6 guides

Restoration and preservation guides

Tested, specific, and honest about what each method can and cannot fix. Written by the people who make the Photo Restore app, which means we will also tell you when a free option is good enough.

Damage and repair

Tears, water, fading and blur. What each one actually needs, and the honest limits.

How to restore a torn photograph

A torn print is one of the most fixable kinds of damage, provided you handle the original correctly first. Here is the order to do things in, from the shoebox to the finished copy.

7 min read

How to save water damaged photographs

What to do in the first 48 hours after a flood or a leak, including the freezer trick conservators use to buy time, and the four kinds of photograph you must never freeze.

9 min read

Why old photos turn orange, and whether it can be reversed

That orange cast is not dirt and it is not fading light. It is one dye layer outliving the others, which explains why the damage looks the way it does and what can honestly be recovered.

7 min read

Scanning and digitising

Getting a good copy off the paper, because every restoration is only as good as its scan.

What DPI should you scan old photos at?

The honest answer depends on the size of the print, not on a single magic number. Here is what to use for each case, and why scanning too low is the one mistake you cannot undo later.

8 min read

Preservation and storage

The unglamorous half nobody covers. How to stop losing photographs in the first place.

How to store old photographs so they stop fading

Most family photographs are not damaged by accidents. They are damaged slowly, by the room they live in. Here is what actually matters, what "acid-free" really means, and the three places in a house you must never use.

8 min read

Choosing an approach

Free tools, paid tools, apps and human restorers. When each is genuinely the right call.

Free AI photo restoration tools, an honest look at what they can and cannot do

There are dozens of free one-click restorers and several are genuinely good. Here is what they handle well, the four things they consistently fail at, and the questions worth asking before you upload a photograph of someone you loved.

9 min read