Restore order

Choosing the Right Restore Order

Nostalgia offers manual tools and the photo check recommendations. Using them in the right order - and knowing when to skip a step - makes a real difference in your results. This is the repair sequence, not the album playbook.

Sources and review notes

Reviewed against: Nostalgia's current Source-preservation and restoration-review contract, plus the Library of Congress guidance to define purpose and protect originals before digitizing.

Scope: A workflow can reduce avoidable changes; it cannot prove that generated detail is historically true. Keep the source and compare faces, text, hands, borders, and repeated patterns before keeping a result.

Sources

Start with the photo check

Every photo uploaded to Nostalgia gets a free photo check. It explains the photo's condition, visible damage, useful manual steps, safe AI steps, optional follow-ups, and any conservation guidance. Read it before applying anything - it often saves unnecessary steps.

The photo check is free. It never counts against your restore credits. Run it on every photo to understand what you are working with before choosing tools.

Recommended Tool Order

For most photos, follow this sequence. The photo check turns it into one next best action so manual source fixes happen before AI repair and optional creative tools.

1
Capture guidance first
If the photo check says a retake, cleaner light, or better scan will help more than AI, handle that before spending time on repair. A stronger source beats a longer tool chain.
2
Crop, straighten, rotate, or adjust
Use manual tools before AI when the scan has empty borders, skew, camera rotation, or a simple exposure issue. The photo check can recommend these steps because they improve the source without inventing detail.
3
Restore or repair safely
Fix structural damage (scratches, tears, fading, and age wear) after the source is framed correctly. This is the core AI step for most photos. Note: restore models do not work on daguerreotypes or plate-era photos. Seek professional conservation for those.
4
Adjust, enhance, or add color only when needed
Use auto-adjust or manual adjust after repair when tone still needs work. Enhance, Face Enhance, Colorize, and creative tools belong last, once the restoration result already exists and the photo supports the extra step.

When to Skip Steps

Not every photo needs every tool. The photo check report suggests which tools apply. Trust it as a starting point, then adjust based on what you see.

B&W print in good conditionTry Restore only if there is visible damage. If the repaired monochrome photo already feels complete, stop there. Colorize only if it adds useful context or warmth.

Sharp color photo with one scratchRestore only, no need for Enhance or Colorize

Soft scan of a sharp printRescan first if you can. If not, Restore lightly if needed, then Enhance last

Portrait with good detailSkip Face Enhance; it helps most when faces are blurry or small

When NOT to Use AI

AI restoration is a best-effort approximation. For most family photo collections, it produces useful results. But for archival-grade preservation of very important originals, a professional conservator may be more appropriate.

If a photo is very high-value or sentimental, consider rescanning at higher DPI before restoring. AI works better with more source detail, and you only get one physical original.

Always review results before considering them final, especially faces. The goal is faithful preservation, not an over-processed rendering.

Deblur and Deglare: These tools help weak phone captures and glare-affected scans, but they are not substitutes for a stronger source. For glare, rescanning with the Nostalgia app’s glare-burst capture (or any multi-shot scanner) under indirect light is often more reliable than AI correction.

Tools used in this workflow

Each step in the recommended order has a dedicated feature page with examples and limitations:

Photo check: now includes crop, straighten, rotate, adjust, AI repair, optional tools, and blocked-step guidance
Restore: the core repair pass
Colorize: optional, when color adds context
Enhance: for resolution

Start your first restore

Now that you know how it works, try it yourself. Upload a photo, follow the photo check recommendation, and keep the accepted Source and Restoration result together.

Start Restoring Inherited-photos playbook