5 Best Apps to Restore Old Photos in 2026 (Ranked and Compared)

How We Picked These Apps

There are dozens of apps that promise to bring old photos back to life, but only a handful handle the hard cases: deep scratches, torn corners, heavy fading, and soft, low-detail faces. For this roundup we focused on tools that repair damage convincingly, keep faces looking like real people instead of AI renders, and export at a resolution you can actually print.

• Restoration quality: scratch removal, tear repair, and face recovery on real damaged scans.
• Ease of use: how fast you get from a photo of a print to a shareable result.
• Colorization: how natural black-and-white photos look after adding color.
• Export quality: full-resolution output suitable for printing and archiving.

1. Restore Old Photos AI – Renew (Best Overall)

Restore Old Photos AI – Renew is built for exactly one job: taking damaged, faded, or black-and-white prints and turning them into clean, share-ready images. Point your iPhone at an old print or import a scan, and the app handles scratch removal, face enhancement, colorization, and contrast recovery in a single flow.

• Best for: family archives, damaged prints, and black-and-white colorization on iPhone.
• Standout feature: one-tap restoration that combines damage repair, face recovery, and color in one pass.
• Why it wins: it is focused. There is no filter clutter or social feed — just restoration, done quickly and at high quality.

You can download Renew on the App Store and restore your first photos in minutes.

2. Remini

Remini made AI face enhancement mainstream, and it is still one of the strongest tools for sharpening blurry or low-resolution portraits. Its enhancement models are aggressive, which produces striking results on soft faces but can occasionally make skin look overly smooth or slightly synthetic.

• Best for: sharpening blurry faces and upscaling low-resolution shots.
• Watch out for: over-processed skin on already-decent photos, and a subscription push inside the app.

3. MyHeritage

MyHeritage approaches restoration from the genealogy side. Its photo tools — enhancement, colorization, and repair — are designed for family historians, and they integrate with family trees and historical records. The colorization model is well regarded and produces era-appropriate tones.

• Best for: genealogy projects where photos connect to family history research.
• Watch out for: the photo tools sit inside a much larger subscription service, which is more than most people need for simple restoration.

4. PhotoScan by Google

PhotoScan is not a restoration app, but it deserves a place on this list because restoration starts with a good capture. It removes glare by combining multiple shots of a print, straightens the result, and produces a clean digital copy you can then restore in a dedicated app.

• Best for: digitizing framed or glossy prints without glare — for free.
• Watch out for: it only scans. Pair it with a restoration app like Renew for the actual repair work.

5. Pixelup

Pixelup covers the standard restoration checklist — enhancement, colorization, and animation-style effects — with a simple interface. It is a reasonable all-rounder, though its results on heavily damaged prints tend to lag behind the top picks, and many features sit behind a subscription.

• Best for: casual users who want simple enhancement with a few fun extras.
• Watch out for: weaker performance on deep scratches and tears compared with dedicated restoration tools.

Which App Should You Choose?

• Damaged family prints, scratches, or fading: Restore Old Photos AI – Renew.
• Blurry modern photos and soft portraits: Remini.
• Genealogy and family-tree projects: MyHeritage.
• Digitizing prints before restoring: PhotoScan by Google.
• Light enhancement with extras: Pixelup.

For most people restoring a family archive on iPhone, the fastest path to a great result is Renew: scan or photograph the print, run one restoration pass, and export a full-resolution master you can print and share.