How to Restore Faded Photos and Fix Torn or Scratched Prints

The quickest way to restore faded photos is a free app with an automatic color fix: scan the print, then run White Balance in Snapseed or the Enhance suggestion in Google Photos, and see whether that alone lifts the orange or washed-out cast. Tears, water stains, mold and missing corners take more work. Below, each kind of damage is matched to a fix, from free phone tools to AI repair and paid restorers, with steps for each.

Name the damage before you pick a fix

Faded color and physical damage need different tools, so look at the print in daylight and sort out what you have. The causes of fading, yellowing, silver mirroring, mold and stuck prints below come from the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC); the rest is wear you can see.

Scan before you fix anything. The Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) sets 600 ppi for photographic prints at its highest quality level, so a 5 x 7 inch print comes out at 3000 x 4200 px. Wipe the scanner glass before each batch, because FADGI notes that dirt on the glass is copied into the file.

6 ways to restore faded photos

As of September 2026, you can fix damaged photos these six ways, from free to paid. The first three are free apps. To fix damaged photos online free in a browser, MyHeritage's free uses cover a few photos, and Adobe Firefly gives free Adobe accounts a daily allowance of typed repair requests, with downloads capped at 2000 x 2000 px.

Restore faded color with a free app (Snapseed)

Snapseed is Google's free photo editor, listed on the App Store for iOS 17 or later and also on Google Play, with no subscriptions, ads or watermarks. Its White Balance tool fixes the color cast, and Tune Image (listed as Adjust in the current App Store description) brings back the contrast that fading takes away.

1. Open the scan in Snapseed and choose White Balance from Tools.
2. Tap the automatic button for a quick fix, or tap the color picker and place it on something that should be neutral gray, such as a concrete step or a gray coat.
3. Swipe up or down to pick Temperature or Tint, then swipe sideways. Temperature moves between cool blue and warm yellow, and Tint between green and magenta.
4. Open Tune Image and tap the automatic button to let Snapseed set the tones. Then swipe to Contrast, Shadows and Highlights to bring back the dark areas that faded to gray.
5. Open Healing and tap or brush each white speck.
6. Save the result as a copy, and keep the untouched scan with it.

Restore faded photos in Google Photos

Google Photos has one-tap suggestions that often correct a faded print in a single step. Most of its editing tools need a phone with 3 GB of RAM or more, running Android 8.0 or iOS 18 and up.

1. Open the scanned print in Google Photos, then tap Edit.
2. Try the suggestions Enhance, Dynamic and AI Enhance. AI Enhance makes several versions, and you choose one. Google limits AI Enhance on iPhones to US users whose Google Account language is English (United States).
3. If the print also looks soft, open the Actions tab and tap Unblur. Google's improved Unblur asks for more memory: 4 GB on Android phones, 6 GB on iPhones.
4. Tap Save as copy, which keeps the unedited scan next to the fixed one.

Remove specks and small scratches on an iPhone

Clean Up in the Photos app erases a mark when you brush over it, which makes it a quick fix for white specks on a scanned print. Apple supports it on the iPhone 15 Pro, the iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 16 models or later, starting with iOS 18.1 (18.4 for EU residents). Apple also notes that Clean Up isn't offered in every region or language, and that usage limits may apply.

1. Open the scan in Photos and tap the edit button.
2. Tap Tools, then Clean Up.
3. Pinch to zoom in, then tap one speck or brush along one scratch.
4. Tap Auto and pick High Quality processing if it isn't already chosen, apply the fix, and tap Done.

To go back to the scan as it was, open Clean Up again and tap Reset. Near faces, fix one mark per stroke, because a long stroke across a cheek can smudge the skin.

Restore faded photographs with MyHeritage

For prints that were shot in color and faded, MyHeritage offers a separate color restoration mode. MyHeritage says it suits prints from the 1950s to the 1990s and revives the original colors rather than guessing new ones, and that it also sharpens the photo. It checks each upload and offers colorization for black and white or sepia photos, and color restoration for faded color ones.

Its Photo Repair tool handles holes, stains, tears and scratches. The Gentle model runs by default and leaves the rest of the photo mostly alone. The Extensive model goes after deeper damage, and MyHeritage warns it sometimes affects other areas too. Free accounts get a small number of improvements, and beyond that you need a Complete plan or a Reimagine subscription ($7.99 monthly, or $49.99 yearly after a 7-day trial). Your original stays as uploaded, and each improved copy carries a small MyHeritage icon in its bottom left corner. The MyHeritage alternatives comparison sets these tools against other options.

Water stains, mold and photos stuck in albums

Deal with the physical print before the digital copy, because a moldy or stuck photo can get worse while you work. NEDCC notes that mold grows when high humidity and warmth combine.

• Get a conservator for mold or a damp print. Search the American Institute for Conservation's Find a Professional directory under Photographic Materials, then filter by where you live.
• Don't pry prints off self-stick pages. NEDCC warns that self-stick album pages tend to be very acidic and may bond to a print for good. Photograph the whole page flat instead, with soft indirect light so the plastic doesn't reflect.
• Don't tape a torn print. The Library of Congress advises against self-adhesive tape, sticky notes and glue on photographs. Keep the pieces together in an envelope and scan them side by side, then join them digitally.
• Puff loose dust away. A rubber air bulb is the Library of Congress's pick for dust, not canned air or a brush, because its guidance says brushes, even soft ones, can scratch or damage a print.

Once the scan exists, water rings and mold spots are stains like any other. A healing brush clears small ones. Large tide marks across faces or sky are a job for an AI editor or a restorer.

Tips for a clean result

• Balance the color before you retouch. A stain that blends into an orange cast becomes easy to see once the whites are neutral again.
• Give wallet and 4 x 6 prints 600 ppi. More pixels give any retouching tool more real detail around each scratch.
• Repair a long crease in sections. Heal one short stretch at a time, and check that the lines of a collar or a window frame still meet across it.
• Leave some grain. Old prints have texture, and a perfectly smooth patch where a scratch used to be looks pasted in.
• Work on a copy. Archives following FADGI keep master scans free of any color or restoration edits, and the same habit protects a family scan.
• Zoom to 100% on faces. Check eyes, teeth and hairlines after every repair near a face.

Troubleshooting

Fix torn and scratched photos in Smart Editor

When a tear, a water ring or a missing corner is too big for a healing brush, Smart Editor in Toybox rebuilds the damaged area from a sentence you type. It runs on OpenAI's GPT Image 2.5 and needs a Pro plan or higher.

1. Open Smart Editor and upload the scan under "Your image" as a JPG or PNG up to 10 MB.
2. In "What should change?", say what the damage is, where it is, and what must stay the same.
3. Under More options, choose 4K Quality for a larger file of up to about 8 megapixels (110 credits instead of 85 for HD), and keep Shape on Original.
4. Tap "Apply edit". Smart Editor draws the full picture again on every edit, so look at faces and untouched areas as well as the repair.
5. For the next problem, keep "Latest result" selected under Editing and type the next fix. To go back to the untouched scan, switch to "Original photo".
6. When the damage is gone and the color is still faded, download the repair (as a JPG if the PNG is over 10 MB) and open Image Colorizer, which currently costs 75 credits and adds color only.

Instructions that name the damage, its location and what to keep look like this:

Repair the diagonal tear that runs from the bottom edge up through the woman's plaid skirt. Join the two halves so the plaid lines up, and fill the white gap with matching fabric. Keep her face, hands and the background exactly as they are.

Remove the brown water ring over the top right corner and across the sky above the house. Rebuild that part of the sky as the same pale gray as the rest. Do not change the house, the car or the two children on the steps.

The bottom left corner of this photo is missing. Fill it with the continuation of the wooden porch floor and the edge of the flower pot. Leave everything else untouched, including the grain and the faded colors.

Results vary with the damage, and whatever fills a gap is drawn by the AI, so a missing eye or mouth comes back as a guess. For the full sequence of damage, blur and color fixes, read how to restore old photos with AI. For an heirloom where every face matters, photo restoration services vs AI compares what a human restorer costs, and the colorizing guide covers black and white prints. Smart Editor edits currently cost 85 credits in HD; see current plans.