Faded Photo Fixer

Bring washed-out, yellowed decades-old prints back to natural color and contrast — completely free, right in your browser.

Private by design — your photo is processed locally and never uploaded.

Drop a photo here, or click to browse

Supported formats: JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP

Before After

Drag to compare

Tip: upload the largest scan you have — bigger input gives better results.

How It Works

Film and prints stored for decades slowly oxidize: dyes fade, silver salts shift, and warm paper yellows. The result is a flat, washed-out image with a muddy yellow cast and almost no contrast. The Faded Photo Fixer reverses this with a four-step local pipeline that runs entirely on your device through the HTML5 Canvas API — your photo is never uploaded, stored, or seen by anyone.

What each step does:

Gray-world white balance

Averages the red, green and blue channels of the whole photo and stretches them toward a common neutral. This removes the yellow-brown cast so skin, walls and whites stop looking like old paper.

Contrast stretch

Faded photos pile their tones into a narrow middle-gray band. A histogram percentile stretch re-expands the range so shadows go deep and highlights stay clean, giving the print its punch back.

Color recovery

Saturation is pulled moderately toward the original channel differences. Sky blues, dress colors and leaf greens return without turning the whole picture into an over-saturated cartoon.

Fine warmth control

Old color film tends to go cool-magenta after yellowing is neutralized. A small warmth slider lets you nudge the result warm or cool until skin tones look right.

An honest note: this is a local algorithm, not a cloud AI model, and it works on the pixels you already have. It cannot recover colors that have chemically vanished from the negative or print, it cannot rebuild torn or missing areas, and it cannot add detail that was never captured. A severely faded photo will improve but may still look flat — in that case pair it with a higher-quality scan and the Photo Sharpener.

How to Use

Upload your faded photoDrag the scan into the dropzone or click to browse. A 300–600 DPI flatbed scan works far better than a phone snap of the print.
Click "Auto Fix Fade"The default settings neutralize the yellow cast, stretch contrast and recover color in one pass. Use the before/after slider to judge the result.
Fine-tune the slidersIf the photo still looks too warm, lower "White balance"; if colors are weak, raise "Color recovery"; nudge "Warmth" until skin tones feel natural.
Download the restored photoSave a lossless PNG for your archive, a JPG for printing or sharing, or a WebP for the smallest file size.

FAQ

Is my photo uploaded to a server?

No. Everything runs locally in your browser with the Canvas API. Your photo never leaves your device — you can even disconnect from the internet after the page loads.

Why does my old photo look yellow?

Mostly because the paper base and binder oxidize over decades, and color dyes fade at different rates. The white balance step measures that overall cast and removes it, which is why skin tones and whites often look natural again after one click.

Can it restore color that has completely faded away?

Partly. It recovers the color information still present in the pixels and brings up washed-out saturation, but it cannot invent hues that have chemically disappeared from the print. If the photo is almost monochrome, honest results will lean toward a warm black-and-white look.

The result looks too saturated / fake. What now?

Lower the "Color recovery" slider toward 100 or below, and slightly reduce "Contrast". Restoring natural color is a balancing act — take it in small steps and watch the before/after preview.

Is it really free and unlimited?

Yes — free, unlimited, with no watermark and no waiting. We keep all tools free and support the site with ads plus an optional Pro tier later.