Old photos carry precious memories and history, but as time goes by, photos are prone to fading, damage, or blurriness.

Restoring old photos is not only a way to preserve memories, but also a means of cultural inheritance. Through proper restoration, the value of photos can be extended, historical images can be restored to their original glory, and precious family memories and historical culture can be preserved.

This article explains what to keep in mind when restoring old photos and introduces various free tools. With free tools like Capcut, MyEdit, and YouCam, you can easily restore old photos and bring them back to life.

Follow the steps in this article and choose the right tools to breathe new life into your old photos and preserve your precious memories and value.

ChromaLuxe Metallic Photo helps you preserve your restoration results over time

If you would like to preserve your restored photos as long-lasting memories, our ChromaLuxe Metallic Photo Printing service is the best choice for you.

Since 2021, we have started a project to reproduce old photos. We have scanned, restored and printed many types of old photos. What we share here are the precious family travel memories!

The old photos put on new clothes not only regain their former glory, but these precious travel souvenirs reproduced on metal photos also make the dusty memories come alive on paper. We seem to have seen that when this family looks at the metal photos, they will unconsciously board the time train, revisit the old place, and relive the good times. What a heartwarming scene!

Key tips for restoring old photos

Based on our years of experience, we believe that when restoring old photos, we should follow the steps below and list the things that need to be paid attention to in order to ensure the best restoration effect of the old photos.

A. Digital processing

There are roughly two ways to digitize old photos: using a camera or scanning equipment to convert physical photos into digital format for easy subsequent restoration.

1. Take a photo using your camera

• Suitable for situations where there is no scanning device at hand.
• Recommendations

1. From mobile phones to professional cameras, all methods of digitizing old photos are done by taking photos.
2. In addition to the optical properties of the equipment itself, which determine the resolution of digital files of old photos, the light quality and shooting angle during shooting are also decisive factors.
3. When taking photos, you should do so in an environment with sufficient lighting, soft and even light, and keep the lens and the photo level for the best shooting effect.

2. Scan device scan

• Suitable for : High-resolution digital files are needed.
• Recommendations

1. Use a high-resolution scanner designed specifically for scanning photos to digitize the photos for the best results.
2. Although three-in-one MFPs used at home or in the office also have scanning functions, the original details of the photos are often not clearly presented due to the excessive contrast of the scans, and the scanning results are less than ideal.

Important reminder

• The scanning result is the most important basic point in old photo restoration. If the digitized image file cannot present the original details of the old photo, it will be more difficult to restore it using photo editing software later.
• We can also understand it this way, using the same method to restore the same photo, the more details in the original digital file, the clearer the image quality, and the higher the number of pictures, which means the quality of the digital file is higher. The restoration result will definitely be more satisfactory than the same old photo, but restored with a lower quality digital file!

B. Digital image restoration

Remove paper photo defects

1. Scratches, mildew spots, and stains need to be repaired using professional software.
2. Recommended tools : Tools such as CapCut, MyEdit, and YouCam have AI functions that can automatically remove blemishes.

• Although it may not be noticeable at first glance, after old photos are digitized, the images will actually have a lot of scratches, mildew spots, stains and dust spots that need to be repaired.
• Of course, if there are scratches, tears, stains and dust that are obviously visible to the naked eye, then it is even more necessary to handle it well and properly in order to restore the old photos to a nearly original appearance!

Using professional photo editing software is the most appropriate option. However, due to the rapid development of AI technology in recent years, even using free software can produce good results. The second half of the article will introduce different photo editing software and actual test instructions.

Improve clarity

1. Old photos are usually blurry and blurry, so AI technology can be used to enhance the details.
2. Recommendation : Test multiple tools to avoid over-sharpening and image distortion.

• Old photos are analog photos, and by our current digital image standards, they all have a hazy and soft beauty. If you zoom in, the clarity is insufficient.
• Fortunately, we can use AI technology to improve the blurry parts of photos and enhance details and image quality.
• Although many photo editing software use AI technology and emphasize one-click clarity, you still need to compare the effects of different software modifications to avoid AI over-modification, which will make the image look weird the more you look!

Portrait Optimization

• Detailed restoration of the face is performed to emphasize the three-dimensional sense of the facial features and restore the true appearance.
• We think this is the best contribution of AI technology to old photo restoration.
• Because each app has different AI technology, its operation method is also very different, and the results after repair are also different. We will explain the actual test in the second half of the article.

Color Correction

• Correct faded or color-cast images and restore the original tones of your photos.
• Based on our experience in restoring old photos, if the original photo has an easily recognizable environment, such as blue sky or white clouds, the color adjustment result will be more satisfactory!
• It should be noted that these color adjustments are made by photo editing software based on calculation data, and most of them cannot truly present the original colors of the original photos (to be honest, we have no way of knowing what the original colors of the original photos are, and can only judge based on common sense and experience).

Coloring

• Add true color to black and white photos to make images more vivid and lively.
• If you want to restore specific colors (such as the colors of traditional clothing) on ​​old photos, neither free nor paid software can achieve this. It requires special manual processing, so it is not within the scope of this article.

C. Storage and backup

After the restoration is complete, save it in high-resolution format and make a backup to ensure long-term preservation.

Once you have saved and backed up the images, it will be very convenient for you to provide them directly to a professional photo printing center when needed in the future to create precious memories.

What is a high-resolution format? We provide a simple calculation here. The printed centimeters (cm) x 118 is a high-resolution image file that can be directly printed in the future.

Example:

• If a restored old photo is expected to be printed as a 60×40cm physical photo in the future, the image file size that needs to be retained is 7080 x 4720 px
• 60x118=7080
• 40x118=4720

Free old photo restoration tool test record

After searching on Google, we found several free online tools that can restore old photos, which are claimed to be simple to operate and highly efficient. We were very interested and tried five different tools based on Google search results. We compiled the results for your reference.

In order not to increase the risk of computer information security and not to occupy computer memory and performance, we only searched and tested resources that can directly use photo editing functions online without downloading software .

Key points of actual measurement

1. Is it free to use?
2. Is there a limit to the output file size after photo restoration?
3. The restoration effect is the most important, but also subjective, so we provide pictures for you to compare and evaluate re.

Old photos used in testing

We did not use sample photos from different companies, but instead used the same old photo for testing, which made it easier to compare the restoration results. The following is the old photo we actually used for testing.

• We use professional photo scanners to digitize old photos
• The long side of the original file is 6000px, which is more than enough to print a photo with a length of 50cm (6000/118=50.8cm).

New proposal: Old photo restoration and old photo reproduction, done in one go

As a specialized manufacturer of metal photos, we do not provide simple old photo restoration services , because we believe that memories worth preserving should not only be stored in computers, but should be actually printed out and placed in our daily spaces to enrich our lives and memories.

Therefore, the service we provide is a comprehensive "Old Photo Restoration + Old Photo Reproduction" service:

• Help you preserve historical memories intact and present them in a new form
• Use professional scanning hardware and software to perform high-resolution scanning
• Use professional photo editing software to perform AI or add manual repair
• Professional metal photo output
• Purchase high-resolution digital images to digitize your precious old photos

After we further adjust the color shift and reduce the effect of fading, the digital image is printed into a metallic photo so that precious memories can be preserved for a long time!

Details of the old photo after the reproduction

Size details:
Photo size: 29.2 x 25.5cm (center of picture)
Metal frame: 31.4 x 27.4cm (outer dimensions)

Metal Photo: The four corners of the work will have a 1/8" radius
Frame name : Golden "double-layer three-dimensional aluminum frame"
Metal frame: side height 4cm, front width 0.6cm
The artwork is suspended: about 0.5cm away from the frame, and the height of the suspension is about 0.4cm lower than the frame.
The back of the aluminum frame: You can see that there is a double-layer frame, and the inner frame is silver