What to know about restoring old photos

TimeMend is an online tool for restoring old photos. It reduces scratches, creases, stains and fading, and can optionally add color to black-and-white photos. You can compare before and after side by side, and your original is never overwritten.

Choose photos in the studio and select your restoration options. Local photos can be previewed first; they upload only when you start a restoration. Regular users use 1 credit per photo, returned if restoration fails.

Restoration is designed to address four kinds of problems: scratches, creases and cracks; fading, yellowing and color casts; slight blur and noise; and, optionally, colorizing black-and-white photos. If a large part of the photo is missing, such as half a face torn away, the AI can only guess what was there, and the result may not be reliable.

It can. When filling in blurry or damaged features, the AI infers details from what it learned from many faces, so eyes, mouth shape, teeth or glasses may come out different from the real person. Check the result carefully against the original. If accuracy matters most, use basic repair only and keep the original.

Not necessarily. Colorization is the AI's guess based on what's in the picture, so the colors of clothes, walls and objects may differ from what they actually were. It's good for bringing a photo to life, but not as historical evidence. If someone in the family remembers the real colors, trust their memory.

JPG, PNG and WebP are supported, up to 20 MB and 32 megapixels each, and up to 8 photos at a time. HEIC, the iPhone's default format, isn't supported yet; export the photo as JPG from your photo library first.

Selecting a photo previews it in your browser. Starting a restoration uploads it to the server and sends it to the selected AI service. Originals and results on the server are kept for 3 days after the task finishes. Download them before expiry; you can delete them sooner.

Use a flatbed scanner if you can, at 600 dpi for small prints. If you use a phone, lay the photo flat, hold the camera parallel to it, shoot in bright, even daylight and turn off the flash to avoid glare and shadows. Don't apply filters or beauty effects first; keep the untouched file.

Packages include restoration credits, with no subscription. Check the pricing page for each package's price and credit amount. Each photo uses 1 restoration credit.

To buy a package, choose a package and a payment method offered on the pricing page. An order is created after you choose a package and payment method.

Your account lets you manage your profile, password, signed-in devices, restoration credits, tasks and orders. Browsing the site and trying local previews do not require signing in.

Log in, open "My account", choose "Delete account" at the bottom and confirm with your password. Your profile and login history are then deleted and can't be recovered.