How to restore old photos: every method compared

Updated October 16, 2026 · By A17Lab, makers of Restore Old Photos

To restore an old photo, first scan it or photograph it flat in even light. Then repair cracks and scratches with an AI restoration tool, a photo editor or a professional retoucher. Add color and enlarge it only after the damage is fixed. AI apps do this in minutes. The real choices are price, quality and whether your family photos are uploaded to someone's server.

We make Restore Old Photos, one of the tools in this comparison, so we have kept every row to facts the vendors publish themselves and linked the sources at the end. Prices are US prices checked in October 2026.

The methods at a glance

Step 1: get a good digital copy

Every method starts from a digital copy, and the copy limits the result. The Library of Congress recommends scanning ordinary prints at 300 dpi and at 400 to 600 dpi if you plan to enlarge them. A flat, glare-free phone photo also works for most AI tools. Our scanning guide covers settings, phone technique and how to handle fragile prints.

Restore Old Photos (on-device AI for Mac and Windows)

Restore Old Photos is our app. Open a scan and press Restore. A Microsoft Research model finds the cracks and scratches, a LaMa inpainting model fills them in, and SCUNet removes grain. Colorize and Upscale (2x or 4x) are separate one-click tools. Everything runs on your Mac or PC, so nothing is uploaded and no account is needed. Clean up and Upscale 2x are free. Restore, Colorize and Upscale 4x come with one free run each, then cost $19.99 once or a subscription.

Best for: people who want a one-click result on a computer and do not want to upload family photos. Limits: it cannot rebuild large missing pieces such as a torn-off corner, and like every AI tool it can soften very small faces.

Adobe Photoshop: Photo Restoration Neural Filter

Photoshop's Photo Restoration filter has sliders for overall enhancement, face enhancement and scratch reduction, and a separate Colorize filter adds color to black and white photos. Adobe still lists Photo Restoration among its beta filters. Adobe says most Neural Filters download and run locally, though some operations use the cloud and an internet connection is needed to use them fully. Reviewers note that strong scratch reduction can distort faces, so the filter is a starting point that you finish with Photoshop's manual tools.

Best for: people who already pay for Photoshop and want fine control. Cost: $22.99 a month for Photoshop, or $19.99 a month for the Photography plan, both on annual plans.

Remini

Remini is a phone and web app that sharpens blurry photos and "repairs" old ones, with a strong focus on faces. Photos are processed on Remini's servers. Its privacy policy describes deleting uploads after a set period and using images for training only with consent. Remini is free with ads, and its App Store listing shows weekly subscriptions such as Remini Pro at $9.99 a week.

Best for: a quick face-sharpening pass on a phone. Watch for: weekly billing, and face detail that is generated rather than recovered.

MyHeritage: Photo Repair, Photo Enhancer and In Color

The genealogy site MyHeritage offers three tools: Photo Repair for scratches, tears, holes and stains, Photo Enhancer for blurry faces, and In Color for black and white photos. You upload photos to your MyHeritage account. Each tool includes a small number of free photos with a MyHeritage watermark, and unlimited use requires a subscription. MyHeritage itself warns that enhanced faces can be inaccurate or, rarely, distorted.

Best for: people already building a family tree on MyHeritage.

Google Photos: "Help me edit"

Google Photos lets eligible users type or say an edit, and Google's own example is "Restore this old photo and make it sharper". It is free for eligible personal accounts and is rolling out by country. It requires features such as Face Groups and Ask Photos to be turned on. Google marks AI-edited photos with C2PA and SynthID labels. Google does not say where the edit is processed, and we found no dedicated colorize tool documented.

Best for: quick fixes when your photos already live in Google Photos and the feature is available to you.

Apple Photos: Retouch and Clean Up

Apple Photos has no old-photo restoration feature. Retouch removes dust specks and small blemishes where you brush them, and Clean Up (Apple Intelligence) removes distracting objects from the background. Neither repairs cracks across a face, colorizes or enlarges. Clean Up needs a Mac with Apple silicon on macOS 15.1 or later, or a recent iPhone or iPad.

Best for: touching up a few dust spots for free.

Free online restorers

Sites such as Picsart and Hotpot.ai offer automatic scratch repair, face sharpening, colorizing and upscaling in the browser. Palette.fm only colorizes: its free tier caps images at 500 by 500 pixels with a watermark, and paid plans start at $6 a month. All of them work by uploading your photo to their servers, and free tiers come with size limits, watermarks or credits.

Best for: trying AI restoration once without installing anything, on photos you are happy to upload.

GIMP (manual, free)

GIMP is a free, open-source photo editor for Windows, Mac and Linux. Its Heal tool repairs a defect by copying texture from a clean area you pick. That works well for dust and small scratches, but a cracked portrait can take hours, and there is no automatic repair or colorize.

Best for: patient people who want full control at no cost.

A professional retoucher

A human retoucher can rebuild missing pieces, such as half a face or a torn corner, from context and from other photos you supply, and will revise until you are happy. Published prices from US services are about $30 to $60 per photo for typical damage, with extra fees for colorization, rush jobs and heavy reconstruction.

Best for: one irreplaceable photo with severe damage, or a print you plan to hang.

Which method should you choose?

• A box of family photos, and privacy matters: an on-device app such as Restore Old Photos. One payment covers as many photos as you like, and nothing leaves your computer.
• You already have Photoshop: the Photo Restoration and Colorize filters, finished by hand.
• One quick photo on your phone: Google Photos if the feature is available to you, or Remini, both on their servers.
• You are researching your family tree: MyHeritage keeps the photos next to your tree.
• A badly damaged photo with missing pieces: a professional retoucher.

What AI restoration cannot do

• It cannot recover what is gone. When a crack runs through an eye or a piece is missing, the AI paints in something plausible, not what was there.
• It does not know the real colors. Colorization is an educated guess. See what colorization can and cannot know.
• Face tools can change a face. Tools that sharpen faces strongly can produce a person who looks slightly different. Compare with the original before you share.

Keep the originals

The US National Archives advises families not to throw away prints after digitizing them, because a digital copy does not replace the original. Store prints cool and dry in plastic sleeves made of polyester, polypropylene or polyethylene, never PVC, and keep the untouched scan next to every restored version.

Sources

• Adobe, Photoshop old photo restoration, Neural Filters list and FAQ, Photoshop plans
• CreativePro, Using the Photo Restoration Neural Filter in Photoshop
• Remini, App Store listing and privacy policy
• MyHeritage, Photo Repair, Photo Enhancer, In Color
• Google, editing prompts in Google Photos and Help me edit requirements
• Apple, Retouch and Clean Up in Photos and Apple Intelligence requirements
• Picsart photo restoration, Hotpot.ai restore, Palette.fm
• GIMP, about and Heal tool
• Retouching prices: Forever Studios, MSW Print, DamagedPhotoRestoration.com
• Library of Congress, Personal Digital Archiving: scanning; National Archives, Family Archives: General Guidance

Related guides

• How to restore old photos on a Mac
• How to restore old photos on Windows 10 and 11
• How to colorize black and white photos