Do you have an old black and white photo and are you looking for a solution to enlarge it and give it color? This article is for you!
Here, I offer you a detailed guide to:
- Enlarge your photo old without sacrificing sharpness
- Improve its quality for a clearer and more precise image
- Restore color to an old photo
With simple steps, you can transform your black and white photos into beautiful, colorful photos, full of charm and history.
How to restore color to an old photo with Canva
In this guide, I will enlarge and restore color to an old photo using Canva. This online service is simple and effective.
Even if you've never touched one photo editing software, you'll find Canva easy to navigate.
Two of these tools will be at the heart of our guide:
- Enhance : This first tool, developed by Swapme AI, allows you to improve the quality of your photos. Thanks to the'artificial intelligence, this tool allows you to enlarge any image up to 1000% without significant loss of quality.
- Colorize : The second application uses advanced technology to automatically add colors to black and white photos. It thus transforms images into colored versions with natural and realistic tones.
Before we jump into the steps, let me show you the power of these two tools in my testing:
Avant
After
Enlarge your photo with Canva's Enhance tool
As I told you previously, we are going to enlarge the photo using the Canva “Enhance” app.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Go to the Canva website and log in to your account, or create one if necessary.
- In the left sidebar, select the tab Create a new design, then choose Custom dimension. Enter the dimensions of the black and white photo you want, multiplying them by 10 to get a larger photo.
- Once your workspace is created, click on App in the left sidebar. Next, search for the app Enhancer in the search bar and click on it.
- Now click on the button Choose file and choose the photo you want to improve.
- After importing the photo, activate the button Enhance face And click Enhance image.
- Wait a few seconds, click Add to design and admire the result.
- Once you are happy with the enlargement, save your image. Canva allows you to save in different formats depending on your intended use.
Bring color back to an old photo with the Canva Colorize app
After enlarging your photo, let's move on to colorizing it to bring it to life with realistic colors.
- Return to the main Canva page, then click Projects, and select Pictures. Choose the image you just enlarged.
- In the window that appears, click Use in a design, located at the top right.
As before, click App in the left sidebar. Next, search for the app Colorize in the search bar and click on it.
- Select the image in the artboard and click Colorize and replace. Let Canva analyze your image and apply a suitable color palette.
- Once you are happy with the result, save the colorized image.
- You can also choose to share it directly from Canva to your social media or other platforms.
