How to Bring Old Family Photos Back to Life in Color: A Whole-Album Workflow

The problem

You have a shoebox of prints and everyone in the family would love to see them in colour, but you don’t have days to spend in an editor, and you don’t want your family’s faces sitting on an online service. The temptation is to do a couple, get bored and give up.

A workflow that gets through the box

1. Sort first. Pick the 20 photos that matter most. Start there.
2. Digitise well. See preparing old prints. A good copy saves redoing.
3. Colourise. One at a time, or in a batch of up to 10 (Pro). See batch mode.
4. Check each face. Use the slider at full zoom.
5. Upscale the small ones you want to print (Pro). See HD Upscale.
6. Save and share. Pro exports at full size with no watermark. See saving and sharing.
7. Keep the originals. Your colourised copies live in ReColor’s library alongside the originals.

Free vs. Pro for this job

• Free: 3 colourisations a day, exports capped at 1280 px with a watermark. Fine to try a few photos, or spread a box across a week.
• Pro: unlimited, batch mode, HD Upscale, full-resolution exports. Worth it for a whole box.

Etiquette and expectations

• The colours are a plausible guess, not a record of what people wore. Say so when you share (“colourised”).
• Ask relatives about key details such as eye colour or a famous dress, which you can’t fix in the app but can mention in a caption.
• Back up the originals somewhere other than your phone.

FAQ

Can I do a whole album at once? Batch mode (Pro) handles up to 10 photos at a time. Free handles 3 colourisations a day.

Is it private enough for family photos? Yes. Colourisation runs on the device. No account, no upload.

What about prints that are small or damaged? Use HD Upscale (Pro) for small ones. Heavily damaged prints may need repair first.