What this tool can and can’t do
Glare on a photo comes in two kinds. A soft sheen, where the card looks washed out but you can still make out the print, can be toned down a lot: the tool pulls the brightest tones back towards the surrounding colour so text and photos underneath reappear. A blown-out spot, pure white with nothing visible inside, has no information left to recover. No software can bring back what the camera didn’t record; that photo needs to be retaken.
Retaking a photo without glare
- Turn off the flash and move away from overhead lights. Light from a window to one side is ideal.
- Tilt the card slightly, 10 to 15 degrees, so reflections bounce away from the lens. The perspective can be corrected later.
- Put the card on a dark, matte surface rather than a glossy table.
- Take two or three photos at slightly different angles and keep the best one.
Settings
Strength runs from 5 to 100. Higher values reach further into the mid-bright tones, which removes more sheen but can make white parts of the card look grey. Protect text (milder) limits the effect to the very brightest areas, which keeps small print and security patterns intact; untick it only for heavy glare on a card with large text.
Results save as JPEG by default. Up to 8 photos can be processed in one batch, which covers front and back of several cards.
Next steps
To crop and straighten the card, run the result through the document scanner. To put the front and back on one printable page at real card size, use ID card to PDF.
Questions
Is it safe to process a photo of my ID here?
The image is processed in your browser and isn’t uploaded or stored. Before sending ID copies to anyone, consider adding a “for X only” line with the watermark tool.
Does it work on photos of glossy magazine pages?
Yes, the same soft-sheen rule applies. For a full page, try the scan enhancer, which combines glare reduction with document filters.