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Guide

How to Restore Old Photos at Home (Scan, Repair, Colorize)

A practical guide to restoring old family photos with AI, from scanning the print to repairing damage and adding natural color.

Old prints fade, crease and tear, but most of the picture is usually still there. With a good scan and the right order of steps, you can bring a damaged photo back in a few minutes.

1. Get a good digital copy

The result can only be as good as the copy you start with.

  • Flatbed scanner: scan at 600 dpi (1200 dpi for small prints), in color even for black-and-white photos, so the AI sees the real tones.
  • Phone: lay the print flat by a window, shoot straight down without flash, and fill the frame. Avoid glare on glossy prints; tilt the print slightly if you see reflections.
  • Crop away the table or album page around the photo.

2. Repair the damage first

Open Photo restoration and upload the scan. It repairs scratches, creases, torn corners, dust and fading while keeping every face the same. Black-and-white photos stay black and white at this step.

Tips:

  • One photo per run. Split a scanned album page into separate photos first.
  • Heavy losses, like a missing half of a face, can't be recovered exactly. The AI fills them in plausibly, so check faces carefully.

3. Sharpen and enlarge

Small wallet photos benefit from the Photo enhancer or the Image upscaler. Use Standard for screens and Pro or Ultra HD 4K when you plan to print.

4. Add color (optional)

Run the restored photo through the Photo colorizer. Standard is fast; Pro handles portraits and busy scenes better. Colors are a plausible guess, not a record, so keep the black-and-white version too.

5. Save and share

Download the full-size result, keep your original scan, and name files with the year and people in them. If you're signed in, your history keeps results for 7 days.

Common questions

Will the faces change? Restoration keeps the people as they are. If a face was badly damaged, the filled-in parts may differ slightly, which is why we recommend comparing with the original using the before/after slider.

What does it cost? You can try one photo a day without an account, and signed-in users get free daily credits. Restoration costs 4 credits per photo.