Repair a damaged photo

Rebuild cracks, creases, tape marks and torn corners without touching the physical print.

What this tool does

Repair reads the detail around a damaged area and continues it across the gap. Fine scratches disappear almost entirely, since the surrounding texture tells the model exactly what belonged there. Creases across a background, tape residue and small missing corners are all reconstructed from context.

A torn, water-damaged black and white portrait of an elderly woman repaired into a clean high-resolution photo, with Save and Share buttons
A cracked studio print with a missing corner, repaired and ready to save at full resolution.

Good for

  • Prints creased from years in a wallet or album
  • Water-stained and mould-marked photographs
  • Photos torn in half, where both halves still exist

Where it stops working

Damage running across a face is the hard case, since the model rebuilds a plausible face and not necessarily the right one. Prints stuck to glass need a conservator, not software.

Common situations

Questions about photo repair

Does repairing change the physical print?

No. Everything happens on a digital copy, which is exactly why this approach beats tape and chemicals.

What about a photo torn in half?

Lay both halves together as closely as you can, photograph them as one image, and the seam gets rebuilt.

Read the full guide

How to restore old damaged photos covers the method in detail, including the cases where this tool is the wrong choice.

Other tools