No. Everything runs in this browser tab on your own device. Engines are downloaded once and cached, but your files never leave your computer.

Are the colours real?

No. The AI guesses likely colours from what it has learned, so skin, sky and plants look natural, but clothes or cars may not match the real colours.

Is the resolution reduced?

No. Only the colour is predicted at 512 px. The detail comes from your full-size original.

Are my files uploaded?

No. This tool runs entirely in your browser tab. Files are read from your disk into memory and the result is generated locally.

Is it free? Are there limits or watermarks?

Free and open source (MIT). There are no file-size caps, daily quotas, accounts or watermarks.

Does it work offline?

Yes, once the page (and any engine it needs) has loaded, it keeps working without a connection thanks to the service worker cache.

Home / AI / Colorize Black and White Photo

Colorize Black and White Photo

Add natural colour to old black and white photos with an AI model that runs on your device.

Free, no uploads, no sign-up. Runs 100% in your browser.

How Colorize Black and White Photo works

The photo is converted to CIE Lab and only its lightness is used. DDColor tiny (Apache-2.0, ONNX) looks at a 512 × 512 version and predicts the two colour channels, running with ONNX Runtime Web on your GPU or CPU. The predicted colour is scaled up smoothly and merged with the full-resolution lightness of your original, so all fine detail is kept. The model (about 136 MB) is downloaded once and cached.

Input: JPG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC, TIFF, AVIF. Output: JPG, PNG, WEBP.

How to use Colorize Black and White Photo

Drop a black and white (or faded) photo.
Press Colorize and wait a few seconds.
Drag the divider to compare and set the colour strength.
Download the full-size colour photo.

Tips

Scan old prints at 600 DPI or more for the best detail.
Lower the colour strength to about 70% for a gentle, hand-tinted look.
Run Photo Enhancer first on faded or noisy scans.

Colorize Black and White Photo FAQ

Is my file uploaded?: No. Everything runs in this browser tab on your own device. Engines are downloaded once and cached, but your files never leave your computer.
Are the colours real?: No. The AI guesses likely colours from what it has learned, so skin, sky and plants look natural, but clothes or cars may not match the real colours.
Is the resolution reduced?: No. Only the colour is predicted at 512 px. The detail comes from your full-size original.
Are my files uploaded?: No. This tool runs entirely in your browser tab. Files are read from your disk into memory and the result is generated locally.
Is it free? Are there limits or watermarks?: Free and open source (MIT). There are no file-size caps, daily quotas, accounts or watermarks.
Does it work offline?: Yes, once the page (and any engine it needs) has loaded, it keeps working without a connection thanks to the service worker cache.

Related tools

Photo Enhancer: Fix dull, dark, noisy or soft photos in one click: auto levels, white balance, denoise, sharpen, face-friendly smoothing and optional AI 2× upscale.
Magic Eraser (Remove Objects): Brush over people, objects, text or watermarks and an on-device AI fills the area with matching background.
Image Upscaler: Upscale images 2× to 4× with AI super-resolution.
AI Summarizer: Summarize PDFs, Word files and long text on your device, as paragraphs or key points.