If you’re fortunate enough to have older photos in your possession, then you more than likely have a number of photos that are damaged or blurry. Perhaps you’d like to display these photos in a Gallery Wall (1), but you don’t want to display a damaged photo.

I’ve had a number of photos restored, and I can tell you that as good as AI is getting, it’s not there yet when it comes to photo restoration. There are a number of free sites on the internet that use the click of a button to fix pictures, but like many things in life, you get what you pay for.

Here is the original photo of my 2x great-grandmother. It has a number of scratches on it.

Here is the photo repaired using MyHeritage’s AI. Some of the scratches have been fixed, but there is still visible damage.

Here is the photo repaired by a technician from Onlinephotofix.com (4)

I don’t want to knock MyHeritage, since there are some fun things you can do with their AI, like colorizing. Their photo animation (6) is also pretty neat, if a little creepy!

Blurry photos in particular, like this one of my grandfather as a baby, are very difficult to restore.

As you can see, the MyHeritage AI really didn’t do much here:

Although still not perfectly sharp, onlinephotofix managed to improve the picture:

Restoring photos can get expensive. If you have a photo in particular that you’d really like to see restored, but you don’t have the funds to do it, check out the Facebook group Random Acts of Photo Restoration (11). They are “a giving group of people who enjoy volunteering our time to help those who have photos with damage of one kind or another.”

I hope this inspires you to get your damaged but beloved photos fixed!

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1. Jennifer Wiebe, “Creating a Gallery Wall,” Jennealogie (https://maltsoda.wordpress.com/2023/04/07/creating-a-gallery-wall/ : accessed 24 April 2023).
2. Emma Barton, digital image, c. 1902, author’s files.
3. MyHeritage, restoration of Emma Barton, 2020, digital image, c. 1902, author’s files.
4. Onlinephotofix.com (https://www.onlinephotofix.com/ : accessed 24 April 2023).
5. Onlinephotofix.com, restoration of Emma Barton, 2020, digital image, c. 1902, author’s files.
6. “Deep Nostalgia,” MyHeritage (https://www.myheritage.com/deep-nostalgia : accessed 24 April 2023).
7. MyHeritage, colorization of Emma Barton, 2020, digital image, c. 1902, author’s files.
8. baby Gil, digital image, c. 1928, author’s files.
9. MyHeritage, restoration of baby Gil, 2020, digital image, c. 1928, author’s files.
10. Onlinephotofix.com, restoration of baby Gil, 2020, digital image, c. 1928, author’s files.
11. “Random Acts of Photo Restoration,” Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/916705811676270/ : accessed 24 April 2023).