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Quick verdict
Palette.fm is a specialist colorizer with a pleasant interface, adjustable colour filters, and good results on clean black-and-white images. If your photos are already sharp and undamaged and colour is the only thing missing, it does the job well. If your photos are old prints with scratches, fading, or soft faces, Palette.fm leaves all of that in place; RestorePhotosApp repairs the damage and adds colour in the same tool, and its credits do not expire after two years.
Choose RestorePhotosApp
Best for old family photos that need repair as well as colour, with one-time credits that never expire.
Choose Palette.fm
Best for clean, undamaged black-and-white images where you want to steer the colour palette by hand.
“My grandma cried when she saw her wedding photo restored. Absolutely incredible.”
Maria K.
“Uploaded a blurry photo from the 70s and got back a crystal clear image. Like magic.”
James T.
“Finally recovered old family photos I thought were lost forever. So easy to use.”
Sarah M.
See the difference on your own photos
No watermark · No subscription · From $6.99
Colour is usually not the only problem
A black-and-white print from 1950 rarely arrives as a clean, sharp image that merely lacks colour. It has been handled, stored in a damp attic, folded into a wallet, or scanned from a curling album page. It has dust, scratches, a yellow cast, and a face that has softened over seventy years. Colorizing that photo makes the damage more visible, not less: a bright blue sky draws the eye straight to the scratch running through it.
Palette.fm is built to colorize and only to colorize. It does that well, with a set of named colour filters you can switch between and a preview that updates quickly. But it has no restoration model, so anything wrong with the input is still wrong with the output, now in colour.
RestorePhotosApp treats colorization as one step in restoring an old photo. The colorize style adds colour with a current-generation model, and the restore style removes scratches, corrects fading, and recovers the face. Running both on the same print takes two clicks and two credits, and the result is a photo that looks like it was taken in colour, not a damaged one that was painted.
Two years to use your credits
Palette.fm's one-time purchase is $49 for 75 credits, and those credits expire after two years. The annual plan is $72 per year for 480 credits, which is excellent value if you colorize forty images a month and poor value if you colorize forty images a year. Either way, the clock is running.
Family photo projects do not run on a clock. A box surfaces, you work through it, and the next box appears when a relative moves house. RestorePhotosApp credits never expire. The Starter pack is $6.99 for 10, Family is $29.99 for 50, Studio is $54.99 for 100, and whatever is left waits, whether that is three months or three years.
The 500-pixel free tier
Palette.fm's free plan is generous in one sense: you can preview unlimited images. But the previews are capped at 500 by 500 pixels and carry the Palette logo, and the single free HD credit is spent on the first real download. It is enough to see roughly what the colours will be, not enough to judge the result on a face.
RestorePhotosApp gives every account 2 restorations at full 1080p with no watermark and no credit card. Colorize the hardest photo in the box first; if the skin tones and the fabric look right at full size, you know what the paid credits will do.
Skip the research — see the result on your own photo.
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Side by side
RestorePhotosApp vs Palette.fm
| Feature | RestorePhotosAppOur pick | Palette.fm |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 2 full-resolution results, no watermark | 500x500 watermarked previews, 1 HD credit |
| Pricing model | One-time credit packs | One-time (2-year expiry) or annual subscription |
| Starting price | $6.99 one-time for 10 | $49 one-time for 75, or $72 per year |
| Cost per photo (best plan) | $0.55 per photo | About $0.15 on the annual plan; about $0.65 one-time |
| Credits expire | Never | After 2 years (one-time) or yearly |
| Scratch, fade, and crease repair | Yes | No |
| Face recovery and sharpening | Yes | No |
| Colorization | Yes, automatic | Yes, with selectable colour filters |
| Manual colour steering | No | Yes, named filters and text prompts |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days | Limited |
Photo colorization in 2026
Colorizing an old photo properly
Repair first, then colour
Colour models infer what things are, skin, sky, grass, wood, and assign plausible colours. They infer better from a clean image. A scratch across a cheek can be read as a shadow or a mark and coloured accordingly; a faded, low-contrast print gives the model less to work with everywhere. Removing the damage before colorizing is not cosmetic, it is what lets the colours land in the right places.
On RestorePhotosApp that order is two clicks: Restore, then Colorize on the result. Each run costs one credit, and the second free restoration is a good place to test it.
A face is the hardest part
Viewers forgive a slightly wrong sky and never forgive a slightly wrong face. Skin tone, the redness of lips, the colour of eyes, and the way light falls across a cheek are where colorization succeeds or fails. RestorePhotosApp's model family was trained with faces as the priority, and the restore style recovers facial detail before colour is applied, so the colour has structure to sit on.
Credits that wait for the next box
A two-year expiry sounds generous until the second box turns up in year three. RestorePhotosApp credits never expire and there is no subscription to renew, so the Family pack you bought for the wedding album is still there for the christening photos. Packs run from $6.99 for 10 to $54.99 for 100, with a 30-day money-back guarantee on every purchase.
See the same effect on your own photos.
No watermark. No subscription. From $6.99.
Comparison information is based on publicly available product details and may change. Last updated 2026. Read how we test photo restoration tools.
About Palette.fm
Palette.fm is a web-based AI colorizer built by a small team and known for its clean interface and its set of named colour filters that let you nudge the overall look of a colorized image. The free tier offers unlimited watermarked previews at up to 500 by 500 pixels and one HD credit. Paid options are a one-time purchase of 75 credits for $49, valid for two years, or an annual subscription of 480 credits for $72. One credit produces one full-resolution colorization without the watermark.
For clean black-and-white images, film stills, or archival photographs that are already sharp, Palette.fm is a pleasure to use. Its limitation is scope: it colorizes and does nothing else, so damaged or faded originals need to be repaired somewhere else first.
Pros
- +Good colorization quality on clean, sharp images
- +Named colour filters and prompts to steer the palette
- +Fast previews and a simple interface
- +Annual plan is inexpensive per image for heavy users
- +Full-resolution output up to 5000 by 5000 pixels
Cons
- −No scratch, fade, crease, or blur repair
- −No face recovery or sharpening
- −Free previews capped at 500px with a watermark
- −One-time credits expire after two years
- −Two tools needed for a damaged black-and-white print
The alternative
Why people choose RestorePhotosApp over Palette.fm
The first reason is that their photos are damaged. Most people colorizing family photos are not starting from clean scans; they are starting from prints with seventy years on them. A colorizer alone makes the damage more obvious. RestorePhotosApp repairs and colorizes in the same place.
The second reason is the expiry. Credits that vanish after two years punish exactly the way families actually restore photos, in bursts years apart. RestorePhotosApp credits never expire.
Restore and colorize in one tool
Scratch and fade repair, face recovery, and colorization from the same upload box. No second service needed.
Full-resolution free results
2 free restorations at 1080p with no watermark. Judge the skin tones at full size before paying.
Credits never expire
No two-year clock, no annual renewal. Whatever is left waits for the next album.
Built around faces
The model recovers facial detail before colour is applied, so the hardest part of the photo comes out right.
One-time packs from $6.99
Ten credits for $6.99, fifty for $29.99, a hundred for $54.99. 30-day money-back guarantee.
Join 470,000+ people restoring their family photos.
No watermark. No subscription. From $6.99.
In practice
A real-world example: the wedding portrait
A reader has a single black-and-white wedding portrait of her grandparents from 1952, scanned from a print that has a fold across the corner and a general yellow haze. She tries Palette.fm, likes the preview at 500 pixels, spends the free HD credit, and downloads a colour version in which the fold is now a pale line across a warm background and the faces are as soft as they were before. To keep going she would pay $49 for 75 credits, of which she needs perhaps five.
On RestorePhotosApp she uploads the scan, runs Restore, and the fold and haze are gone with the faces noticeably crisper. She runs Colorize on that result and gets natural skin tones, a cream dress, and a dark suit, at full resolution and with no watermark. Both runs used her two free restorations. When her mother produces the rest of the wedding set, she buys the Starter pack for $6.99 and finishes the job.
The short answer
Which one should you choose?
- Your black-and-white photos also have scratches, fading, or soft faces
- You want to see a full-resolution result before paying
- You restore photos in bursts, years apart, and do not want credits to expire
- You want faces to come out right without hand-tuning
- You prefer one tool for the whole job
- Your images are clean, sharp, and only lack colour
- You want to pick and compare named colour palettes by hand
- You colorize dozens of images every month and the annual plan pays off
- You already repair photos elsewhere and only need the colour step
Made your choice? Restore your first photos today.
No watermark. No subscription. From $6.99.
Bottom line
Final thoughts
Palette.fm is a good colorizer, and if your images are already clean and you want to steer the palette by hand, it is a reasonable tool to pay for, particularly on the annual plan if you colorize a lot.
For old family photos, colour is the last step, not the only one. RestorePhotosApp repairs the damage first, colorizes with a current model, and sells credits that are still valid when the next box turns up. Test it on your hardest photo with the two free restorations, or read our guide to the best AI photo colorizers and the comparison hub for the wider field.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is RestorePhotosApp cheaper than Palette.fm?
It depends on volume. Palette.fm's one-time option is $49 for 75 credits that expire after two years, about 65 cents each; its annual plan is $72 for 480, far cheaper per image if you use them all. RestorePhotosApp packs run from $6.99 for 10 to $54.99 for 100, about 55 to 70 cents each, and the credits never expire. For a family project of a few dozen photos, RestorePhotosApp usually costs less and nothing goes to waste; for hundreds of images a year, Palette.fm's annual plan is cheaper per image.
Does Palette.fm repair scratches or fading?
No. Palette.fm only adds colour. Scratches, creases, fading, and blur in the original remain in the colorized output. RestorePhotosApp's restore style removes that damage and recovers faces, and its colorize style adds colour; running both takes two credits.
Can I see a full-size result on Palette.fm for free?
Free previews are limited to 500 by 500 pixels with the Palette logo, plus one HD credit. RestorePhotosApp gives every account 2 restorations at full 1080p with no watermark and no credit card.
Can I control the colours on RestorePhotosApp?
Not by hand. The colorize style chooses colours automatically, with faces prioritised. Palette.fm offers named colour filters and text prompts, which is a genuine advantage if you want to steer the overall palette yourself.
Do RestorePhotosApp credits expire?
Never. Palette.fm's one-time credits expire after two years and its annual credits reset yearly. RestorePhotosApp credits sit in your account until you use them, and every purchase carries a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Which gives better results on faces?
Both use modern models, but RestorePhotosApp recovers facial detail before colour is applied and was trained with faces as the priority, which tends to produce more natural skin tones on old, soft portraits. On clean, sharp images the difference is smaller. The free restorations exist so you can compare on your own photo.
