Restoring old family photos at home: scan, restore, share

Old prints fade, crack and collect dust. The good news: a decent scan plus AI restoration can bring most of them back.

Scanning matters more than editing. Clean the print gently, scan at 600 dpi or more, and save as PNG or high-quality JPG. A flat scan beats a phone photo, but a phone photo in even daylight is fine if you avoid glare.

Apply restoration to reduce scratches, grain and compression damage. Work one photo at a time and compare against the original with the slider — the goal is a cleaner picture, not a different one.

Keep everything organised. File restored images into rolls such as “Grandma's wedding” or “Summer 1978”, and keep them private. If you want relatives to help, a team workspace shares one library and one credit pool.

Last, back up the originals and the restored versions separately. Digital preservation is mostly about having more than one copy.