How to prepare an old photo for AI restoration
Scan or photograph a print without glare, keep the original, choose a restoration mode and check facial likeness before printing.
FotoLab editorial team · · How we check results
1. Keep the source unchanged
Save a separate copy before cropping, compressing or applying filters. Keep the original scan at its full resolution. Send a working copy to restoration, so you can compare or try different settings later.
Avoid repeated JPEG saving, sharpening and strong contrast filters before restoration. These can turn grain into artifacts or erase faint details that are still useful.
2. Use a scan or a carefully taken photograph
Place the print flat. For a phone photograph, hold the camera parallel to the print and use soft, even light from the sides. Turn off the flash, check for glare, and keep fingers and shadows outside the image.
Check the scan or photo at full size: eyes should be in focus, and edges should be sharp rather than doubled by camera shake. If you can read more detail on the paper than in the file, take another photograph.
3. Crop carefully and correct the orientation
Rotate the image upright and remove unrelated background around the print. Keep the complete face, hair and clothing. Do not crop off damaged edges if you want to assess how the service reconstructs them.
If several people appear in the image, keep a full-frame copy and prepare separate crops only when individual faces are too small. Increasing pixel dimensions alone does not recover missing information.
4. Choose restoration or colorization
Use black-and-white restoration when you want to keep a monochrome look. Colorization estimates colors: it cannot prove the historical color of eyes, fabric or surroundings. Check the selected mode and credit cost in the form before starting.
Try one photo before processing an entire archive. Each new run uses credits. The result depends on damage, the surviving detail and the chosen settings; there is no guarantee that missing features will be reconstructed accurately.
5. Check the result against the source
Compare the eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, hairstyle, jewelry and clothing. Then check lettering and small objects. At 100% scale, look for overly smooth skin, invented patterns, repeated textures or an altered expression.
If likeness matters more than a clean surface, keep the less aggressive version or retain the original. Save both files with separate names. A restored photo is an interpretation of the available information, not proof of the original appearance.
See a documented example
Our portrait example shows a real restoration run on a synthetic photo. Compare scratches, facial detail, paper edges and the trial watermark. Open the before-and-after example.