AI Photo Restorer

A master-retoucher's eight-stage darkroom pipeline for faded, scratched and damaged old photos — free, private, 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

The AI Photo Restorer runs a professional eight-stage darkroom pipeline — the same decision order a master retoucher would follow — built entirely from local image-science algorithms. Every stage executes on your own device using Float32-precision Canvas processing; your photo is never uploaded, stored, or seen by anyone.

The eight stages:

1 · Photo diagnosis

The photo is measured for color cast, fade, dynamic range, black/white points and grain level. Every later stage is driven by these readings, so each photo gets its own prescription.

2 · Expert white balance

A shades-of-gray illuminant estimate, fused with a highlight patch and skin-tone protection, lifts yellowed age stains without turning faces gray or pink.

3 · Scratch & dust repair

Scratches and dust are detected line-by-line with median evidence, then interpolated from their surroundings. A repeating-texture veto protects fabric weaves, hair, text strokes and fine detail from being erased.

4 · Edge-aware denoise

Chroma noise is cleaned separately from luma; grain is removed only in flat regions and preserved across edges. Denoise strength is automatically raised when a faded photo is about to be contrast-stretched.

5 · Tone curve with protected endpoints

Black and white points are set from deep percentiles and mapped through a gentle S-curve. Outputs never hit pure 0 or 255, so shadows keep depth and highlights retain texture — no crushed blacks or blown whites.

6 · Clarity & local contrast

A large-radius, low-amount local contrast stage opens hazy midtones and adds dimensionality, while a flat-region mask keeps skies and smooth skin clean.

7 · Natural vibrance

Faded low-saturation colors are boosted more than already-rich ones, with skin-tone damping. Colors come back believable instead of plastic; black-and-white photos skip this stage automatically.

8 · Smart sharpen & grain

Luma-only sharpening fires above a noise-adaptive threshold and is reduced in shadows where grain hides, so grain is never re-edged into halos. An optional unifying film-grain finish is available.

An honest note on "AI": because PhotoRevive AI runs entirely in your browser with no server and no API, this is a real, automatic image-science pipeline — but it cannot reconstruct a missing face or invent detail that was never captured. For severely damaged faces, start from a high-resolution scan and pair this tool with careful manual touch-up.

How to Use

  1. Upload the best scan you haveDrag the photo into the box or click to browse. JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF and BMP are supported — a 300–600 DPI scan gives noticeably better results than a phone photo of a print.
  2. Read the diagnosis, pick a prescriptionAfter loading, the photo is automatically diagnosed (cast, fade, grain, exposure) and the Smart Restore settings are applied. Use the prescription buttons for heavily faded, scratched or grainy photos.
  3. Fine-tune by stageThe sliders mirror the pipeline: raise "Scratches & spots" for damaged prints, "Noise reduction" for grainy scans, "Tone restore" for fade, and dial "Smart sharpen" down if edges look crunchy.
  4. Download your restored photoExport as PNG for the highest quality archive copy, JPG for sharing, or 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.
Can it restore torn or missing parts of a photo?
This tool enhances and repairs the image you have: it corrects color, contrast, noise, scratches and softness. It cannot invent completely missing content such as a torn-off face. For missing areas, try cropping or a careful manual edit after restoring.
Why does my result look soft?
Softness usually comes from a low-resolution input. Restore with a higher-resolution scan, then raise "Sharpening" slightly. Keep in mind over-sharpening creates halos, so increase it in small steps.
Is it really free and unlimited?
Yes — free, unlimited, with no watermark and no waiting. We plan to keep all tools free and support the site with ads and an optional Pro tier later.
What is the best format to download?
Use PNG for archiving (lossless, highest quality), JPG for sharing and printing, and WebP when you need the smallest file size for the web.

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