10 Photo Restoration Apps Put to the Test

FixQ takes the top spot because its positioning is unusually clear: AI enhancement and colourisation for old photos, rather than a grab bag of unrelated editing tools. The Singapore App Store lists it as free with in-app purchases and designed for iPad. That is useful for tablet-based scanning sessions, but the listing does not reveal the purchase price or whether high-resolution exports sit behind the paywall. Pick this if you want a dedicated restoration workflow on iPad and can tolerate checking the subscription screen before committing.

Old Photo Repair App is the more narrowly named alternative to FixQ, with a promise centred on restoring old pictures and images. The Singapore App Store classifies it under Productivity, which feels less natural than FixQ’s Photo & Video category and gives little information about the actual editing pipeline. It is free with in-app purchases and designed for iPad, but there is no visible rating or price in the supplied listing. Choose it for a simple old-picture repair experiment, not for a proven track record.

Relumi covers the widest restoration brief in this cluster: scanned prints, faded family snapshots, damaged wedding photos, blurry pictures, early digital images, face unblurring, and black-and-white colourisation. Its description also claims millions of processed photos, but that is a provider claim rather than an independently verified performance metric. Compared with Old Photo Repair App, Relumi gives you a clearer sense of the intended use cases; compared with FixQ, it is the more ambitious Android-facing option. Pick it when your archive includes several kinds of damage instead of one recurring problem.

Rstrgrm, also branded Restoregram in its description, packs enhancement, unblurring, damage repair, and black-and-white colourisation into a one-tap pitch. That simplicity is appealing, but it also raises the usual restoration concern: aggressive sharpening can invent facial detail that was never in the scan. Unlike Relumi, the supplied page does not give a specific processing volume or broader case list. Use it for quick before-and-after experiments on Android, especially when speed matters more than manual control.

LumiRevive follows the familiar automatic route, promising repair for old, damaged, blurry, and faded photos in a few taps. Its examples—family portraits, childhood memories, wedding photos, and historical images—make the audience obvious, but the listing supplies no rating, price, platform details beyond Google Play, or export limitations. Against Rstrgrm, it offers similar breadth with less evidence to judge. Pick it only after testing one low-stakes scan; keep the original file untouched.

RetroFix is the evidence-led pick in this group: the Singapore App Store shows 4.8 stars from 42 ratings, plus a clear focus on turning black-and-white photos into colour and repairing old images. The sample size is modest, so it does not prove consistent results across difficult scratches or faces, but it is more reassuring than an unrated listing. It is free with in-app purchases and designed for iPad. Choose it when colourisation is the main job and visible user feedback matters more than a long feature list.

Photo Restore - Video & File is the category mismatch that deserves a warning label. Its description is about scanning for accidentally deleted JPEGs, PNGs, videos, and other files, not repairing scratches, fading, blur, or missing detail in an existing scan. That makes it useful after an accidental deletion, but the wrong download for a damaged family portrait. Pick it only if the original file has disappeared from the device; for visible photo damage, use FixQ, Relumi, or RetroFix instead.

AI Photo Restore With Music adds a creative finish that the restoration-first apps do not: it can enhance, upscale, repair, colourise, add background music, and turn photos into memory videos. That makes it better for a family slideshow than for careful archival work. The description does not provide pricing, ratings, export resolution, or platform limitations beyond its Google Play listing. Pick it when the final result is meant to be shared as a short video, not printed as a faithful restoration.

ProAI sits between a general AI enhancer and a restoration app, with colourisation and old-photo restoration called out in the Singapore App Store title and subtitle. The listing marks it free with in-app purchases and designed for iPad, but it does not show a rating, review count, or exact purchase terms in the supplied data. Compared with the music app, it stays closer to image editing; compared with FixQ, it gives less detail about its restoration focus. Pick it for broader enhancement experiments rather than a dedicated archive workflow.

Restore Old Photos & Images is a skip for now because the supplied App Store URL returns a missing-page message. That leaves no verifiable feature list, rating, price, or current availability. Compared with every live listing above, it cannot clear the basic test of being inspectable before download. Revisit it only if the developer restores the page and publishes current details.