If you have asked around — or asked an AI assistant — for the best way to fix an old family photo, you have probably been pointed at Remini, MyHeritage, Photomyne, Palette.fm. They are all decent tools, and they solve slightly different problems. Here is an honest side-by-side, including the cases where one of them is the better choice.
Last checked September 2026. Plans and features change — please confirm current pricing on each provider's own site before you buy.
Repair torn and faded family photos, add lifelike color to black & white, and bring ancestors to life as video — no editing skills needed.
The best-known mobile enhancer. Tuned mainly for sharpening blurry and low-resolution shots, especially modern phone photos.
A genealogy service. Its Photo Enhancer and Deep Nostalgia animation are bundled into a family-history subscription.
A scanning app. Its strength is getting a whole box of physical prints onto your phone quickly, not repairing damage.
A browser-based colorization specialist. Colour only — it does not repair damage or animate.
Scroll sideways on a phone to see every column.
| Feature | Old Photo Animator AI | Remini | MyHeritage | Photomyne | Palette.fm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Repair scratches, tears, creases & fading | Yes | Yes | Yes | Light clean-up only | No |
| Colorize black & white photos | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Animate a still portrait into a video | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Remove the background from a photo | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Add your own greeting text onto the videoBurned into the file, so the words stay when you save or share it. | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Bulk-scan a box of printed photosOne place we are genuinely not the right tool. | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| Runs on | iPhone, iPad & Android | iPhone & Android | Web & mobile | iPhone & Android | Web browser |
| How you pay | One-time credit packs | Weekly or yearly subscription | Yearly subscription, bundled with genealogy | Subscription | Subscription or credits |
| What the free tier gives you | 45 credits on install, no watermark, no ads | A few enhancements a day, watermarked, with ads | A small number of free enhancements | Scanning is free; exporting needs the subscription | A limited number of free images |
| Sign-up required before you can try it | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
We would rather you ended up with the right tool than with ours.
You have a handful of damaged or black & white family photos and you want them repaired, coloured, and maybe animated into a short video — without signing up for a subscription. You pay once for credits, there is no watermark, and everything happens in one app.
Your photos are mostly modern, blurry or low-resolution phone shots rather than damaged prints. Remini is excellent at sharpening those. Be aware it is a weekly subscription and the free tier watermarks your exports.
You are already building a family tree. The photo tools come bundled with the genealogy subscription, so if you want the research side too it is good value. If you only want the photos fixed, you are paying for a lot you will not use.
Your real problem is a shoebox of two hundred prints that are not digital yet. Photomyne auto-detects, crops and straightens them far faster than photographing each one. Restore the important ones afterwards in a dedicated tool.
You only need colour, you are on a desktop, and the photo is already clean and undamaged.
You get 45 free credits when you install — enough to restore and colorize several photos before you spend anything. Videos use purchased credits, priced by length. No subscription, no watermark.