Don’t scan the booth print back into DS-160.

Paper and upload are different jobs

A booth 2×2 is for the interview window — including the case where the confirmation shows an X instead of a face. Photographing that print on a table under a tube light is not how you make a CEAC file. You pick up glare, a colour cast, the table edge, and the wrong pixels.

If they only have paper, reshoot. Phone camera, white or off-white wall, light in front. If they need paper and the sitting is already good, the $17 sheet is six 2×2 prints with cut guides — from a digital file, not from a photo of a photo.

What a scan adds that CEAC does not want

Glass or laminate glare. A yellow or green cast from the booth printer or the room lights. A rectangle that is not square. Soft focus from a phone held at an angle. Texture from the paper itself. None of that was in the original capture. All of it can fail the machine or the officer.

Questions

I already paid for booth prints. Can I scan just one?

You can try. It usually fails. The print is still useful at the window. The upload wants a camera original.

A flatbed scanner is better than a phone photo of the print, right?

Better than a phone over a table, still a photo of a photo. Reshoot if you can.

The confirmation is an X. Should I scan the 2×2 into CEAC?

Prefer a new digital capture and a replace if you have not submitted. If you are already at the interview with an X, bring the print. Do not photograph it back into the form on the way there.