Photo

Photo Colorizer

Add believable colour back to black-and-white family memories.

Start nowSee examples
  • 22 credits per run
  • Try 1 time a day without signing up
  • Failed runs are refunded
  • Results kept for 30 days

Try it with an example

Pick one on the next page and run it, or bring your own.

Turn a black-and-white or faded family photograph into a colour one — colours chosen for the era the photo actually comes from. Upload the print or a scan, and AI colourisation adds natural, believable colour: warm skin tones, period clothing colours, the right shade of sky. Faces, expressions and the composition stay as they were; colourisation re-renders fine detail, so very soft prints come back a little smoother. Drag the slider to compare with the original, then download the colourised photo.

How the colours are chosen

Before colourising, the tool reads the photo like an archivist would: the clothing and hairstyles, uniforms, cars, props and film stock all date the picture to a period. The palette then follows that period — muted woollens and khaki for a 1910s portrait, restrained wartime tones for the 1940s, Kodachrome-style pastels for the fifties and sixties, warm earth tones for the seventies. That is why the results look like colour photos of their time instead of a modern filter.

How it works

  1. Scan the print or photograph it flat, without glare.
  2. Press the button — one natural look, no options to wrestle with.
  3. Compare before and after, then download the colourised image.

What it won't do

The colour is an AI edit, and an honest one: it stays faithful to the original. It does not beautify, reshape or slim anyone and never swaps faces. It re-renders fine detail rather than repairing it — very soft prints come back a little smoother — and it does not invent objects, lettering or details the print never captured. Where the original gives no colour clue, the tool picks the most plausible period colour rather than a vivid guess — so treat the result as a believable reconstruction, not a record of the original colours.

When it says no

Upload something that isn't a photograph — a document, a screenshot, a plain colour swatch — and the run stops before colourising with nothing charged. Softly blurred prints are colourised as long as the scene is still readable; the colour version will look smoother than the soft original, since colourisation re-renders detail plausibly rather than keeping the print's softness. For torn, scratched or badly faded prints, run the photo through Photo Restore first.

Questions

Are the colours the real original colours?

No — and no honest colourisation can promise that. Black-and-white film did not record colour, so the tool reconstructs plausible colours from the scene and the period the photo dates from. It aims for believable, not historical truth. The result is an AI-edited image.

What happens if I upload something that isn't a photo?

Documents, screenshots, drawings and blank or solid-colour images are refused before colourising: you see an explanation and nothing is charged. Faded, stained or softly blurred photographs are still accepted — the colour version will look smoother than a very soft original, since colourisation re-renders detail plausibly rather than keeping the print's softness.

Does it change the people in the photo?

No. Colour is the only intended change. Faces, expressions and poses stay as the original captured them — no beautifying, no reshaping, no face swaps. Fine detail is re-rendered rather than repaired, so very soft prints come back a little smoother (as noted above). The tool also does no face recognition of any kind; it only shifts colour.

What happens to my photos?

Your upload and the colourised result are kept for 30 days so you can download and compare them, then deleted automatically. Photos are never used to train models.

How much does it cost?

22 credits per colourised photo. You can try it once a day without an account.

My print is torn and scratched — should I colourise it first?

Colour first is fine for light wear. For torn, scratched or badly faded prints, restore first (Photo Restore) and colourise the restored copy — colourisation does not repair damage, it only adds colour.

Ready to try Photo Colorizer?

Start now