AI Face Restorer
Restore and sharpen faces in old or blurry portrait photos free in your browser. Powered by Swin2SR — a Microsoft Research Image Restoration Transformer trained on degraded image pairs — the AI reconstructs fine facial detail entirely on your device. Portrait-specific post-processing then applies noise reduction and targeted sharpening tuned for skin tones. 100% private, no signup, no watermark. Works offline after first model load.
RESTORATION MODE
Drop a portrait photo here or click to upload
Best with portrait/face photos — JPG, PNG, WebP up to 10MB
Restored Portrait
How Swin2SR AI Face Restoration Works
This AI Face Restorer uses Swin2SR — a Swin Transformer V2-based image restoration model from Microsoft Research — running via Transformers.js in your browser. Unlike simple Canvas sharpening, Swin2SR understands image structure and reconstructs fine detail genuinely lost to age and scanning: facial features, hair strands, skin texture edges. The model is downloaded once (~50MB) and cached for offline use. After the AI pass, a portrait-specific post-processing pipeline applies gentle noise reduction and targeted sharpening calibrated for skin tones. Last updated: March 2026.
The restoration pipeline: your photo is resized to max 512px before the AI (keeping processing fast), fed through Swin2SR for super-resolution reconstruction, then post-processed with contrast and sharpening at the mode level you select (Gentle / Standard / Strong). If the AI model is unavailable the tool falls back to the full Canvas pipeline automatically — no broken experience.
Restore Old Family Portrait Photos
Family portrait photos from the 1940s–1980s typically suffer from fading (compressed tonal range), soft focus, and colour cast from yellowing paper. Swin2SR was trained on paired degraded-to-clean images, making it highly effective at recovering facial detail that Canvas filters cannot reconstruct. Professional portrait restoration services charge $30–$200 per photo. This tool is completely free and processes in under 30 seconds. Pair this tool with the AI Photo Colorizer to also add colour to black and white portraits — restore first, then colorize.
Portrait Enhancement Modes
- Gentle mode: Minimal post-processing on top of AI (contrast 8, light noise reduction, sharpAmount 0.15). Best for photos that are already reasonably clear — let the AI do the heavy lifting without over-processing.
- Standard mode: Balanced post-processing (contrast 15, moderate noise reduction, sharpAmount 0.3). Best for most old portrait photos — restores contrast, smooths grain, sharpens key features.
- Strong mode: Maximum post-processing on top of AI (contrast 25, strong noise reduction, sharpAmount 0.5). Best for heavily deteriorated photos — use with care on recent or already-clear photos.
Face Restoration vs General Photo Enhancement
General photo enhancement boosts contrast, saturation, and sharpness uniformly. For landscapes and products that works well. For portraits, uniform sharpening creates "halo" artefacts around hair and clothing. The AI Face Restorer uses portrait-calibrated post-processing: lower contrast amounts that protect skin gradients, radius-limited sharpening that targets small facial detail (faces typically 200–600px wide) while leaving large background elements unchanged. The result is sharper eyes and lips without the "over-sharpened" ring artefact.