Everything people ask before they upload their first old family photo to Refresh.photos.
Refresh.photos is a free AI photo restoration tool built for families with old prints. You get free credits on sign-up — enough to restore several photos with no credit card required. It uses Google's Gemini image model to repair scratches, faded color, and soft focus while preserving the original faces and expressions.
Take a clear phone photo of the print (or scan it at 300+ DPI), upload it to Refresh.photos, add a one-line description of who's in the photo and roughly when it was taken, then click Refresh. The AI returns a restored, colorized version in about 20 seconds that you can download watermark-free after sign-up.
Yes. Refresh.photos gives every new account free credits on sign-up, which is enough to restore several family photos at no cost. There is no subscription and no credit card required to try it. Additional credit packs start at $4.99 for 25 credits if you want to restore a larger album.
AI photo restoration uses an image model trained on millions of before-and-after pairs to infer what a damaged photo originally looked like. The model identifies faces, fabric, edges, and backgrounds, then rebuilds lost detail, corrects color casts, and removes scratches — without changing identity. Refresh.photos runs this on Google's Gemini image model.
A well-tuned model should not change recognizable facial identity. Refresh.photos explicitly instructs Gemini to preserve the exact facial geometry, expressions, and natural softness of the original lens. If a face is only partly damaged, the visible side is used as a reference so the reconstructed side matches the same person.
A flatbed scan at 600 DPI is ideal, but a well-lit phone photo works surprisingly well. Lay the print flat on a neutral surface, use natural daylight to avoid glare, shoot straight down, and fill the frame with the print. Refresh.photos auto-crops phone photos so you don't have to be perfect.
Yes. Refresh.photos detects black-and-white inputs automatically and colorizes them using period-appropriate tones based on the decade you provide. For best results, add any colors you remember (e.g. 'green dress, brown hair') in the details field — the model uses those as anchors instead of guessing.
Yes — turn on the 'heavy reconstruction' toggle before restoring. This tells the AI to aggressively fill in missing, torn, or stained regions by inferring what was plausibly there based on context and any details you provide. It works best when at least part of the subject is still visible as a reference.
No. You can restore one photo on Refresh.photos without creating an account — just enter an email to receive the result. Creating a free account gives you additional credits, a dashboard to re-download your restorations, and the ability to restore multiple photos in one session.
Refresh.photos uses a one-credit-per-photo model. You get free credits on sign-up, and additional credit packs start at $4.99 for 25 credits (about $0.20 per photo). There is no subscription, no hidden fees, and credits never expire. Most families restore an entire album for under $20.
Yes. Your uploaded photos are stored privately in Supabase storage with signed URLs — only you can access them. We do not sell or share your photos, do not use them to train models, and you can delete any photo from your dashboard at any time. See our privacy policy for full details.
Any photo where the subject is still mostly visible works well: faded color prints, grainy black-and-white snapshots, mild water damage, scratches, dust, and soft focus. Heavily burned, completely torn, or fully missing sections are harder and benefit from the heavy reconstruction toggle.
Free on sign-up. No subscription. No credit card.
Restore a photo — free