How to restore old photos: a step-by-step workflow

Updated 13 October 2026 · UnBlur AI guides · 12 sources

AI results are estimates. AI restoration predicts what a sharper or repaired photo might look like. It can invent or change details, especially faces, text and fine patterns. Always keep your original, and do not use an AI-restored image as evidence or to identify someone.

Key points

Start with the physical print: clean hands, hold it by the edges, and never use tape or glue on it. ¹
Scan or photograph it first and keep that untouched file as your master; do all repairs on copies. ^2,3
Fix tone and color before small damage: levels, white balance and exposure solve most fading. ^4,5
AI restoration predicts what was there. Compare it with the original, label it, and keep the original print. ^6,3

Restoring an old photo is really two jobs: protecting the print you have, and making a better digital copy of it. The safest order is always the same. Handle the original carefully, digitize it once at good quality, save that scan untouched, then repair copies of the scan. Nothing in the digital steps should ever happen to the print itself.

This guide walks through the whole workflow. Each step links to a more detailed guide if you want to go deeper.

Step 1: Handle and inspect the original

The Library of Congress recommends handling photographs with clean hands or clean nitrile gloves, holding them by the edges, and keeping food and drink away from the work area ¹. The U.S. National Archives adds that fingerprints can leave permanent stains on photographs and negatives ⁷.

Loose dust: use an air bulb, not canned air. Even soft brushes can scratch a print ¹.
No tape, glue or sticky notes. Do not repair tears with self-adhesive tape, and do not use paper clips or rubber bands ¹.
Labels: if you must write on a print, use a soft graphite pencil on the back, near the edge ¹.
Serious damage: prints that are wet, moldy, stuck together or in pieces are a job for a conservator before anyone scans them ⁸. See repairing torn, scratched or water-damaged photos.

Step 2: Digitize it once, well

A flatbed scanner gives the most control. The Library of Congress suggests 300 to 400 dpi for ordinary snapshot prints and more for very small prints ⁹, and the federal digitization guidelines use 400 ppi for good-quality and 600 ppi for top-tier scans of prints and photographs ². Clean the scanner glass first, because dust on the glass ends up in the file ². Full details are in how to scan old photos properly.

No scanner? A phone can work if you control light, glare and angle; see how to scan photos with your iPhone.

Step 3: Save an untouched master

Archival guidelines say dust removal, color correction and tone restoration should not be applied to master images ². For family use, the practical version is simple: save the raw scan as a TIFF, name it clearly, and make every edit on a copy ⁹. If a repair goes wrong, or a better tool appears in ten years, you can start again from the master.

Step 4: Fix tone and color

Most old prints look worse than they are because they have faded or shifted color. Tone and color fixes are quick and do not invent anything:

Set the black and white points with a levels tool so the darkest area is close to black and the lightest close to white ⁴.
Use white balance on something that should be neutral, such as a white shirt or gray pavement, to remove a color cast ⁵.
Adjust exposure and contrast gently. On iPhone, open the photo, tap Edit, tap Adjust and swipe through settings such as Exposure, Brilliance and Highlights ¹⁰.

Color prints often drift toward magenta or red as their cyan and yellow dyes fade ¹¹. The guide to restoring faded or discolored photos covers this in detail.

Step 5: Repair dust, scratches and small damage

For small spots, a retouching tool is enough. On supported iPhones, the Photos Clean Up tool lets you tap, brush or circle something to remove it ¹². Desktop editors offer healing and clone brushes that copy nearby texture over a scratch. Work at 100 percent zoom and keep it subtle: a few remaining specks look more natural than a waxy, over-cleaned face.

Very soft or blurry old photos are a separate problem; see how to fix blurry old photos.

Step 6 (optional): Try an AI restoration

AI restoration tools can fix several problems at once: fading, scratches, creases and softness. They work by predicting what a clean version of the photo probably looked like, and research on image restoration shows there is a built-in tradeoff between results that look realistic and results that stay faithful to the input ⁶. In practice that means a restored face can come out subtly different.

In the UnBlur iPhone app, the Restore Old Photo mode is meant for this: you pick your scan from the photo library, and after about 30 to 60 seconds you can compare the original with the result before saving it. The app instructs the model to keep each person's face, expression and pose, but that is an instruction to a generative model, not a promise. The standard result is about one megapixel, so keep your own full-resolution scan as the master. See what AI photo restoration can and can't do.

Step 7: Save, label and back up

Name files with letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores, add who, what, where and when, and follow the 3-2-1 rule: three copies, on two kinds of media, one of them off-site ³. Keep the original print too, because digital files have their own risks ³.

The 3-2-1 rule recommended by the U.S. National Archives: three copies, on two different kinds of media, with one copy kept off-site.

Then put the print somewhere cool, dry and dark; how to store and care for old photos explains why.

Common questions

Should I restore the original print or a copy?

Restore a digital copy. Physical treatment of a valuable print is a job for a photograph conservator, and archives keep the untouched scan as the master and edit copies. ^8,2

Can I throw away the print after scanning it?

The National Archives advises keeping originals after digitizing, because digital files can be lost too. ³

Is an AI-restored photo the real photo?

No. It is an estimate of what the photo might have looked like. Keep the original and label restored versions when you share them. ⁶

Sources and further reading

Library of Congress, Preservation. Care, Handling, and Storage of Photographs. loc.gov
Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative. Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials, 3rd edition (2023), section 3.8 Prints and Photographs (PDF). digitizationguidelines.gov
U.S. National Archives. Digitizing Family Papers and Photographs. archives.gov
Apple Support. Apply levels adjustments to a photo or video on Mac. support.apple.com
Apple Support. Adjust white balance in Photos on Mac. support.apple.com
Blau Y, Michaeli T. The perception-distortion tradeoff. IEEE CVPR. 2018. arxiv.org
U.S. National Archives. Tips for Handling Family Papers and Photographs. archives.gov
U.S. National Archives. Repairing Existing Damage to Family Papers and Photographs. archives.gov
Library of Congress, The Signal blog. Personal Digital Archiving: The Basics of Scanning (2014). blogs.loc.gov
Apple Support. Edit photos and videos on iPhone. support.apple.com
Hagley Museum and Library. Conservation: The Case of the Mysterious Red Spots - Deterioration of Chromogenic Color Prints. hagley.org
Apple Support. Clean up, extend, and reframe photos on iPhone. support.apple.com