Your family history, in true color
Upload an old black & white photograph and our image colorization AI paints it in lifelike color. Free, private, and ready in under a minute.
Colorization runs on DDColor, an open-source AI model hosted on Hugging Face. Your photo is never stored on this website. Upload only photos you own or may use. At busy times there may be a short queue. By using the tool you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Before
After
Every photo was taken in color. Now you can see it.
The people in your old albums lived in a world of green lakes, red dresses and sunburnt faces. Image colorization gives that world back to them, so younger family members can connect with faces they never met.
How image colorization works
A neural network trained on millions of color photographs looks at shapes and textures, and predicts the most likely color for every part of your picture.
Scan or snap
Scan the print, or take a straight, well-lit phone photo of it without glare.
Let the AI paint
The DDColor model separates faces, clothes, sky, water and plants, and gives each a natural tone.
Save and share
Slide between grey and color, then download the picture for your album, frame or family chat.
Who uses it
Family historians
Bring a family tree to life with color portraits of great-grandparents, for genealogy sites and reunion slideshows.
Teachers & museums
Make history lessons and exhibitions feel closer by showing archive pictures the way people saw them.
Thoughtful gifts
A colorized wedding photo of grandparents makes a moving gift for an anniversary, birthday or memorial.
Tip: crop away white borders and frames before uploading. Very damaged or faded prints give softer results, and the AI cannot know the real color of a specific dress or car.
Questions people ask
What is image colorization?
It is the process of adding color to a black and white or sepia image. Today it is done by AI models that learned from millions of color photos which colors usually belong to skin, sky, grass, wood and fabric.
Does it cost anything?
No. The tool is free, needs no account and adds no watermark. It runs on shared free AI servers, so at busy times you may wait a little.
What happens to my photo?
It goes straight from your browser to the AI model on Hugging Face for processing. It is not saved on this website. See the Privacy Policy for details.
Will the colors be exactly right?
They will look natural, but they are the AI's best guess. Skies, skin and plants are usually convincing; a specific uniform, car or wallpaper may come out in a different color than in reality.
Something went wrong. What can I do?
Wait a minute and try again, or upload a smaller image. If the free servers are busy, the tool automatically tries a backup server.
ImageColorization.com is available to buy. It is the exact name of the technology itself, a clear and trustworthy .com for any product that brings color to old images.
- Matches the search term for the whole category
- Ideal for photo restoration services, genealogy and AI apps
- Includes this live website and colorization tool
- Secure transfer through a trusted escrow service
Interested? Use the form to send us your offer. Please include your name, your email so we can reply, and your offer in US dollars (USD). Offers go straight to the owner and we reply to every serious one.
Make an offer
Fields marked * are required. Offers are in US dollars (USD).
Thank you!
Your offer has been sent. We will get back to you by email soon.