Before
Before
Before
BeforePhoto Restoration Services
A photo restoration service for families, archivists and studios. Scratches, tears, fading and water damage are repaired by hand in Photoshop, priced per repair so you only pay for what the photo needs. Your original never leaves home: scan it or photograph it, upload the file, and get back a restored image ready to print or share.
5 services · order one or stack three
- Starting Price
$6 per Photo
Per-repair pricing. Fading, scratches, tears and water damage are each quoted on their own.
Turnaround
24h
Free trial
1 photo
Revisions
Unlimited
Print size
up to 24×36″
No card required · Reply within 1 hour
16 years on apparel
Image Delivered
In-house editors
Damaged photo restoration, priced per repair .
Six restoration services, each quoted on its own. A faded print that only needs its colour back costs a fraction of one with tears and a missing corner, and you see the price for each repair before anything starts.
Scratch, dust and crease repair.
Scratches, dust spots, fold lines and cracked emulsion are removed one at a time by rebuilding the image from the undamaged area around each mark. Nothing is smoothed out with a blur filter, so skin, fabric and paper grain keep their texture.
This is the most common repair and often the only one a photo needs. A print kept in a wallet or an album for fifty years usually has a crease across it and a scatter of small marks, and both come out cleanly.
from $8 per photo
- Scratches and scuffs removed
- Fold and crease lines rebuilt
- Paper grain kept
- Dust and specks cleared
- Cracked emulsion repaired
- Faces left unaltered
Fading and colour correction .
Prints from the 1960s to the 1980s fade unevenly: cyan goes first and the image drifts toward magenta or orange. We rebalance each channel so skin looks like skin and a blue sky reads blue again.
Black and white prints get the same care. Yellowed paper, silvering and lost contrast are corrected while the original tone is kept, so a sepia print stays sepia unless you ask otherwise.
from $6 per photo
- Colour cast removed
- Contrast and depth restored
- Original tone kept
- Faded channels rebuilt
- Yellowing and silvering cleared
- Skin tones corrected
Tear and missing-piece reconstruction .
Torn photos are realigned edge to edge and the tear line rebuilt. Missing corners, holes and lost areas are reconstructed from the surrounding image, matching grain, focus and lighting.
Where the missing area covers a face we ask for any other photos of the same person and work from those. If there is nothing to rebuild from, we tell you before starting rather than inventing features.
from $15 per photo
- Torn pieces realigned
- Missing corners reconstructed
- Tape marks removed
- Tear lines rebuilt
- Holes and punctures filled
- Faces rebuilt from references
Water damage photo restoration .
Floods, leaks and humid storage leave tide lines, stains, lifted emulsion and mould spots. Water damage photo restoration removes each of these and rebuilds the areas where the image has washed away.
Prints that were stuck together often come apart with patches of emulsion missing. Scan them as they are, damage included, and we rebuild from what survives rather than guessing.
from $20 per photo
- Tide lines and stains removed
- Lifted emulsion rebuilt
- Stuck-print damage repaired
- Mould spots cleared
- Washed-out areas reconstructed
- Colour rebalanced after soaking
Colourisation of black and white photos.
Black and white photos are coloured by hand, layer by layer, using period references for clothing, uniforms, cars and buildings. Skin tones are built from several layers so faces do not look painted.
If you know details such as eye colour, a dress colour or the paint on a house, tell us and we use them. The black and white restoration is always delivered alongside, so you keep both.
from $20 per photo
- Hand colour, layer by layer
- Natural skin tones
- B&W version included
- Period-accurate references
- Your known details used
- Revisions until right
Photo restoration and enlargement. Need it bigger than the original? We restore first, then upscale and sharpen for frames up to 24×36″, and tell you the largest size your scan will hold. From $10 per photo, with a print-ready TIFF.
Quote by damage instead: light fading and marks from $8, damaged photo repair for tears, creases and stains from $20, and antique photo restoration or heavy loss from $45.
Restoring damaged photos in four steps .
Scan and upload
Scan at 600 dpi or higher, or take a straight phone photo in even daylight. Upload the file; your original stays with you.
≈ 1h reply
Get a fixed quote
We list each repair the photo needs and its price within an hour. Add notes such as eye colour or who is in the photo.
≈ 12–24h
Review the proof
You see the restored photo before final delivery. Revisions are free and there is no limit on rounds.
Every image
Download and print
Full-resolution JPEG and print-ready TIFF, sized for the frame or print you have in mind.
≈ 24h
Turnaround
Light restorations usually come back within 24 hours. Heavy damage such as missing faces or severe water damage takes three to five working days, because each area is rebuilt by hand. Rush delivery is available on most orders, and if a date is at risk we tell you before it slips.
Looking for Houston photo restoration ? Much of the flood damage we repair comes from the Houston area, and none of it needs a trip across town.
We are an online studio, so our Houston photo restoration services work the same way as everywhere else: scan or photograph the print at home or at a local scanning shop, upload it, and have the restored file printed at any Houston lab. If your photos were caught in a flood, the steps on the right give the best chance of saving what is left before it is scanned.
01
Do not peel stuck photos apart
Prints fused together tear their emulsion when forced. Soak them in clean, cool water until they separate on their own.
02
Rinse and air-dry face up
Rinse off mud in clean water and lay each print face up on paper towels, out of direct sun. Do not stack or press them.
03
Freeze what you cannot dry in time
If you cannot deal with wet prints within about two days, interleave them with wax paper and freeze them to stop mould.
04
Scan them as they are
Once dry, scan the damage and all. We rebuild from what survives, so do not try to retouch or clean the surface first.
Sixteen years as a professional portrait retouching service provider .
A retouch looks simple until you zoom in on it. What follows is what stands behind every order, stated plainly.
2010
2M+ portraits retouched
Single headshots through to 3,000-frame wedding galleries and cosmetics campaigns. We have met most faces, lighting setups, and briefs this craft can throw at us.
60+
Editors on retouching alone
A dedicated retouch floor, five of them Adobe Certified Professionals in Photoshop. Nobody rotates in from a cutout queue for a beauty frame.
98.6%
First-pass approval
Measured across every retouch order. When a frame does come back, the reason is logged and the editor who worked it sees the note.
NDA
Written commitments
Signed NDAs, encrypted transfer, and revisions until the skin holds at 200%. Unreleased campaign work stays in a separate clean-room queue.
What makes a good restoration.
Six checks every restored photo passes before it is sent back to you.
01
The person still looks like themselves
Faces are repaired, not redrawn. Features, age lines and expressions stay as they were photographed.
02
No invented detail
Missing areas are rebuilt from what survives or from your reference photos. If there is nothing to work from, we tell you.
03
Grain and texture kept
A restored photo should still look like a photograph of its time, not a plastic smooth digital image.
04
Repairs invisible at print size
Every repair is checked at 100% and at the final print size, so no patch or seam shows once framed.
05
Colour true to the period
Corrected colour matches how the print would have looked when new, not a modern filter.
06
Files ready for print
Correct resolution, colour profile and size for your print, with a TIFF for labs and a JPEG for sharing.
What makes restoring damaged photos harder .
Most of these happen with good intentions. Each one is easy to avoid before the photo is scanned.
Low-resolution scans
A 72 dpi scan or a screenshot loses the detail we rebuild from. Scan at 600 dpi, or 1200 dpi for small prints.
Taping torn photos
Sticky tape yellows and pulls emulsion away over time. Keep torn pieces loose in an envelope and scan them side by side.
Phone photos with glare
Shooting a glossy print under a ceiling light puts a white patch across it. Use daylight from a window, at an angle.
Peeling stuck prints
Forcing fused photos apart tears the image off. Soak them in clean water until they separate on their own.
Scanning through the frame glass
Glass adds reflections and hides fine detail. Take the print out of the frame first if it is not stuck to the glass.
No reference photos
If a face is damaged, any other photo of that person helps us rebuild it accurately. Send whatever you have.
Hand restoration vs. the alternatives .
Apps are fast and cheap, and a local studio lets you hand over the print in person. This is how the options compare on the things that matter for a photo you cannot replace.
| Hand retouching | AI restore apps | Local photo studio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Faces stay accurate | ✓ Repaired, not redrawn | ✗ Often altered | ✓ |
| Tears and missing areas | ✓ Rebuilt by hand | Small marks only | ✓ |
| Water and mould damage | ✓ | ✗ Rarely | Varies |
| Proof and revisions | ✓ Unlimited | Re-run the app | Usually 1–2 rounds |
| Cost per photo | From $6 | Free to a few dollars | Often $50+ |
| Original stays with you | ✓ Upload a scan | ✓ | Often dropped off |
Photos we have brought back .
-18% ReturnsGhost mannequin edits that cut returns in half
A fast-fashion label moved its full product catalogue onto our 24-hour queue, with every garment ghosted, colour-matched and sized to their store templates.
The turnaround is unbelievable — 24 hours, flawless every time. Our product return rate dropped 18% after switching to Clipp Out Line.
+24% ConversionMacro retouching that made every stone sell
A fine-jewellery house moved its campaign and model imagery onto our high-end queue, with skin, metal and stone each finished to a separate standard on the same frame.
Jewelry retouching at this level is rare. They preserve every reflection and gemstone facet while making the piece look magazine-ready.
400+ Weekly ShotsHigh-volume automotive shots without the back-and-forth
A dealership network routes its weekly inventory straight into our queue, with consistent lighting, clean backgrounds and zero revision rounds.
We send 400+ automotive shots a week. Consistent quality, tight deadlines, zero back-and-forth. Exactly what a high-volume studio needs.
+31% InquiriesListings that look believable, not overedited
A real-estate marketing team routes every exterior and interior shoot through our queue for natural sky replacements and true-to-life window pull-throughs.
Sky replacements and window pull-throughs that look genuinely natural. Agents trust the images — and so do buyers.
Sunil Barman, Photo Restoration Lead
Sunil
leads our restoration team in Dhaka. [Add years of experience, the kinds of damage they specialise in, and their role in reviewing this page.] They review this page each quarter against our current prices, turnaround and the damage we are seeing in customer scans.
Photo restoration answered .
Each service is priced on its own, starting at $2 per photo for skin smoothing, blemish removal or teeth and eye correction. Glasses glare removal is $5 and digital makeup is $8. You only pay for the services a photo actually needs.
Yes. Because everything is priced per service you can order a single line item — glare removal only, or teeth and eyes only — rather than paying for a full retouch. Most clients combine two or three services per photo.
Yes, and it is the point of the service. We retouch with frequency separation and hand dodge and burn so skin keeps its real pores. We remove what is temporary and leave the lines, freckles and small asymmetries that make a person recognisable.
Yes. Orders over $500 in a calendar month receive 15% off, over $2,000 receive 25% off, and over $5,000 receive 35% off plus a dedicated retoucher and 12-hour SLA. Discounts apply automatically and need no contract.
Standard turnaround is 24 hours, 12 hours on a priority plan, and small sets often go back the same day. Galleries of 500 photos or more are typically returned in two to three working days, across the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and Europe.
JPEG, TIFF or layered PSD, in your own naming and folder structure, delivered by Google Drive, Dropbox or FTP. A layered PSD means your team can adjust any pass later without the retouch starting again from the capture.
Yes. Send a few of your own finished images or a reference frame and we match your skin finish, contrast and grade. For ongoing clients we save a house-style profile, so every batch comes back consistent with your signature rather than our taste.
A skilled editor needs 10–20 minutes per image. A professional ghost mannequin service delivers finished files within 24 hours, or 12 hours on a priority plan, with small batches often turned around the same day. Clipp Out Line edits 3 garments free before any paid order.
Send 3 portraits. Zoom in yourself .
No card, no commitment. We will run our portrait retouching services on your own frames, deliver them at full resolution