Old prints pick up scratches, tears and stains. Paint over the damage and PicReviver rebuilds what was underneath — it doesn't smear the mark away. Whatever you don't paint over stays exactly as it was. Free, no account.
It rebuilds what was under the damage — it does not blur it away. And only where you paint: we measured that outside a 7-pixel edge around your brush stroke, not a single pixel changes. Full size, no watermark, no account.
By ShinobiTools Team · Last updated: July 2026
Damage gone but the photo still soft or faded? Run it through the restore & sharpen tool afterwards.
You paint over the damage and the model rebuilds what was underneath — it does not smear or blur the mark away. Everything you don't paint over stays untouched: we measured this on a damaged 1902 glass plate and outside a 7-pixel edge around your brush stroke, not a single pixel changed.
Damage repair lives or dies on the quality of the copy you feed in. A clean, high-resolution scan gives the model far more real detail to rebuild from than a hurried phone snap of the print under a lamp. It's worth doing this once, properly.
Be realistic about what scratch removal can do. PicReviver blends fine scratches, dust and small blemishes into the surrounding detail, because the model has enough real information around them to work with. A deep gouge or a scratch that cuts straight through a face or a sharp edge is harder: there, it can soften the mark rather than fully erase it.
So: thin scratches, cracks and creases over intact detail are exactly the sweet spot and usually improve a lot. A deep gouge that has removed the emulsion, or a section physically torn away, leaves nothing for the model to rebuild from, and no honest tool can paint back a face that isn't there any more. For an all-round faded-and-scratched print, the combined restore old photos flow is the place to start. If the mark isn't a scratch but a skin blemish or spot on a modern photo, BGNinja's blemish remover is the more targeted tool.
It reduces them. PicReviver rebuilds the detail around a scratch so thin scratches, cracks and creases soften noticeably; it doesn't manually erase each one like a clone-stamp editor.
No. A piece that's physically gone, torn away or gouged out, can't be reconstructed from nothing. The tool only rebuilds detail that's still present in the photo.
Yes, upload a digital copy. A clean 600 DPI scan gives a much better result than a quick phone snap, see our scanning guide.
Yes. Free for up to five photos at a time, no account, and your upload is deleted right after processing.
Yes — PicReviver runs online in your browser. Upload, wait a few seconds, download. No account, no install.
PicReviver rebuilds the detail under a scratch with AI instead of just blurring the line away, and it runs free, right in your browser.
Yes — upload your scan and PicReviver's AI handles scratches, dust spots and scan lines in one pass, with nothing to set up.
There is no software to install. PicReviver is a web tool: open it in any phone or desktop browser and it works.
Yes — PicReviver runs online in your browser. Upload, wait a few seconds, download. No account, no watermark.
It rebuilds what was underneath the scratch rather than smudging it away, so detail comes back instead of disappearing into a soft patch.
Yes — PicReviver removes scratches from a photo online, free, with no account and no watermark: paint over the damage and the AI rebuilds what was underneath.
No — most scratched photos improve a lot with this tool alone, since it rebuilds the detail around a scratch instead of just smudging it. Deep gouges or missing pieces are the exception; those need more than any AI pass can honestly promise.
Even a faint photo scratch tends to catch the eye once you've seen it, especially across a face or sky. It takes the same few seconds to remove as a deep one, so there's no reason to leave it.
Usually handling and storage — sliding prints against each other in a box, dust trapped under glass, or a scanner bed that wasn't clean. None of that affects how well the repair works now.
Yes. The model rebuilds detail under the scratch the same way whether it crosses a face, sky or plain background — faces don't need special handling first.
Yes — a phone photo of an old scratched photo works, though a proper 600 DPI scan gives the model more to work from. Either way, upload it and the scratches soften in the same pass.