Colorize photo
Drop an old black-and-white photo and Toolula's AI adds natural colour in your browser — the photo is never uploaded, and its detail and grain stay exactly as they were.
About this tool
Old Photos in Colour, Without Sending Them Anywhere
An AI model trained on millions of photos runs on your own device and paints skin, sky, plants and fabric in believable colours.
Colour Only, Detail Untouched
The model predicts colour alone. Toolula lays it under your photo's own brightness at full resolution, so faces, edges, film grain and scratches look exactly as before — nothing is smoothed or invented.
Adjustable Intensity
Turn colour down for a gentle, period look or up for vivid prints. The slider updates the preview at once, and the before/after view shows the original right next to the result.
Private by Design
The model (about 60 MB) is downloaded once and then runs in your browser. Family photos never leave your device.
How to use it
- Drop a black-and-white photo, or paste it with Ctrl + V.
- Click Colorize photo. The first time, the AI model downloads once.
- Compare with the original and adjust the colour intensity.
- Choose JPG, PNG or WebP and download the colourised photo.
Frequently asked questions
Are my images uploaded to a server?
No. Every image is decoded, processed and encoded inside your browser tab with Canvas, Web Workers and WebAssembly. Nothing is uploaded, stored or logged.
Are the colours historically accurate?
No AI can know the real colours of a black-and-white photo. The model picks the most likely colours from what it has learned: skin, sky and plants usually come out right, while clothes, cars or painted walls may have looked different in reality.
Does colourising reduce the sharpness?
No. Only the colour is predicted at a lower resolution and then smoothly enlarged; the brightness of every pixel is taken from your photo unchanged, so the saved file is as sharp as the original and keeps its grain.
Can I colourise a sepia or already coloured photo?
Yes. Toolula uses only the brightness of the photo, so a sepia or faded colour photo is recoloured from scratch. Lower the intensity if the result looks too strong.
Why does the first run take longer?
The first run downloads the AI model once (about 60 MB). Your browser caches it, so later photos start right away. Colourising a photo then takes about 10 to 30 seconds, depending on your device.
Is it free, and is there a watermark?
Yes, it is free to use without an account, and Toolula never adds a watermark. The free plan has fair-use limits; Toolula Pro, an optional plan, raises them.