Restoring old photos with AI: a family archive ready to print, and a remembrance gallery

Short answer: Photograph an old print with your phone by a window, in diffused daylight, holding the phone parallel to the photo. Upload the file to a Framky project, choose “Edit with AI”, and type one specific instruction, for example “Refresh the old photo: remove scratches, stains and the crease, do not change the faces”. Compare the preview with the original, and only then create a final version for print. From a phone photo of a 9 × 13 cm print you can safely print up to 30 × 40 cm. With 4–6 photos like that you can arrange a calm remembrance gallery on a sideboard or a wall.

A wedding photo of your grandparents, grandma with mum in her arms, a great-grandfather in uniform. Prints like that usually sit in an album or a shoebox. They are faded, scratched, creased, and covered with a yellow bloom. It is a shame to hang them like that, and a greater shame to keep them where nobody looks at them.

Before 1 November many families come back to these photos. It is a good moment to digitise them, refresh them gently, and hang them where they will be seen every day. This article leads you step by step: from photographing the print, through instructions in the AI photo editor, to the choice of frame size and the layout of a remembrance gallery.

How to digitise an old print with a phone

A flatbed scanner gives the best result, but not everyone has one. A phone is enough if you take care of the light and the angle. Five rules:

1. Daylight from the side, no sun. Lay the photo on a table by a window on a cloudy day, or in the shade. Direct sun and a ceiling lamp throw reflections, especially on glossy prints.
2. Turn the flash off. The flash leaves a bright spot in the middle of the photo. The AI cannot rebuild what is under it, because there is no information there.
3. Hold the phone parallel to the photo. Keep it directly above the print, not at an angle. Otherwise the rectangle becomes a trapezoid and the faces distort. The camera grid helps.
4. Keep the photo flat. Press curled prints at the edges with a clean sheet of glass, or leave them under books for a day. Do not force photos that are stuck to an album. Photograph them on the page.
5. No digital zoom. Move closer, so the print fills almost the whole frame. Digital zoom only enlarges the pixels. Take 2–3 shots and keep the sharpest one.

If the photo matters to the whole family, make a copy of the file as soon as you have digitised it, for example in a shared album. Put the original print in an envelope, in a dry place. From then on you work only on the file.

A refresh in one instruction: example instructions

In the Framky AI editor you describe the change in your own words. Among the ready ideas for a style there is also a refresh of an old photo, which you can start from. You open the editor with “Edit with AI” next to a photo uploaded to the project. You need an account, and edits use credits. You see the cost of each action before you run it.

Instructions that work on old prints:

Problem	Instruction
Scratches, dust, white specks	Remove scratches, dust and specks, do not change the faces
A crease or a crack	Remove the crease running through the top right corner of the photo
A faded, grey photo	Improve the contrast and the depth of the blacks, leave the photo black and white
A yellow bloom	Remove the yellow bloom, keep a gentle sepia tone
Soft faces	Gently sharpen the faces, keep their features and their age
Everything at once	Refresh the old photo: remove scratches, stains and creases, improve the contrast, do not change the faces

Three rules that save credits:

• One change at a time on a difficult photo. Scratches and creases first, then contrast. Each next change is made from the previous version.
• Always say what should stay. “Do not change the faces” or “keep the features and the age” is the most important part of the instruction for photos of people close to you.
• Preview first. This usually takes about 10 seconds. You create the final version, in full resolution for print, only when the preview suits you.

If the photo shows older people and you only want to smooth the skin, also read the article on portrait retouch without a “plastic” look. With old photos it is usually better not to touch the wrinkles at all.

How much to correct so it stays authentic

A restored photo should look like a well-kept print, not like a new photo taken today. A simple split:

Correct freely	Leave unchanged
Scratches, dust, stains, creases, cracks	The features of the face, the shape of the eyes and the mouth
Faded contrast, a yellow bloom	The wrinkles and grey hair of grandparents
Missing pieces at the edges of the print	Clothes, hairstyles and the background of the period
Slightly soft outlines	Film grain, black and white, or sepia

After each edit, compare the version with the original on the before-and-after slider. The labels are “Original” and “Edited”. Zoom in on the faces. If someone looks younger, smiles differently, or has a different face shape, go back to the previous version. Every version stays on the list, so the original is never lost.

A good test before print: show the final version to someone in the family who remembers these people. If they recognise them at once and do not notice that the photo was edited, the result is right.

Colourising is a separate decision. Black-and-white and sepia photos usually sit together better in one gallery. If you want a colour version, treat it as an extra, and choose for the frame the one the family finds closer to the truth.

Print size and scan quality

Old prints are small, often 6 × 9 cm or 9 × 13 cm. AI will remove scratches, but it will not add detail that was never on the print. So choose the frame size to fit the file, not the other way round.

Source	Approximate file size	Safe size in a frame
A 9 × 13 cm print, a 12 MP phone photo	about 2500 × 3600 px	up to 30 × 40 cm
A 9 × 13 cm print, a 600 DPI scan	about 2100 × 3100 px	up to 30 × 40 cm
A 9 × 13 cm print, a 1200 DPI scan	about 4250 × 6150 px	up to 40 × 50 cm
A 6 × 9 cm print, a 1200 DPI scan	about 2850 × 4250 px	up to 30 × 40 cm

The file size of a scan is simple arithmetic: the print size in inches times the scanner DPI. For a phone photo we assume the print fills about 90% of the frame. The general rule: do not enlarge an old print more than 3–4 times. A remembrance gallery is viewed from close up, often from 50 cm to 1 m, and from that distance you see more than with a gallery above a sofa. Tables of distance and resolution are in how much DPI you need for photo printing.

In practice that means one photo in a 30 × 40 cm frame is the centre of a remembrance gallery, and the others are smaller. That is not a flaw. It is a natural hierarchy.

A remembrance gallery: layout and captions

A remembrance gallery does not have to be large. On a sideboard, in an entryway, or above a small table in the living room, 4–6 photos are enough.

Layout. Symmetry works: one larger portrait in the centre, two smaller photos on each side. Hang the centre of the gallery at about 145–155 cm from the floor, and above a sideboard the lower edge of the frames 20–25 cm above the top. The gallery should be about two thirds of the width of the furniture. With a 120 cm sideboard, that is about 80 cm.

Choosing the photos. One thread works best: two grandparents and their story, one branch of the family, or several generations from the oldest photo to the youngest. What a gallery across generations looks like in practice is shown in Megan’s heritage gallery, with photos from 1889 to 2005 in one consistent setting.

Consistency. Matching frames hold photos from different decades together. One tone helps too: all the photos black and white, or all in sepia. Even if you combine those two tones in one gallery, refresh them with the same instruction so the contrast is similar.

Captions. Write names and dates in pencil on the back of the print, or on a slip of paper at the back of the frame. In a dozen years that will be the most valuable information for the grandchildren. If you want guests to know who they are looking at, put a small card on the sideboard with the names and years, in the same order as the photos.

Candles. If you place a candle under the gallery, choose a cloche or an LED candle, and keep it at least 30 cm from the frames.

Why photos of people close to you on the wall matter at all is described in photos on the wall and wellbeing.

From a print to a gallery in 5 steps

1. Choose 4–6 photos and photograph them with a phone by a window, or scan them.
2. Upload the files and choose a layout in the photo gallery wall. Put the largest photo in the central frame.
3. Next to each photo, choose “Edit with AI”, type an instruction from the table, and check the preview on the before-and-after slider. The labels are “Original” and “Edited”.
4. Create the final version and choose “Use in frame”. The editor can show “Show frame proportions”, so you see at once whether anyone will be cropped.
5. Place the order. The set arrives ready to hang, with a 1:1 paper template and self-adhesive hangers. If the gallery is to hang before 1 November, check the delivery date when you place the order.