Colorize black and white photos with AI
Add color to a black and white photo with AI photo colorization. Upload a scan or sepia picture to generate plausible skin, clothing and scenery colors while repairing scratches and fading.
- Free credits to start
- Nothing to install
Colorize black and white photos before and after
Drag the divider to compare.
Colorize a black and white wedding photo
A 1940s wedding portrait brought back in natural color
Colorize an old street photo
A 1950s street scene with shopfronts and cars in color
Colorize a black and white portrait
A vintage studio portrait with natural skin and hair color
Colorize a black and white landscape
A mountain lake photographed in black and white, now in color
How to add color to a black and white photo
- 1
Scan the photo
Scan the print at 600 dpi, or photograph it flat in daylight.
- 2
Upload with Colorize on
Opening the tool from this page switches Colorize on.
- 3
Compare and download
Drag the divider to compare the original with the color result.
Colorize old photos for family history, creators and gifts
A black and white photo colorizer adds plausible color to a scanned family photo, historical portrait or sepia print. AI estimates colors from the picture rather than a record of the original scene. Use the result for a color interpretation of an archive and keep the original scan as a reference.
Family historians
See grandparents and ancestors in color.
- Colorize wedding and portrait prints
- Repair scratches in the same run
- Keep the original beside the color copy
History creators
Give archive photos a color version for articles and videos.
- Colorize street scenes and landscapes
- Work from black and white or sepia
- Compare before and after
Gift givers
Give a parent or grandparent their old photo in color.
- Colorize a treasured portrait
- Print and frame the color version
- Pair it with a restored print
What AI photo colorization gets right
Natural subjects come out reliably. Made objects are an informed estimate.
- Skin, hair, sky, plants and water come out reliably.
- Clothing, cars, painted walls and flowers are estimates. A blue dress may come back green.
- Scratches, creases and fading are repaired in the same run.
- Colors are likely, not historically verified.
- You cannot pick colors in the colorizer. Fix one item afterwards in AI inpainting, for example "a dark red dress".
Black and white, sepia and faded photos
Most prints work. A few cases need a different tool.
- Black and white and sepia prints, scanned or photographed.
- Up to four photos of the same person merge into one colorized photo.
- Photos of different people or scenes need separate runs.
- Sepia and brown-toned prints work like black and white ones.
- A color photo that only faded belongs in the photo restoration tool.
Tips for a better colorized photo
A clean scan and a known color or two help most.
- Scan at 600 dpi and save as JPG.
- Keep the whole print in frame and crop away the scanner bed.
- Check old letters and the back of the print for color notes.
- Ask a relative which colors they remember before you correct an item.
- For badly damaged prints, use the photo restoration tool with Colorize on.
