{"id":404017,"date":"2026-03-26T00:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/404017\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T00:34:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:34:21","slug":"on1-restore-ai-turns-old-family-photos-into-grotesque-nightmare-fuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/404017\/","title":{"rendered":"ON1 Restore AI Turns Old Family Photos into Grotesque Nightmare Fuel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

This week, ON1 announced Restore AI<\/a> for its Photo RAW MAX software. The company says the goal is to give photographers the ability to restore old photos using a \u201cpowerful new AI photo restoration module,\u201d but what it appears to do instead is dramatically change the photos into AI hallucinations. <\/p>\n

\u201cNearly every family has them \u2014 boxes of aging photographs tucked away in closets, old albums passed down through generations, or stacks of prints slowly fading over time. These images carry personal history, but dust, scratches, wrinkles, fading color, and grain often make them difficult to view or share. Restore AI was designed to help recover and preserve those photographs,\u201d ON1 says in a press release.<\/p>\n

\u201cRestore AI automatically repairs damaged photos, restores faded colors, enhances lost detail, and can even colorize black-and-white images\u2014making it easier to recover photographs that time has worn down.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an honorable goal, but ON1\u2019s results aren\u2019t coming close to meeting the quality threshold required for family members to feel comfortable sharing these \u201crestored\u201d photos. <\/p>\n

ON1 included a staggering 73 examples of its AI restoration tool\u2019s handiwork in the press kit supplied to PetaPixel. The quality of this \u201crestoration\u201d is around the level of the first generative AI images showcased when the tools started to become available a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany restoration tools rely on filters or limited AI models. Restore AI uses larger, cloud-based AI models capable of analyzing images more deeply and reconstructing missing detail,\u201d ON1 claims. <\/p>\n

Despite what ON1 says, what the tool appears to be doing is simply having an AI model redraw the input image as best as it can, and that means original details are either lost or completely changed. <\/p>\n

\"BlackOriginal photo. \"AAfter using Restore AI. Note the teeth, the addition of makeup, and inconsistent depth of field. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe result is a cleaner, sharper image \u2014 often significantly improving on the original scan. Restore AI can also rebuild texture and restore facial detail in soft or poorly digitized photographs,\u201d ON1 claims.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unlikely everyone who sees these results will agree. <\/p>\n

The worst examples are human faces. If a face is the central subject of the image, the AI will redraw it with details and additions that weren\u2019t present in the original photo. The AI appears to be trained on what it thinks an attractive human face looks like, and so it will add hair, apply makeup, and enhance facial features to achieve its final result. <\/p>\n

\"AOriginal photo \"AAfter using Restore AI. \"AOriginal photo \"AAfter using Restore AI. \"AOriginal photo \"AAfter using Restore AI. <\/p>\n

Some might not find these particularly egregious, but when people become a smaller part of the overall image, the AI starts to head down a horror film path. As details become less visible, the AI will hallucinate and faces will become grotesque facsimiles. <\/p>\n

\"Three<\/a>Original photo. Click to view larger. \"Four<\/a>After using Restore AI. Click to view larger. \"Three<\/a>Original photo. Click to view larger. \"Three<\/a>After using Restore AI. Click to view larger. <\/p>\n

It is not uncommon for facial features to be completely distorted, with sharp inhuman lines, messy eyes, and terrible smiles. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Original photo. Click to view larger. \"A<\/a>After using Restore AI. Click to view larger.<\/p>\n

In every case, whether or not it gets the details right, the \u201crestored\u201d photos appear less photo-like than the originals, and take on a sort of vector-esque look that is indicative of early generative AI models. Looking at Adobe\u2019s initial attempts in Firefly<\/a> shows a striking similarity<\/a>. <\/p>\n

These results are less restorative and more re-imaginative, and that re-imagining not only quickly strays from the truth, it will often defy reality.<\/p>\n

PetaPixel asked ON1 what model it is using to perform these restorations, and it says it\u2019s a mix of those developed in-house and those that are open source.<\/p>\n

\u201cRestore AI uses a combination of models, some are open source, some are developed by ON1. The results we shared are early and we expect to make improvements to them,\u201d Dan Harlacher, ON1\u2019s Head of Product tells PetaPixel. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey also have the face restoration applied universally, where the user will have control over them in the final version. Note that some faces, especially tiny and or blurry faces have little data to start with so creating a faithful representation is difficult and sometimes it is better to just turn it off. As you have seen with any other AI tool, the lower quality the input, the output suffers.\u201d <\/p>\n

ON1 adds that it recognizes that some of these results aren\u2019t hitting the mark and is re-evaluating them, with the goal of refining the AI model and re-running the images before the launch in April.<\/p>\n

It is worth noting that none of these restorations are performed on an editor\u2019s device. ON1 says that Restore AI \u201cuses very large AI models that require significant memory and compute power. These models are too large to run efficiently on most desktop GPUs.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"AOriginal photo. \"AAfter using Restore AI. Faces and ages have been altered to the degree that it is unlikely they would be recognizable as family members. <\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, ON1 says that this tool is still being refined and won\u2019t launch fully until April. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still fine-tuning it and it should continue getting much much better leading up to the official release in late April,\u201d the company wrote in response to a skeptical comment on YouTube. <\/p>\n

If that\u2019s true and they do expect Restore AI to get a lot better in one month\u2019s time, it\u2019s odd that ON1 would showcase the tool now when it\u2019s clearly not ready for scrutiny. <\/p>\n

ON1 adds that it is currently investigating options to allow it to run these AI models locally, but \u201cthere is no confirmed timeline yet\u201d for that. The company also says that nothing uploaded will be used to further train the AI. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Original photo. Click to view larger.
\n \"The<\/a>After using Restore AI. Click to view larger. \"A<\/a>Original photo. Click to view larger. \"A<\/a>After using Restore AI. Click to view larger. \"A<\/a>Original photo. Click to view larger. \"A<\/a>After using Restore AI. Just as was the case with early generative AI, the model ON1 is using struggles with text. Click to view larger. <\/p>\n

\u201cPhotos processed through Restore AI are handled securely and are never used to train AI models or improve datasets. Images are processed only for the restoration task requested by the user and remain private.\u201d<\/p>\n

ON1 is including this AI tool only as part of its Photo RAW MAX bundle<\/a>, which is available as a perpetual license or as a subscription. That does come with unlimited \u201crestorations,\u201d but those who purchase the perpetual license don\u2019t get access to these cloud-based edits forever: only for one year. Subscribers retain access for as long as their subscription is active. A perpetual license that includes Restore AI costs $120 while a subscription is currently priced at $80 per year. <\/p>\n

Image credits:<\/strong> Photos appear to be pulled from the public domain, while altered AI images were provided by ON1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, ON1 announced Restore AI for its Photo RAW MAX software. The company says the goal is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,182905,289,290,40177,18,19,17,182906,182907,2336,182908,864,82],"class_list":["post-404017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-aiphotoediting","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-editing","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-on1","tag-on1restoreai","tag-opinion","tag-restoreai","tag-software","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116292674182504969","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}