Old photographs often carry decades of memories, but also decades of damage. Today, we announce Restore AI, a powerful new AI photo restoration module arriving in ON1 Photo RAW MAX in late April 2026.
Restore will only be available to those with ON1 Photo RAW MAX subscriptions who will receive unlimited restorations for one full year using cloud-powered AI and on-going for as long as their subscription remains active.
Restore AI automatically repairs damaged photos, restores faded colors, enhances lost detail, and can even colorize black-and-white images—making it easier to recover photographs that time has worn down.
Nearly every family has them—boxes of aging photographs tucked away in closets, old albums passed down through generations, or stacks of prints slowly fading over time. These images carry personal history, but dust, scratches, wrinkles, fading color, and grain often make them difficult to view or share. Restore AI was designed to help recover and preserve those photographs.
“With Restore AI, we wanted to give people a simple way to recover the photos that matter most,” said Patrick Smith, Senior VP at ON1. “Some of the most meaningful photographs we own are decades old and damaged. Restore AI helps people recover old photos, repair decades of damage, and share those moments again with family.”
Traditional photo restoration software often requires hours of manual retouching to repair scratches, rebuild damaged areas, or correct faded colors. Restore AI simplifies that process dramatically using advanced AI and cloud-powered processing. Restore AI will analyze each image to detect common problems in aging prints and scanned photos. It automatically repairs dust, scratches, wrinkles, and tears while restoring color and improving clarity.
Restore AI runs state-of-the-art AI models in the cloud, allowing it to perform restorations that would normally require specialized high-end hardware. These models are too large to run efficiently on most desktop GPUs, but cloud processing provides the compute power and memory needed to analyze images deeply and reconstruct missing detail.
The result is a cleaner, sharper image—often significantly improving on the original scan. Restore AI can also rebuild texture and restore facial detail in soft or poorly digitized photographs.
Restore AI is also built with privacy and trust in mind. Photos processed in the cloud with Restore AI are handled securely and are never used to train AI models or improve datasets. Your images remain yours—private, protected, and processed only for the restoration task you request.
ON1 is also exploring options to allow the restoration AI models to run locally on desktop hardware in the future. While there is no confirmed timeline for local processing. To learn more about Restore AI and ON1 Photo RAW MAX, visit thier product page.