Tool
Is this photo worth restoring?
Five questions, thirty seconds, one honest answer. This is the decision that stops most people spending money on the wrong photograph — or the wrong starting file.
Questions
The things people ask next.
How does this triage tool decide?
It weighs the type of damage against whether faces are involved, whether you have the original or only a copy, whether other copies exist, and what the photograph is for. Repair work such as fading, scratches and blur can be automated well; reconstruction of missing areas needs a human. A poor source file overrides everything, because no restoration can recover detail a capture never recorded.
Why does it tell me to rescan instead of restoring?
Because a photograph of a photograph is not a scan. Glare, perspective, curvature and lost resolution are baked into the file, and restoration built on top of that produces invented detail over missing detail. Getting a proper 600dpi scan first is usually cheaper than the restoration that would be needed to compensate.
What damage can automated restoration actually fix?
Fading, colour casts and yellowing, scratches, dust and speckling, creases, moderate blur and softness, and colourising black-and-white images. These are subtraction jobs: every part of the original subject survives. Missing areas are different — they have to be invented.
Is it worth restoring a photo that is not the only copy?
Usually not, unless the other copies are in worse condition or you intend to frame or give this one away. For multiple copies of the same image, restore the best print once and keep the digital file.
Do I upload my photo to use this tool?
No. The triage tool runs entirely in your browser and asks you questions about the photograph rather than taking the file. Nothing is transmitted anywhere.
Verdict says restore it automatically?
That is the common case — fading, scratches, colour shift, blur. Pinin restores your first photograph free, so you can test it on the worst one in the box.