Photo Denoiser

Clean grainy film scans, dust speckles and digital noise off your old photos — smoothly, free, and entirely 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

Old photos carry two kinds of unwanted texture: fine film grain baked into the emulsion, and isolated white or black specks left by dust, scanner noise or hot pixels. Blurring the whole photo removes both — but it also melts away eyelashes, hair strands and fabric texture. The Photo Denoiser uses a smarter two-stage local pipeline that runs entirely on your device, so your photo never leaves your computer.

The pipeline:

Median filter first

Each pixel is replaced by the median value of its small neighborhood. Isolated dust dots and hot pixels (a single bright or dark pixel surrounded by normal pixels) are voted out, while real edges stay sharp — this is why median filters are classic for film dust removal.

Gentle box blur second

A small, one-pass box blur smooths the remaining fine grain across flat areas like skies and walls. One pass keeps the result soft but not smeared.

Blend by strength

The cleaned result is mixed back with the original pixel-by-pixel. At low strength you keep almost all detail; at high strength the photo goes noticeably cleaner. Use the before/after slider to find the balance.

Local, private processing

All math runs through the HTML5 Canvas API in your own browser. There is no upload, no queue and no server — load the page, process, download, done.

An honest note: this tool suppresses noise; it does not invent detail. If the photo was already out of focus or scanned at low resolution, denoising will not make it sharper — it will only remove grain. Push strength too high and skin and fabric turn waxy. For genuinely soft scans, denoise lightly and finish with the Photo Sharpener.

How to Use

Upload the noisy scanDrag your grainy photo into the dropzone. A high-resolution scan gives the filter more real signal to work with.
Click "Auto Denoise"The default radius 1 and strength 60 clean typical film grain and dust while keeping most detail.
Tune the two slidersRaise "Filter radius" to 2 only when you have many large dust spots; raise "Denoise strength" for heavy grain, but stop before skin looks plastic.
Download the cleaned photoExport PNG for archiving, JPG for sharing, WebP for the smallest size.

FAQ

Is my photo uploaded to a server?

No. Every pixel is processed locally in your browser with the Canvas API. The photo never leaves your device, and the page keeps working even offline after it loads.

What is the difference between film grain and digital noise?

Film grain is a fine, evenly distributed texture baked into the negative; digital noise is blotchy color speckles from high ISO or underexposure. This tool smooths both, but the median stage is especially good at killing isolated dust dots and hot pixels.

Why does my photo look waxy after strong denoising?

That means the strength is too high for this image. Denoising works by averaging local pixels, which also averages away fine skin and fabric texture. Lower the strength, or use radius 1 and accept a little remaining grain — real grain usually looks more natural than a waxy face.

Can denoising fix a blurry photo?

No. Noise reduction cleans up texture; it cannot recover detail that was never in focus. If the photo is soft, use the Photo Sharpener after denoising — sharpening a noisy photo amplifies the noise, so denoise first.

Is it free?

Yes, completely free and unlimited, with no watermark. We support the site with ads and an optional Pro tier later.