MotionShineShort answer: Scan the print at 600 dpi or more, or photograph it flat in even light. Then drop the scan into a free restorer such as the photo restorer, which rebuilds each face, sharpens the rest, paints out the scratches you mark and can add colour. Compare before and after, lower the face strength if someone stops looking like themselves, and save the result as a new file next to the original scan. Do not throw the print away: a restored face is a careful reconstruction, not a record.
The storage advice comes from the Library of Congress page on caring for photographs, and the scanning steps from Apple Support, both checked on 7 November 2026. The free tools are made by the maker of MotionShine, and what I say about them comes from their own pages.
What goes wrong in an old photo
Each kind of damage needs a different fix, so look at the photo before you start.
| Damage | What fixes it | Free tool |
|---|---|---|
| Soft or blurry faces | A face restoration model | Photo restorer |
| Fading, low contrast, a yellow cast | Colour and light correction | AI photo enhancer |
| Grain, noise, a soft picture overall | Sharpen and clean | Photo restorer, or the enhancer |
| Scratches, dust, small tears | Fill the marked area from what is around it | Photo restorer's scratch brush, or remove object from photo |
| Black and white you want in colour | A colorizing model | Colorize photo |
| Too small to print | An upscaler | AI image upscaler |
Step 1: Handle the print with care
The Library of Congress says to handle photographs with clean hands or clean nitrile gloves, to avoid touching the image area, and to hold prints by their edges where you can. Do not put tape, sticky notes, glue or paper clips on a print.
Step 2: Scan it, or photograph it
A better starting file always gives a better result. The photo restorer's page suggests scanning prints at 600 dpi or more, or photographing them flat in even light with no glare.
With a scanner on a Mac, Apple's Image Capture guide gives these steps:
- Open the Image Capture app.
- Connect your scanner to your Mac and turn it on.
- In the sidebar, select the scanner under Devices or Shared.
- Scan your items.
Set the resolution to 600 dpi or higher in the scanner's options, and save as PNG or TIFF if you have the choice, so nothing is lost to compression before you start.
With a phone, lay the print flat near a window, turn off the flash, and hold the phone straight above the photo so it is not a skewed shape. Fill the frame with the print.
Crop away the white border before the next step. The colorize photo page says the model treats a border as part of the scene and may tint it. How to crop a screenshot on Mac shows the quick crop in Preview, which works on any picture.
Step 3: Repair faces and damage
The free photo restorer runs in your browser tab, so the family photo is never uploaded. Its page says there is no sign-up, no watermark and no limit on photos. The first visit downloads about 27 MB for the AI engine, then 74 MB for the face model when you press Restore.
- Drop the scan on the box, paste it, or click to choose. PNG, JPG, WebP and HEIC work.
- Wait while the page looks for faces. Each face found gets a number. Click a number to leave that face out, for example a spot that is not really a face.
- If there are scratches, press Paint over scratches, set the brush size and paint over them. The page says it does not find scratches by itself, and the first time this downloads another 208 MB.
- Leave Sharpen and clean the rest on, and choose a Size: same size, 2x or 4x.
- Press Restore the photo. The page rebuilds each face one at a time.
- Drag the line across the picture to compare Before and After. Each face is also shown before and rebuilt, side by side.
- Move Face strength to taste and press Download the photo. The file name ends in -restored.
Paint the scratches before you restore. The page says the face model copies marks that lie across a face, so filling them first gives the face model a clean start.
Getting the face strength right
| Face strength | What you get | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| 100% | The face as the model rebuilt it | Very soft or tiny faces with little to keep |
| 60% to 85% | The rebuilt face mixed with the original | Faces that look too smooth, too young or not quite like the person |
| 0% | Your original face | Checking what the model changed |
Look at the eyes, the mouth and the shape of the face, and ask someone who knew the person if you can.
Step 4: Add colour, if you want it
There are two ways. Inside the photo restorer, turn on Add colour to a black and white photo; its page says this is a second download of 115 MB, once. Or use the colorize photo tool on its own, which is handy for a whole album: drop many photos and download them as a ZIP. Its page says it keeps the light and dark of your original exactly and only adds colour on top, so the detail stays as sharp as the scan.
The colours are a guess. The colorize page says skies tend to come out blue and grass green, but a dress, a car or a wall could have been any colour on the day, so the model often picks a safe neutral one. If a face looks too warm, try a colour strength of about 80%.
Step 5: Enlarge for a print
A small wallet photo needs more pixels for a bigger frame. A common print target is 300 pixels per inch, so an 8 x 10 inch print needs 2400 x 3000 pixels. Choose 2x or 4x in the restorer, or run the restored file through the AI image upscaler. Both pages give a limit of about 16.7 million pixels in total. How to enlarge a photo without losing quality has a table of print sizes.
Step 6: Keep the original and store it well
Save the restored photo as a new file and keep the original scan beside it. The restorer's page suggests noting that it was restored, so family history is not confused by a face the AI helped to build.
For the print itself, the Library of Congress recommends:
- A relatively dry (30 to 50% relative humidity), cool (70°F or below) and stable place, with humidity changing by less than 5% within a day.
- 40°F or below for colour photographs and film negatives.
- Limited light.
- Folders or sleeves made of uncoated polyester, polyethylene or polypropylene, and materials that pass the Photographic Activity Test (ISO 18902).
- No albums with "magnetic" or sticky self-adhesive pages.
What AI restoration cannot do
- It does not recover a face, it rebuilds one. The restorer's page says a blurry face holds less information than the model puts back, so the result is a likely face. It can look smoothed, a little too young, or not quite like the person.
- It does not find scratches for you. You paint them. Thin scratches work best; the page says a large tear across a face is hard and the fill can look wrong.
- Small faces can be missed. The page says faces smaller than about 20 pixels across can be missed. Turned faces, sunglasses or a hat pulled low give weaker results.
- Only faces are rebuilt. Hands, writing, clothes and background are sharpened, not rebuilt, and tiny text can come out as made-up shapes.
- The colour is not the real colour. No one can know it from a black and white print.
- It is not conservation. A cracked, mouldy or stuck print needs a professional conservator, not software. Scan it as it is and leave the physical repair to them.
FAQ
How can I restore old photos for free?
Scan or photograph the print, then use a free browser tool such as the photo restorer. It rebuilds faces, sharpens the rest, fills scratches you paint over and can add colour, with no sign-up or watermark, according to its page.
What dpi should I scan old photos at?
600 dpi or more, according to the photo restorer's page. A higher scan gives the face model and the upscaler more to work with, especially for small prints.
Can AI restore a badly damaged photo?
It can make a faded or blurry portrait much easier to look at, and fill thin scratches you mark. A large tear across a face or a missing part is hard, and the fill can look wrong. Keep the original next to it.
Are the colours in a colorized photo real?
No. The model makes a likely guess from shapes and textures. Skies and grass usually look right, but clothes and cars may not match the day.
Is it safe to restore family photos online?
With the photo restorer and colorize photo tools, their pages say the models run in your browser, so the photo never leaves your computer. For any tool that uploads, read its privacy page first.
Should I restore before or after colorizing?
Restore first. Clean faces and filled scratches give the colour model clearer shapes to read, and the colorize page says scratches and dust can pick up colour of their own.
