AI photo restoration · Phota Enhance
AI photo restoration — restore old photos online
Bring back the family photos time has damaged. Phota Enhance repairs scratches, cracks, stains and fading, sharpens faces and gives you a print-ready file in about 40 seconds.
- Scratches & cracks
- Fading & stains
- Blurry faces
- 2048 px, no watermark
Updated by the Kenerate AI team
On this page
Quick answer
What is AI photo restoration?
AI photo restoration is the automatic repair of old, faded, scratched or blurry photos by a model that fills in the damage and rebuilds faces. On Kenerate AI you scan the print, upload it and run Phota Enhance, which removes scratches, cracks, stains and fading in about 40 seconds. Black-and-white photos stay black-and-white, with no watermark — and because the AI rebuilds detail the scan has lost, faces can change slightly, so keep your original scan and compare.
Key facts
- Fixes
- Scratches, cracks, stains, fading, blur
- Speed
- About 40 seconds per photo
- Output
- 2048 px, no watermark
- Scan at
- 600 DPI or more
How it works
How to restore an old photo with AI
Scan it, upload it, restore it. Phota Enhance is pre-selected when you open the tool from this page.
- Time needed
- Steps
- 4 steps
Step 1
Scan or photograph the print
Scan at 600 DPI or more, or photograph it flat in soft daylight with no glare. Crop off the scanner bed.
Step 2
Upload and choose Phota Enhance
Open the Kenerate upscaler — the restoration page opens it on Phota Enhance — and add the scan (JPG, PNG or WEBP up to 25 MB).
Step 3
Restore
Press Upscale. In about 40 seconds Phota repairs scratches, cracks, stains and fading and rebuilds soft faces, at 2048 px.
Step 4
Compare, then download or enlarge
Check the result with the slider and download it with no watermark. For a big print, run the result through Image Upscaler to 8K.
See it in the app
Open Image Upscaler and upload a photo, or pick one from your library or a link.
Watch the tour · 1:47
7 engines, 2K · 4K · 8K & exact size, portraits, old-photo restore, before/after & chat
Chapters
Real results
What can AI photo restoration repair?
Real Phota Enhance outputs from the damaged inputs shown in the slider. Tap a card to try the same photo.
- Before · Scanned printAfter · Restored · 2304 px
Cracked 1930s portrait
Cracked emulsion, stains and scratches gone; the face kept.
Phota Enhance
Try this photo 
Before · Scanned printAfter · Restored · 2400 px
Before · 720 px, out of focusAfter · 2048 px, sharp
Before · 640 px, noisyAfter · Clean · 2400 px
At 100%
Restored vs original, zoomed in
The same area of the scan before and after Phota Enhance.
Step by step
How do I restore old photos?
From the print in the drawer to a restored file you can share or print.
Step 1: Scan or photograph the print
Scan at 600 DPI or more, or photograph it flat in soft daylight with no glare. Crop off the scanner bed.
Step 2: Upload and choose Phota Enhance
Open the Kenerate upscaler — the restoration page opens it on Phota Enhance — and add the scan (JPG, PNG or WEBP up to 25 MB).
Image UpscalerEnginePhota Enhance
Step 3: Restore
Press Upscale. In about 40 seconds Phota repairs scratches, cracks, stains and fading and rebuilds soft faces, at 2048 px.
Step 4: Compare, then download or enlarge
Check the result with the slider and download it with no watermark. For a big print, run the result through Image Upscaler to 8K.
Tip: Keep your original scan. Restore a copy so you can always go back.
Before you restore
How to scan old photos for the best restoration
A good scan gives the AI more to work with. Four habits make the biggest difference.
Step 1: Clean the print and the glass
Dust on the scanner glass becomes a white speck in the scan. Wipe the glass, and remove dust from the photo with an air bulb blower (not canned air) — never wipe the print itself.
Step 2: Scan at 600 DPI or more
600 DPI turns a 4×6 in print into about 2400 × 3600 pixels — plenty of detail for restoration. Use 1200 DPI for very small prints.
Step 3: Save a lossless master
Save as TIFF or PNG and keep it. Restore a copy, so you can always go back to the original scan.
Step 4: No scanner? Use your phone
Lay the print flat by a window, hold the phone parallel to it and turn off the flash to avoid glare. A scanning app that corrects perspective helps.
Zoom into a restored portrait
A cracked 1930s studio portrait after Phota Enhance. Move over the image to check the eyes, moustache and suit.
- Cracks and stains removed from the face
- Hair, skin and fabric texture rebuilt
- Sepia tone and period look kept
Checked 22 October 2026
AI restoration vs doing it by hand vs a restoration service
Three ways to fix an old photo.
| Kenerate AI · Phota Enhance | By hand · GIMP / Photoshop | Restoration service · a retoucher | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time per photo | About 40 seconds | 1–5 hours | Days |
| Skill needed | None | Healing, cloning, masks | None |
| Scratches & stains | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Blurry faces | Rebuilt by AI | Hard | Depends on the retoucher |
| Large missing areas | AI fills in — check it | Hand-painted | Hand-painted |
Good to know
What AI photo restoration can and cannot do
- It keeps black-and-white photos black-and-white. Phota Enhance does not colourise — colorize a copy if you want colour.
- It works best on the whole scan. Crop off the scanner bed but leave the photo's borders — the model uses them as context.
- Big missing pieces are invented. If half a face is torn off, the AI paints a plausible one. Compare with the original before printing.
- Print big? After restoring, run the result through the upscaler to 8K.
- Store the print well. The Library of Congress recommends a cool, dry, stable place — not attics or basements — and handling prints by the edges.
Honest answer
Does AI photo restoration change faces?
Sometimes, yes. AI photo restoration is reconstruction, not recovery: where the scan has no detail left — a cracked cheek, a blurred eye, a torn corner — the model paints in what a face or fabric usually looks like. Research restorers are built this way: Microsoft's Bringing Old Photos Back to Life (CVPR 2020) learns how damage maps to clean photos, and GFPGAN rebuilds faces from a learned face prior. The result looks sharp, but some of that sharpness is a guess.
When a face is most likely to change
- Very small faces — a group photo where each face is only a few dozen pixels wide.
- Heavy blur or camera shake — the model has to choose an eye shape, a smile, teeth.
- Damage across the eyes, nose or mouth — cracks and stains right on the features.
- Missing pieces — a torn-off corner or half a face is invented, not restored.
How to restore an old photo without losing the real one
- Keep the untouched scan as your master and restore a copy. Federal FADGI guidelines keep corrections off the master file too.
- Compare the faces with the original at full size, using the slider, before you share or print.
- Ask someone who knew the person whether it still looks like them.
- Label the file — for example grandad-1938-restored-ai.jpg — and share the original next to it in family trees.
- If a face looks wrong, rescan before you retry. A 600 DPI scan gives the AI real detail, so it has less to guess.
For legal, historical or archival records, treat an AI restoration as an illustration of the photo, not as the photo itself. Keep the original.
Restore, colorize or upscale?
Which Kenerate tool for which old-photo job?
Restoring, colourising and enlarging are three different jobs, and each tool does one of them well.
| Job | Tool | What it does | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Repair scratches, fading, blur | Phota Enhance — this page | Restores and rebuilds lost detail at 2048 px in about 40 s | Keeps black-and-white; small faces may be rebuilt |
| Add colour to black and white | Colorize Photo — Seedream 5.0 Pro edit | Black-and-white or sepia to natural colour; can repair in the same step | Colours are a plausible guess, not the originals |
| Enlarge for a print | Image Upscaler — 2K, 4K or 8K | Faithful upscale that keeps the texture | Does not remove scratches — restore first |
| Exact, very large size | Kenerate Upscale — up to 128 MP | You pick the size in megapixels | Faithful; restore first |
| Extra detail for artwork | Clarity Pro — creativity dial | Up to 64 MP; can invent fine detail | On faces keep creativity low — higher values changed age, hair and glasses in our tests |
| Old home movies | VHS restoration | Upscales digitised tapes and DVDs | A video job, not a photo one |
A good order for a damaged black-and-white print: restore with Phota Enhance, colorize a copy if you want colour, then upscale the version you keep for a large print.
Example uses
How people use photo restoration
Three common jobs, with the real before and after.
Illustrative examples of typical workflows, not customer reviews.
Family historian
Scans every print from the family album once, restores each with Phota Enhance and shares them in the family tree.
Try this workflow
Memorial organiser
The only portrait of a great-grandfather was cracked and stained. Restored, it was printed large for the memorial.
Try this workflow
Pet owner
An out-of-focus photo of a cat that is no longer around, sharpened so it could be framed.
Try this workflow
FAQ
Photo restoration questions
10 questions
How do I restore an old photo with AI?
Scan or photograph the print, upload it to Kenerate and run Phota Enhance. It repairs scratches, cracks, stains and fading and sharpens faces in about 40 seconds. New accounts get free credits, and bigger jobs use one-time credit packs that never expire.
Link to this answerCan AI restore a torn or scratched photo?
Yes, for scratches, creases, cracks, dust and small tears. Phota Enhance fills them in from the surrounding picture. If a large part is missing — half a face, a whole corner — the AI has to invent it, so check the result carefully.
Link to this answerDoes it colourise black-and-white photos?
No. Phota Enhance repairs and sharpens but keeps a black-and-white or sepia photo in black-and-white. Colourising is a separate job: restore first, then run a copy through Kenerate's Colorize Photo tool. AI colours are a plausible guess, not the true original colours.
Link to this answerHow do I restore old photos for free?
The free sign-up credits let you test Kenerate, and bigger jobs use one-time credit packs that never expire. For free DIY, GIMP (free) has a Heal tool for spot repairs, but fixing faces and fading by hand takes hours.
Link to this answerWhat resolution should I scan old photos at?
600 DPI for normal prints and 1200 DPI for small ones such as wallet photos. Save a TIFF or PNG master and restore a copy.
Link to this answerWill the restored photo still look like the person?
Phota Enhance is designed to keep faces recognisable. With very small or very blurred faces any AI has to guess, so compare with the original before you share or print.
Link to this answerCan I print the restored photo large?
Phota outputs 2048 px (2K) on the long side. For a bigger print, run the restored photo through Image Upscaler (8K) or Kenerate Upscale (up to 128 MP).
Link to this answerIs it safe to upload family photos?
Your uploads and results are saved to your own private history so you can download them again.
Link to this answerIs AI photo restoration accurate?
It is accurate for damage the scan still shows around — scratches, dust, creases, fading — and less so where detail is gone. On very small, blurred or torn faces the model rebuilds the face from what faces usually look like, so the eyes, teeth or wrinkles can come out slightly different from the real person. Use the best scan you can and compare the faces with the original.
Link to this answerShould I keep the original photo after restoring it?
Yes, always. Keep the print and an untouched scan as your master, and restore a copy — archives do the same and never correct the master file. Name the restored file so it is clear it was restored with AI, and share the original next to it in family trees, so nobody mistakes the AI's guesses for the real photo.
Link to this answerIn depth
How old photos age — and how archivists scan them
What damages prints, how the Library of Congress and FADGI say to scan them, and where AI fits — with sources.
On this page
What damages photographs
Humidity, heat and light do most of the harm. The Northeast Document Conservation Center notes that high humidity drives fading, discoloration and silver mirroring, that chemical decay roughly doubles with every 10°F rise, and that most colour photos fade fairly quickly in light; very dry air makes prints curl and emulsion flake, and fingerprints can cause bleaching or mirroring [1]. The US National Archives recommends clean nitrile or cotton gloves, handling prints by the edges and labelling only the back edge with a soft pencil [2].
How to scan like an archive
The Library of Congress's personal-archiving guide suggests 300 ppi for 4×6 and 5×7 prints, 400–600 dpi if you plan to enlarge them to 8×10 or larger, and keeping at least two copies in different places [3]. Federal FADGI guidelines for cultural-heritage prints go further: 400–600 ppi, 16-bit masters, and no dust removal or colour restoration on the master file — corrections belong on a separate copy [4].
Where AI restoration fits
That last rule is the right way to use AI too: keep the untouched scan as your master and restore a copy. Demand for this is huge — MyHeritage's Photo Enhancer processed a million photos in about ten days after it launched in June 2020 [5]. Modern restorers rebuild faces from a learned “face prior”, as research models like GFPGAN do [6], which is why a restored face should always be compared with the original.
By the Kenerate AI teamLast updated and reviewed
We build and run the Kenerate image tools; every restoration on this page is a real Phota Enhance output from the scan shown.
Sources: Library of Congress — Care, handling and storage of photographs · Conservation and restoration of photographs — Wikipedia
Restore your first photo
Phota Enhance restores a photo in about 40 seconds, at 2048 px. No subscription required, no watermark.
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