How to restore old family photos

Handle and store the original safely first

Before you touch a digital repair tool, protect the physical print. Old photographic paper can be brittle and the emulsion surface is easily marked, so handle prints by the edges and consider wearing clean cotton gloves if you're working with a large batch. Never use sticky tape to repair a tear or hold a photo in place; it discolours over time and can pull off the surface when removed.

• Store prints flat or upright in acid-free, archival photo sleeves or boxes
• Keep them in a cool, dry place, away from direct sunlight and damp
• Avoid basements and lofts, where temperature and humidity swing the most
• Label albums and boxes so prints aren't repeatedly handled to find one photo

Scanning vs photographing the print

Using a flatbed scanner

A flatbed scanner gives the most consistent results. For small or standard prints, scan at 600 dpi so you have enough resolution to repair detail and print an enlargement later. Clean the glass first, place the print flat with no dust between it and the glass, and switch off any automatic colour correction so you capture the print as it actually looks.

Photographing a print with your phone

If you don't have a scanner, a phone camera can work well with a bit of care. Photograph in even daylight rather than under artificial light or with flash, which tends to create a glare spot in the middle of the print. Hold the phone square-on to the photo, not at an angle, to avoid distortion, and check the preview for reflections before you shoot, tilting the print slightly if needed to move a glare spot out of frame.

What digital repair can realistically fix

Digital restoration handles most common problems well, but it's worth knowing what's realistic before you start.

• Dust and small scratches: generally fixed convincingly
• Creases and tears: repaired well if the surrounding detail is intact
• Fading and yellowing: contrast and tone can usually be brought back close to original
• Colour casts (a photo gone orange or green with age): correctable in most cases
• Soft focus or heavy blur: improvable, but a genuinely out-of-focus original will never become sharp

Manual retouching vs AI restoration

Manual retouching in an editor like Photoshop gives you precise control: you clone out a scratch, heal a crease, and dodge and burn faded areas by hand. It's a real skill and can take anywhere from twenty minutes for a straightforward scratch to several hours for a badly damaged print, especially where a face has to be carefully reconstructed from the surrounding pixels.

AI restoration tools shortcut this by recognising common types of photo damage and repairing them automatically, which is far faster for the majority of prints. Pitanga Labs' Old Photo Restoration tool works this way for 3 credits, repairing scratches, creases and fading while aiming to keep the people in the photo looking like themselves rather than reinvented.

Keep identities and the era intact

The right order: restore, then colourise, then animate

If you're planning to do more than one thing to a photo, order matters. Restore the image first so scratches, creases and fading are fixed on the plain black and white or original colour version. Add colour next, since colourisation works from clean tonal detail and any leftover damage will otherwise carry through into the coloured result. Animation, if you want it, should always come last, once you're happy with both the repair and the colour.

1. 1.Restore: fix scratches, creases, fading and colour casts
2. 2.Colourise: add colour to a black and white photo, if wanted
3. 3.Animate: add subtle motion to the finished portrait, if wanted

Reprinting and backing up

Once you have a restored digital file, get a proper photographic print made rather than relying on a home inkjet for anything you want to last, and store the new print the same way you should have stored the old one. Just as importantly, back up the digital file in at least two separate places: a cloud storage account and an external drive is a sensible minimum, since a restored file that only exists on one device is one accident away from being lost again.

Batches and albums: working through many photos at once

If you're tackling a whole box or album rather than a single print, it helps to work in small batches and keep a simple naming system, such as a date range or family surname plus a number, so you can find a specific photo again later without opening every file. Scan or photograph everything in one sitting where you can, since setting up consistent lighting and camera position each time is the fiddliest part to repeat.