AI Photo restoration
Upload a faded, scratched or damaged photo and let AI repair the damage, sharpen detail and revive old family pictures in seconds.
How to restore old photos in 3 steps
Upload your old photo
Scan or photograph the print and upload it. Scratched, creased, faded, yellowed or torn — the more damage there is, the more the AI has to work with.
Let the AI restore it
The AI repairs cracks and scratches, rebuilds missing areas and sharpens worn detail automatically. Tick 'Also colorize' if you want a black-and-white or faded shot brought into colour.
Compare and download
See the restored version next to the original, then download the clean result. If a scan still looks soft, run it through the sharpener or upscaler for a print-ready file.
How AI Photo Restoration brings old pictures back to life
How it works
AI Photo Restoration is a free online tool that repairs old, damaged and faded photographs automatically using artificial intelligence. You upload a scan or picture of a physical print, and the AI removes scratches, creases and dust, rebuilds torn or missing areas, and brings back detail that time and handling had worn away.
It works on the kind of pictures most families keep in a shoebox: a wedding portrait with a crease across the middle, a childhood snapshot gone yellow, a photo with a corner ripped off. Instead of spending hours cloning and healing in an editor, you get a clean, restored version back in seconds and can decide from there whether you want any manual touch-ups. If your print is in colour, you can also tick the colorize option to add tone to a black-and-white or heavily faded scan.
Under the hood, the model has been trained on huge numbers of degraded and undamaged image pairs, so it recognises what damage looks like versus what the original scene should be. It separates a scratch running across a cheek from the actual features of a face, then reconstructs the area based on the surrounding detail.
That's why results look natural rather than smeared. Faces stay recognisable, textures like fabric and hair keep their structure, and the repair blends into the untouched parts of the picture. If a scan comes out soft, you can follow up with the AI image sharpener to recover crisp edges, or push resolution higher with the image upscaler for large prints.
Restoring old photos by hand in photo editing software takes real skill and a lot of patience, and paying a restoration studio can cost a fair amount per photo. The AI handles the tedious repair work first, so you either keep the automatic result or start manual edits from a much cleaner base.
Restoration also pairs well with other fixes. Once the damage is gone, you can even out lighting and tone with the photo enhancer, or lift a portrait off a distracting backdrop using the background remover before printing or sharing.
Who restores old photos with this tool
Families digitising a shoebox
Anyone scanning decades of prints who wants creased, yellowed and torn family pictures cleaned up before archiving or sharing them.
People preserving a legacy
Those restoring photos of parents and grandparents for anniversaries, memorials or reunions, wanting faces to stay true to the originals.
Genealogy and history buffs
Family-tree researchers reviving old portraits and documents so faded faces and details are readable again.
Anyone avoiding a studio bill
People who don't want to pay per photo or learn photo editing software, and just need old photos restored quickly and cheaply.
CreArt Solutions
Every tool, curated for how you work
AI Tools for Real Estate
AI tools for real estate agents: virtually stage empty rooms, fix dark listing photos, and turn one set of photos into flyers, "Just Listed" posts and walkthrough videos.
Explore the toolkit →AI Tools for Content Creators
AI tools that turn a video title and a selfie into thumbnails, banners, avatars, emotes and brand-deal ads — a full channel kit from assets you already have.
Explore the toolkit →AI Tools for Small Business
A set of AI tools built for small businesses: design logos, flyers, clean product photos and daily social content without hiring a designer.
Explore the toolkit →AI Tools for Photographers
AI tools for photographers that run your marketing side: mini-session flyers, booking posts, session reels and price guides built from photos you already have.
Explore the toolkit →AI Tools for Musicians
A release-day visual kit for independent artists: build one album cover with AI, then spin off the Spotify Canvas, gig poster and "out now" ads from it.
Explore the toolkit →AI Tools for Authors & Writers
Design your book cover once and reuse it for the trailer, the countdown posts, the teaser quotes and the character art — a full self-publishing launch kit powered by AI.
Explore the toolkit →AI Tools for Teachers
Free AI tools for teachers: turn any topic into coloring pages, classroom posters and explainer comics in minutes — type it, pick a style, print.
Explore the toolkit →AI Tools for Influencers & UGC Creators
A content studio for influencers and UGC creators: brand-ready UGC ads, tappable thumbnails and on-brand profile pictures, all from a phone photo or a text idea.
Explore the toolkit →AI Tools for E-commerce Sellers
Turn one product photo into a full listing kit — clean white-background shot, lifestyle scenes, a UGC-style ad and a short video, without a studio day or an agency.
Explore the toolkit →Restore old photos for free, upgrade for more
Try the AI photo restoration on your own damaged prints for free, then pick a plan when you need to restore more photos and unlock higher-quality output.
Free
- Limited credits to try CreArt
- Access to core tools
- Standard resolution
Starter
- 4,000 credits per month
- Premium access
- Ad-free
- Private Community posts
Creator
- 10,000 credits per month
- Premium access
- Ad-free
- Private Community posts
- More room for video and image
Pro
- 25,000 credits per month
- Premium access
- Ad-free
- Private Community posts
- Credit packs available
- Highest generation volume
Why restore old photos with this AI tool
Repairs real physical damage
Removes scratches, creases, dust spots and tears, and rebuilds ripped corners or missing edges based on the surrounding detail.
Keeps faces recognisable
The AI tells damage apart from actual features, so a scratch across a cheek gets fixed without smearing the face underneath.
Results in seconds
What would take hours of cloning and healing in an editor comes back cleaned up automatically, ready to keep or touch up further.
Optional colorize
Add tone to a black-and-white or heavily faded print with a single checkbox, turning an old grey snapshot into a colour image.
Free to try, no signup
Upload a damaged photo and see the restored version before committing to anything — no software to install.
Pairs with other fixes
Chain restoration with the enhancer, upscaler or sharpener to even out tone, boost resolution and print old family pictures large.
What restoration recovers — and what is gone
Honest limits
Scratches, creases, spots and fading lift off remarkably well, because the damage sits on top of an intact image. Most attic photos are in this category.
Where the emulsion is missing — torn corners, water damage that dissolved a face — the AI reconstructs a plausible version, not the true one. On faces of loved ones, treat large reconstructions as an artist's impression.
