How much does it cost?

16 credits per photo, charged when you submit; colour and repair are one pass and one price. New accounts get a gift of credits on sign-up, enough to try it on a photo that matters before deciding anything. Failed photos are refunded automatically.

Which files can I upload — does it have to be a scan?

JPEG, PNG, WEBP, up to 15 MB each. JPG and JPEG are the same format, so files ending in either extension work. A flatbed scan is best, but a phone photo of the print works too — shoot it flat, under even light, without a flash bouncing off the surface.

What size will the result be?

A colour PNG at about 1K — roughly 1,024 pixels on the long side, with the original proportions kept. That is the right size for a screen, a shared album, a slideshow and a standard print. If you need it larger — a framed enlargement, a wall print — run the result through the Image Upscaler afterwards and take it to 4K.

How does the AI know what colour things were?

The AI reads the picture. Skin, sky, foliage, brick, wood, water and everyday fabrics have colours that follow from what they are, and those come out naturally. What it cannot know is the specific — the exact shade of a dress, the colour of a car, whether the front door was green or blue. There it makes a plausible choice consistent with the rest of the scene, so expect a convincing photograph rather than a record of the real colours. To keep a photo black and white, switch Colorize off and it comes back repaired but uncoloured.

Will the people still look like themselves?

That is what the tool is built around: faces are repaired and coloured, not replaced. The framing, the pose, the expression and everyone in the picture stay as they were; the tool brings back the detail that dust, fading and grain had hidden and gives skin, hair and eyes their natural tones. Where a scratch runs straight across an eye or a fold has taken a mouth, the repair fills in from the surrounding face — nearly always right, and worth a close look on the slider before you print.

Can I colorize several photos at once?

Yes — up to 10 photos per batch, which suits an album or a box of prints scanned in one sitting. Each photo is processed on its own and appears as its own result, so one badly damaged print never holds up the rest. Finished results can be downloaded together as a zip.

Are my photos private, and how long are they kept?

Uploads and results live in your workspace and no other user can browse them; nothing you run here is published. Results stay downloadable for 7 days on the free plan and up to 365 days on the highest subscription tier, after which they are deleted from storage.

What happens if a photo fails?

The credits are returned to your balance automatically and the result card says so. You can retry the same photo from the result card without uploading it again.

Can I use the results commercially?

Yes. The coloured files are yours — for prints, a memorial slideshow, a family history book, a local-history publication or a client project. The one thing we cannot grant is rights to the original photograph — if it was taken by a studio or belongs to an archive, adding colour does not change that.

Colorize an old photo — colour added, damage repaired

Upload a black-and-white print and get back a colour PNG with natural skin, sky and fabric tones — and the scratches, creases and fading repaired in the same pass. Up to 10 photos per batch.

Drop images here, paste from clipboard, or select files

JPEG · PNG · WEBP · up to 15 MB each · up to 10 per batch

Pro16 cr / imageColorize

Colourised black-and-white photos

Every result below came straight out of the tool, with no touch-ups. Drag the handle to compare the colours and faces up close, then drop your own scan at the top of the page.

Before — Family group on the porch
Natural skin tones, each person in their own colour of clothing

After — Family group on the porch
Natural skin tones, each person in their own colour of clothing

What this photo colorizer does

It takes a black-and-white photo — a scan of a print, a page from an album, a photo of a photo — and returns it in colour: skin that looks like skin, a sky that is blue, brick that is brick, a wool coat that reads as wool. Colour is inferred from what is in the picture, so it lands naturally rather than as a tint. The repair — scratches, dust, creases, stains, grain — is done in the same pass as the colour, and the picture stays the picture: same framing, same people, same expressions. Up to 10 photos per batch.

Colour adds meaning to the photos that matter: a great-grandparent's wedding, the street outside the house the family left, a school class, the town's main street in a year before anyone there was born. This page adds colour; if you would rather keep a photo black and white and only repair the damage, the Photo Restorer does that with the same tool. For a photo that is already in good shape and simply too small or too soft, the Image Upscaler takes it up to 4K.

A colourised photo is usually a first step, not the last: open it in the AI Image Generator to make a print-ready version or set it in a scene, or use it as the opening frame of a short family clip in AI Video. If scan resolution, film grain or colour cast are unfamiliar words, the glossary explains each one.

Photo Colorizer specifications

Photo Colorizer specifications
Parameter	Value	Notes
Input	JPEG, PNG, WEBP · up to 15 MB each	Scans and phone photos of prints — .jpg and .jpeg are both fine.
Output	Colour PNG · about 1K (≈1,024 px long side)	Colour PNG at about 1K — roughly 1,024 pixels on the long side, proportions kept. Sized for screens, shared albums and standard prints.
Batch size	Up to 10 photos per run	Photos are processed in parallel; each one is billed and refunded on its own.
Credits	16 credits per photo · no daily cap	Charged per photo when you submit — colour and repair are one pass and one price, with no daily cap.
Result retention	7–365 days by plan	Results stay downloadable for the retention window of your plan, then are deleted from storage.
On failure	Credits refunded automatically	Failed photos are refunded automatically.

How to colorize an old photo

Three steps from a black-and-white scan to a colour PNG

Add your scans

Scan the print, or photograph it flat under even light, then drag the files in, paste from the clipboard or click anywhere on the drop area — up to 10 per batch.

Decide whether to add colour

Colour is what this page is for, and the repair — scratches, creases, stains, fading, grain, faces — is done in the same pass. If you want to keep a photo black and white, switch Colorize off for that batch and the result comes back repaired but uncoloured.

Download the PNG

Every result comes as a before/after slider so you can check the colours and faces up close. The result can also go on to AI Image or AI Video without leaving the site.

Photo Colorizer — FAQ

Credits, how colours are chosen, faces, scanning

See it in colour

Batch as many photos as you like.

Colorize a photo See pricing