Old Photo Restoration with AI

An online tool for restoring old photographs right in your browser. The neural network finds the faces in a picture and rebuilds blurred features — eyes, teeth, contours — on worn, faded and low-quality photos. Each face is processed separately and carefully blended back in; the background and composition stay untouched, and the tone of the photo (sepia, black-and-white) is preserved pixel for pixel. If the picture has no faces at all, a whole-photo enhancement is applied instead — a ×4 upscale (Real-ESRGAN). Restoration strength is adjusted with a live slider after processing, and the change map shows exactly where the AI touched the pixels.

How to restore an old photo

Open a demo or load a photo

Click one of the examples — the result appears instantly. Or drop your own picture: JPEG, PNG, WebP, BMP, GIF.

Adjust the processing

Turn on auto-tone if the photo has faded (the tool will suggest it) and set the restoration strength. Meanwhile the AI model loads in the background.

Click "Restore"

The neural network finds the faces and restores each one separately. Progress and timing stay on screen, and you can cancel at any point.

Compare and download

Drag the before/after slider, inspect faces up close, switch off any bad ones, check the change map — then download PNG, JPEG or WebP.

Bring faces on vintage snapshots back into focus

Drop image here

JPG, PNG, WEBP, GIF, BMP, HEIC, TIFF, AVIF, HEIF ·

See it on an example — instant, no file needed

Examples: photographs by Lewis Hine, Library of Congress (public domain).

Before After

Demo example

…

— ·— ·—

This photo has faded — auto-tone will bring back contrast and depth.

Faces — click to turn restoration on or off for each one

Face restoration — the RestoreFormer++ model (Apache-2.0), face detection — face-api.js, upscaling — Real-ESRGAN. The AI reconstructs plausible detail: the result is an estimate, not an exact copy of the original face.

Features

One-click before/after examples — before you even pick a photo

Two real archival photos from 1910–1911 with precomputed results: drag the comparison slider and inspect the restored faces up close.

Identity-preserving face restoration — RestoreFormer++

Each face is aligned to 512×512, restored on its own and blended back with soft feathering. The photo tone is locked: sepia stays sepia, black-and-white stays black-and-white.

Live "Restoration strength" slider — instant, no recompute

The balance between original texture and AI detail changes in real time after processing: no waiting for another pass.

Every face on its own — toggle them one by one

Below the result you get a chip for every detected face. If the AI handled someone's face poorly, switch off just that one and keep the rest.

Change map — an honest answer to "what did the AI touch"

The highlight shows where pixels changed and where the photo stayed untouched. Faces that are too small are honestly skipped rather than invented.

Auto-tone for faded prints and ×4 upscaling

Auto-tone brings contrast back to faded scans with one switch, and Real-ESRGAN upscales the result 4× on download (requires WebGPU).

Questions and answers

Which neural network does it use?

RestoreFormer++ (Apache-2.0 license) for face restoration, face-api.js for detection and Real-ESRGAN ×4 for optional upscaling. Processing runs in your browser via WebGPU or WebAssembly.

Can any blurry face be restored?

No. The neural network reconstructs plausible detail from what survives in the picture. If a face is almost erased or was heavily smoothed by another AI, there is nothing left to restore and the result will be a guess. It is an estimate, not an exact copy of the original face.

Why were some faces skipped?

Very small faces (roughly under 60 pixels) are skipped on purpose: at that size the network does not restore features, it invents them. We find it more honest to leave them alone than to replace someone's face.

What happens if the photo has no faces?

The picture still gets a result: the tool applies a whole-photo enhancement — a ×4 upscale (Real-ESRGAN, needs WebGPU). For very large photos and browsers without WebGPU, a link to the AI Photo Enhancer & Upscaler appears below the result — the file travels over without re-uploading.

What does the "Restoration strength" slider do?

It blends the restored face with the original: 100% means maximum AI detail, lower values keep more of the native texture and grain. It works instantly after processing — nothing is recomputed.

Will the background or the color of the photo change?

No. The tool only touches the face regions, and the tone is locked: sepia stays sepia, black-and-white stays black-and-white. The change map shows the affected spots; optional auto-tone gently stretches the contrast of the whole photo without shifting its hue.

Do I need WebGPU?

No — without WebGPU restoration runs on the CPU (a few seconds per face). WebGPU speeds things up and is only required for the ×4 upscale on download.

What about HEIC photos from an iPhone?

Most browsers cannot decode HEIC. Convert the HEIC to JPG first (we have a converter), then restore it.

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Published 26 Jun 2026 Updated 06 Aug 2026 Author: The Supreme