5+ best apps & software to restore old photos
- If you want to preserve a historical heritage or restore a precious family photo, you will need photo restoration software.
- Thanks to recent developments, there are a lot of automatic tools that can bring your old photos back to life.
- Our list includes some options that can even clear elements or improve their composition.
Photographs are keepsakes of our treasured past, as they remind us of people whose memory we cherish as well as our own memories with loved ones.
With today’s technology, storing and recovering photos is easier than ever before. However, the same cannot be said about photos captured before the digital age.
Most people still keep those old photos somewhere in the cupboard or in old albums. This makes them susceptible to tear, fade, creases, or stains.
How can software help me restore old photos?
If your old photos have incurred any form of damages that causes them to fade, there is a chance to restore their glory. This is where black and white photo restoration software comes into play.
Such tools help to bring back to life photos by removing scratches, stains and making them look new again.
Photo restoration software can also rejuvenate photos by correcting skin defects or by improving appearance.
In this article, we are going to discuss the various utilities that you can use to restore glory to your old photos.
What is the best software for restoring old photos?
inPixio Photo Studio Pro 11
inPixio Photo Studio Pro 11 is an ideal software if you want to restore your old photos, especially if you are not a professional. That is because inPixio is extremely easy to use by everyone.
The scratches and cracks from your photos will disappear like magic by using the Erase function. And all you need to do is to outline the damaged parts of your photos.
This solution will also work like a charm if you want to remove some objects, persons, or watermarks from photos.
And that is not all – you may create extremely clean cutouts and unique compositions with just a few clicks.
Let’s see some of inPixio Photo Studio Pro 11 main features:
- Extremely easy to use, featuring a friendly user interface
- Interactive introduction exercises that will help you kick off faster
- Easy objects and watermark removal
- Intuitive photo retouching and improving
- Quick wrinkle removal
Photo Studio Pro 11
This amazing tool from inPixio can help you easily bring back your old photos to life.
PhotoGlory
If you want a powerful photo restoration software tool, PhotoGlory is worthy of your full attention. There is no other option on the market to remove scratches, tears, and stains so easily.
Moreover, when your mission is to bring life to old photos, another useful trick is to colorize them. Don’t even think that you need to find a different tool for that.
A click is all that stays between you and achieving this goal as well. You can even modify the colors manually in order to make the results more personal.
Thanks to the latest built-in technology, all your edits will be precise, delicate, and will look natural even with automatic effects.
Here’s a comprehensive review from a user:
Wanted to fix my dad’s picture from the Gulf war (him and his army buddies). The picture’s all cracked and faded. Chose PhotoGlory and was glad I did. It brought back all the colors, made the shot a lot clearer. Besides, got rid of those rips and creases really quick. I totally recommend it.
Key features that PhotoGlory brings to the table:
- Restores colors to faded photos
- Ads stylized text labels and date stamps
- Removes scratches, stains, and creases
- Assembles photos ripped in half
- Turns a negative picture into positive
PhotoGlory
Give a new life to your old photos with PhotoGlory! Your loved ones will most likely be surprised!
Adobe Photoshop CC
Adobe Photoshop CC is a well-acknowledged photo editing software that is used both by beginners and professionals.
It has all the necessary features to make edits on actual images or graphics as well as create new ones from scratch. Besides that, it comes with thousands of plugins and pre-made templates you can freely use.
In our opinion, it is one of the most suitable software tools to restore old images that are damaged by either scratch, color degradation, or come with the well-known sepia hue.
The main reason why we chose Photoshop CC as the best option is the ability to work on multiple layers, adjust highlights, shadows, and change RGB colors down to the pixel level.
Apart from restoring old images, you can also work on improving the quality of images by changing skin tone, applying filters, or removing backgrounds.
For a beginner, the process of restoring an old photo is often challenging. However, there are plenty of step-by-step guides from Adobe that will help you get started.
Let’s quickly look at its key features:
- Professional photo editing toolkit (crop, retouch, restore, repair, and combine photos)
- Unlimited layers, masks, and effects for stunning imagery
- Cross-platform compatibility and full support for stylus or touch technology
- Your projects are automatically saved to the cloud
- Interactive in-app tutorials and inspirational content available
Adobe Photoshop
Restore your most precious memories to their former glory with this great photo restoration software!
PhotoWorks
Another great entry in our list of reliable photo restoring tools is PhotoWorks, a user-friendly software solution that will soon become your most trusted photo assistant.
The tool comes with AI features that automatically detect any type of picture so that it can apply special enhancements based on that.
You will benefit from a lot of image enhancement tools that will help you express your imagination in getting the perfect shot.
However, PhotoWorks is especially good in photo restoration. Take for instance the Healing Brush that you will find in the Retouch tab. This will just help you get rid of the inherent small cracks from old photos.
If you choose the right brush size, they will disappear like magic. And after you adjust the Feather and Opacity settings for softening the areas that have been touched and the rest of the photo, you are done.
Of course, you can still work on the details and enliven the colors or even replace the background if it’s too damaged, but everything is extremely easy to work with.
The software is not free, but you will still get the chance to try it for free before buying and there’s a great chance that you’ll decide to continue using it.
Let’s quickly look at its key features:
- Impressive AI features
- Remove glare and smooth textural inconsistencies with Portrait Magic
- Photo quality enhancements
- Work with each color on the photo one by one
- One-click effects
PhotoWorks
Revive your old photos with this great tool that helps you preserve your memories and heritage.
Corel Paintshop Pro
With an interface that will satisfy both beginners and advanced users, Corel Paintshop Pro is another great tool to restore photos.
Corel has grown a lot in the last few years and the quality of Paintshop Pro stands behind the company’s name.
Fade correction is one of the most utilized tools due to the fact that the main problem when it comes to old photos is discoloration.
With it, you can adjust the percentage of tint and fade to your liking without the need for complex photo editing skills.
One of the other advantages it has is the scratch remover that can easily handle scratches on damaged photos. It allows you to select a damaged area and then apply a layer of paint over it.
With the Cutout Lab feature, you can easily remove the background of the photo while preserving the quality on the edges.
Let’s quickly look at its key features:
- Customizable interface
- Stylus and tablet support
- 360 photo editing
- HDR photo manipulation
- Creative content integration
Corel PaintShop Pro
Breathe life into your old photos and enjoy forever-lasting memories with Corel PaintShop Pro right away!
AKVIS Retoucher
AKVIS Retoucher is a photo restoration software that helps to remove dust, scratches, and other unwanted objects as well as restructure missing parts.
By removing unwanted details, this software helps to improve photo composition. Since it’s a Photoshop-compatible plugin, it works well with a selection of your Photoshop image editors.
Besides the plugin version, AKVIS Retoucher is available as an independent program (standalone) with a trial version.
There is no registration required to try all the features of the software during the free 10-day evaluation period.
Let’s quickly look at its key features:
- Intelligent cloning techniques to cover the selected areas and yields amazing results at removing photo defects
- Resolves the problem of extending the borders of a layout that does not have space for cropping
- Photo restoration tools
- It also removes the date stamp, distracting details, and increases the image canvas using the image patterns to fill blank areas
Akvis Retoucher
AKVIS Retoucher will help you give a new life to your old, dusty photos by also improving their composition.
SoftOrbits Photo Retoucher
SoftOrbits Photo Retoucher enables you to clean digital photos, removing any imperfections to create a perfect picture.
So, whether it’s a wandering tourist, a breakup, or an inconveniently placed animal, SoftOrbits helps you remove them all.
This program not only allows you to remove minor imperfections such as scratches but also causes major objects or people to vanish.
This is made possible by the content-filling algorithms that let you reproduce the original background behind the erased objects.
You can also use SoftOrbits to remove scratches, cracks, dust, stains, and other imperfections.
Let’s review some of its best features:
- Remove unwanted elements from the image
- Eliminate scratches, cracks, dust, stains, and more
- Content filling algorithms to fill out any voids
- Great set of tools
- Intuitive interface
SoftOrbits Photo Retoucher
SoftOrbits Photo Retoucher can help you not only to fix your old photos but also to quickly remove objects from them.
Luminar
Restoring old photos is no easy task… or is it? It can be with the right tools and Luminar delivers everything you need to remove noise, retouch black and white pictures and adjust tones, clarity, and contrast.
Using AI-based image processing and powerful noise reduction tools, Luminar helps you bring your old photos back to their sharp and crisp state.
This software comes with a full set of old photo restoration tools to remove stains, scratches, splotches, and dirt.
Let’s quickly look at its key features:
- Automated AI-based photo editor
- Professional-grade noise reduction tools
- Erase tool to cover problematic areas with similar-looking textures
- Enhance faded photos by fixing contrast, tone, exposure, and color
- Color Temperature filter to cool down the temperature of your photos
Fotor
While it is not as features-rich a software like Adobe Photoshop, for instance, Fotor does a pretty good job at photo restoration.
What’s more, it delivers a complete photo editing toolkit for free.
Fotor’s main focuses are on color correction and RAW image editing, which makes it perfectly suited to adjust balance and enhance faded colors and shades in old photos.
Let’s quickly look at its key features:
- Supports all popular graphic file formats
- In-built photo restoration feature
- Photo editing tools (crop, add or remove objects, bur, adjust contrast, correct color and shade, and more)
- Intuitive, easy to use interface
Seeing old photos that hold precious memories shrouded in scratches and stains can be heartbreaking. However, with the latest technology in photo restoration software, you can relax knowing that all blemishes will be handled perfectly well.
We’ve listed some of the renowned old photo restoration software that can assist you in cleaning up all your old photos.
However, don’t hesitate to take a look at our free photo editing apps list and you will also find more interesting tools to try.
We hope you found this article useful and informative. Feel free to comment and share.
Frequently Asked Questions
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We recommend Adobe Photoshop CC as the best overall choice for restoring old photos as well as for other photo editing needs.
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Yes, damaged photos can be repaired with the right tools, although the restoration degree depends on many factors such as color degradation level, scratches, and so on.
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Yes, fade can be adjusted with professional photo editing software.
