Best AI photo restoration apps in 2026: restore, colorize and animate old photos

What to look for in a photo restoration app

Restoration sounds simple, but tools differ a lot in what they do to a face. The best ones remove damage and leave the person alone; others sharpen so aggressively that skin turns plastic and a grandmother comes out twenty years younger. Before choosing, decide what you need: repairing damage, adding color, a sharper face for printing, or a moving portrait for a tribute.

Disclosure: Dromana is our own product and is included below. We've described each tool by what it's built for, not by a test score, so you can pick the one that fits your box of photos.

The best AI photo restoration apps

• MyHeritage: a genealogy service with photo enhancing, colorizing and animation tools, built around family trees and historical records. Best if you're already researching your family history there.
• Remini: a phone app focused on enhancing faces in blurry and low-resolution photos, including old ones. Strong on sharpness; check that faces still look like the person.
• Picsart: a full mobile and web editor with AI enhance and retouch tools, useful if you also want to crop, add text or make collages.
• Fotor: an online editor with one-click restore and colorize tools alongside general editing.
• Canva and Adobe Express: design tools that are best for what comes after restoration, such as laying out photos into cards, memorial programs and slideshows.
• Dromana: restores scratches, creases, stains and fading, colorizes black and white, and turns the restored photo into a gentle 5-second moving portrait, with prompts written to keep every face unchanged.

Restoring, colorizing and animating: which tool for which job

For damaged prints, look for a tool that removes creases and stains without smoothing faces; that's what Dromana's restore tool is written for, and you can add specifics like “repair the torn corner” in plain words. For black-and-white photos, colorizers differ mostly in skin tones; generate a few versions and choose the most natural.

For moving portraits, the question is how much motion. Gentle blinking and breathing with a still camera feels like a memory; big gestures can feel unsettling for people we knew. Bring old photos to life defaults to the gentle kind, and our guide to animating photos of loved ones explains why.

How to test any restoration app

1. Step 1

   Pick three test photos

   One creased color print, one black-and-white portrait and one group photo with small faces.

2. Step 2

   Run each through the free tier

   Most apps let you try a few photos before paying. Dromana gives new accounts 70 free credits with no card.

3. Step 3

   Compare faces with the originals

   Look at eyes, teeth, glasses and hairlines. Show the results to someone who knew the people.

4. Step 4

   Check the export

   Resolution for printing, watermarks, and whether you can delete your uploads.

Privacy: who sees your family photos

• Read whether the service uses your uploads to train its models, and whether you can opt out.
• Check how long photos are stored and how to delete them.
• Be careful with photos of living relatives, especially children; ask before uploading.
• Prefer services that keep your uploads private to your account by default.

Dromana keeps your uploads private to your account and lets you delete them; our privacy policy explains how long files are kept.

Cost: subscriptions versus credits

Restoration apps mostly charge either a subscription, often weekly on mobile, or by credits. If you have one box of photos to restore, avoid weekly subscriptions that renew quietly; a credit pack or a single month is usually cheaper. On Dromana, a restoration uses 20 credits and a 5-second moving portrait 70; Starter's first month is $4.99 if you've never paid, and plans remove the watermark for printing.