Scan it properly first
The tool can only work with what the scan captured. 600 dpi on a flatbed beats a phone photograph of the same print by a wide margin, and it costs one extra minute.
If you are photographing a print because there is no scanner, do it in indirect daylight rather than under a lamp, square on, and turn the flash off. Glare on a glossy print destroys information that nothing can bring back.
Set the face slider to zero to leave faces alone
At zero the tool only enlarges and cleans; no face is rebuilt. That is the right setting for a photograph that matters to somebody — a grandparent’s face turned into a smoother, younger, subtly different face is a loss, not a restoration.
Turn it up for photographs where the person is incidental, or where the face is so far gone that anything is an improvement. Try both and compare before you throw away the original file.
What happens to the scan you upload
An old family photograph is not a casual upload, so the whole path is worth stating. Your scan goes from this page directly into storage using an address the site signs and which stops working after five minutes. It never passes through the website itself.
The machine that repairs it reads that address once. Both the scan and the restored copy are deleted about three hours later by a job that runs every half hour. Keep your original, and download the result while you have it.
Frequently asked questions
Will it colourise a black-and-white photo?
No. It repairs and enlarges; it does not add colour. Colour added to an old photograph is invented, and it is a separate decision from restoration.
Can it fix a tear or a stain?
Small scratches and grain, often. A large tear, missing corner or heavy water damage is beyond it — that is retouching by hand, and the tool will smooth over the damage rather than reconstruct what was underneath.
Do I have to make an account?
No. Nothing is signed up for, nothing is signed in to, and consequently nothing is stored under your name — which also means the restored copy lives at its link for about three hours and then is gone. Download it.
Is my scan kept afterwards?
No. Both the scan and the restored version are deleted by a job that runs every half hour, and neither is used to train anything. Keep your original scan regardless: restoration is a guess about what was there, and you will want the evidence of what actually was.
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