Choose a photo, pick a mode - Quick upscale 2x (about 8 MB model) or Restore & upscale 4x (about 55 MB model, also removes JPEG artifacts) - and click the button; the long edge is resized to 512px before processing so the AI model finishes in a reasonable time even on a large photo.
Example - low-res input and the 2x-upscaled result (generated ahead of time with the same on-device 2x model this page runs; your own photo is processed live in your browser):
AI Photo Restoration
freetoolonline.com editorial team
Sharpen, denoise, and upscale a blurry or compressed photo - 2x or 4x - right in this browser - no upload, no app to install.
Modes and first-run download
The first run downloads the model for the mode you picked once (about 8 MB for 2x, about 55 MB for 4x; cached offline after that); on the WASM fallback (no WebGPU) the 4x mode can take up to a minute to finish - the original photo previews immediately while you wait.
Private by design
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.
If something in the frame should go before you enlarge it - a stray object, a photobomber, a watermark - the object remover erases it first, the same way: entirely on your device, no upload.
Black-and-white originals pair the same way in the other direction: restore and upscale here first, then hand the clean scan to the photo colorizer to add predicted color - also fully on-device, no upload.
Before restoring a whole camera-roll export, the duplicate photo finder groups exact and near-duplicate copies first, so you restore each shot once instead of twice.
What the downloaded file actually is
The result saves as a lossless PNG rather than a re-compressed JPEG, so you can enlarge or edit it again later without stacking a second round of compression artifacts on top of the first. The file name tells you which pass made it - upscaled-photo-2x.png from Quick upscale 2x, restored-photo.png from Restore & upscale 4x. Its pixel size is exactly the input size times the scale you picked, with the padding the model adds internally cropped back off, so a photo that measured 480 by 320 comes back at 960 by 640 in 2x mode or 1920 by 1280 in 4x. Because the tool caps the working long edge at 512 pixels before it runs, a very large source - say 4000 pixels wide - is processed at 512 and returns near 1024 pixels wide in 2x mode instead of 8000, which keeps the run inside the roughly one-minute WASM ceiling; shrink a huge original yourself first if you need the enlargement applied to its full width. The PNG lands larger on disk than the JPEG you started from, which is the trade for keeping every sharpened edge intact.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does AI Photo Restoration do?
Sharpen, denoise, and upscale a blurry or compressed photo - 2x or 4x - right in this browser - no upload, no app to install.
Can I use this as an AI image upscaler?
Yes. The Quick upscale 2x mode is a plain AI image upscaler for reasonably clean photos (about 8 MB model, several times faster), and the Restore & upscale 4x mode enlarges while also removing blur and JPEG blocking artifacts (about 55 MB model, slower). Both run entirely in your browser - the photo never leaves your device.
When should I reach for ai photo restoration?
When a photo is too small, too blurry, or shows JPEG blocking - before printing it, zooming in on it, or reusing it at a larger size. The original previews immediately; the first run downloads the model for the mode you picked once (cached offline after that), and on the WASM fallback (no WebGPU) the 4x mode can take up to a minute.
Does it repair scratches or colorize old photos?
No. These are fixed 2x/4x super-resolution models - they sharpen, denoise, and enlarge, but they do not remove scratches, tears, or stains, and they do not colorize a black-and-white photo.
What complementary tools work well alongside ai photo restoration?
The object remover erases a distraction from the frame before you upscale, and the face blur tool hides who someone is - both run on-device with no upload, like this page.
Which mode: quick 2x upscale or 4x restore?
Pick Quick upscale 2x when the photo is reasonably clean and you just need more pixels - a small avatar, an old web image, a picture you want to print larger. Its model is about 8 MB and runs several times faster than the 4x one. Pick Restore & upscale 4x when the photo is blurry or was saved with heavy JPEG compression: that model also removes blocking artifacts and sharpens edges while quadrupling the resolution. Neither mode repairs physical damage - scratches, tears, and stains stay - and a black-and-white photo stays black-and-white.