AI Photo Colorizer - Colorize Black and White Photos
A fast tone-mapping effect that gives greyscale photos a warm vintage colour cast: cool shadows, warm midtones, soft highlights.
- 1Add your imageJPG, PNG or WebP — it stays in this tab
- 2Set it upNothing to configure for this one
- 3Press the buttonIt runs on your device in about a second
Add one above. It is read in this tab and never uploaded.
Press Add colour. The colour version appears here beside the original.
How to use it
How to colourise a black and white photo
- Upload the greyscale image. Use the best scan you have; the effect is applied at full resolution.
- Press Add colour. Every pixel's brightness is measured and tinted: shadows a little cool, midtones warm, highlights a soft neutral.
- Review and download. Compare against the original and save the result as a PNG.
Even out a faded or yellowed scan with the filters tool before colouring, because the tint is chosen from each pixel's brightness and a stained scan shifts those tones. If the scan is small, run it through the AI upscaler afterwards.
About this tool
What this colourising effect actually does
A greyscale photograph records brightness but not hue, so the original colours are genuinely gone rather than hidden. Deep-learning colourisers try to guess them from context, but their models are downloads of 100 MB or more. This tool takes a much lighter approach that runs instantly: it is a tone map, not a neural network.
Each pixel is sorted by brightness. Shadows get a slightly cool, blue-leaning tint, midtones a warm sepia-to-skin tint, and highlights a soft warm neutral. The result looks like a vintage hand-tinted print. Because the colour follows brightness rather than what is in the picture, it will not turn a sky blue or grass green; it gives the whole photo a warm, period feel.
That makes it a good fit for portraits and old family photographs where a warm cast suits the subject, and a quick way to take the cold edge off a flat greyscale scan. Colour photos can go through it too: they are converted to brightness first and then tinted the same way.
Everything runs in your browser, which matters for exactly this use case: family photographs and personal archives are precisely the material most people would rather not hand to a third-party server. There is no account, no queue, no per-image credit, and no upload.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Does it recover the original colours?
No. A greyscale photo records brightness only, so the original colours are genuinely absent. This tool does not try to guess them: it tints each tone range to give a vintage hand-coloured look.
Which photos colourise best?
Portraits and evenly lit scenes where warm midtones suit the subject. Because the tint follows brightness rather than content, a blue sky or green foliage will not come out blue or green.
How do I get the best result from an old print?
Scan at the highest resolution you can and even out a yellowed scan with the filters tool first, since the tint is chosen from each pixel's brightness.
Is there a limit on how many photos I can process?
No. It runs on your own device in a fraction of a second per photo, so there is nothing to meter. Whole family archives are fine.
Are my photos uploaded?
No. Colourisation happens entirely in your browser, which matters here because family photographs are exactly the material most people would rather not send to a third-party server.
Check for yourself that nothing is uploaded
🔎 Verify it yourself: nothing uploads
Don’t take our word for it. Open your browser’s DevTools (F12 → Network tab), then run this tool on any image. There is no AI model to download here: the processing is plain canvas code running in the page, and your image itself is never sent anywhere. Every tool on this site works the same way — all processing happens on your device.