet, in the order you selected. Long receipts stay long.

A colour page is heavier than a black and white one. If a form caps the upload at, say, 300 KB or 1 MB, run the PDF through Compress PDF and choose the limit; stamps and signatures stay visible at those sizes. For an ID card that needs both sides on one page, ID Card Both Sides puts front and back together on A4.

For the best colour, photograph in daylight near a window. Warm indoor bulbs make white paper orange, and while the tool whitens the paper, the colours of stamps can shift a little under that light.