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Ai Photo Restoration When To Use

Last reviewed: 2026-07-17

AI Photo Restoration is worth opening when you need a quick, one-off run without installing anything. This page covers when that fits and when it does not.

When it fits

The first run downloads the restoration model once (cached offline after that); on the WASM fallback (no WebGPU) it can take up to a minute to finish - the original photo previews immediately while you wait.

What to expect

Everything runs locally via Transformers.js / ONNX Runtime Web - the photo is never uploaded to a server; only the model weights load from the Hugging Face hub.

This is a fixed 4x super-resolution/deblocking model - it sharpens and upscales, but it does not remove scratches, tears, or stains, and it does not colorize a black-and-white photo.

Quick specs

Spec	Value
Upscale factor	4x (fixed model)
First-run load on WASM fallback (no WebGPU)	up to ~60 s, then cached
Photo bytes sent to a server	0 (runs in your browser)

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Last updated: Jul 17, 2026

Reviewed by the Free Tool Online editorial team · Tested in the current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge before publishing. No account is needed to use any tool. Report a bug - we triage within 72 hours. · Last refreshed April 2026.

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