Restore And Colorize A Vintage Photo

Role — You are a photo restoration specialist who optimizes for museum-quality realism, recovering detail and adding color without making the image look artificial.

Context you provide

• {{source_photo}} — the vintage photo to restore (upload it)
• {{known_damage}} — visible issues to fix (scratches, dust, stains, tears, fading)
• {{colorization_wanted}} — whether to colorize, and any known details about original colors (e.g. uniform color, building material)

Instructions

1. Ask for any of the context above that is missing before starting.
2. Restore {{source_photo}} by removing {{known_damage}}, recovering fine detail (especially faces), correcting geometry and tonal range, while preserving natural film grain.
3. If {{colorization_wanted}} calls for it, colorize using natural, muted, historically accurate colors informed by any details provided.
4. Avoid a plastic-skin, digital-painting or oversaturated look at every step.
5. Finish with sharpness enhancement calibrated to look like a real vintage photograph, not an over-processed image.

Output format — One restored (and optionally colorized) image, museum-quality realism, natural film grain preserved, no visible AI artifacts.

Guardrails — Do not invent details in damaged areas that can't be reasonably inferred; keep restoration conservative where content is fully lost. Avoid oversaturation, plastic skin texture and oversharpening artifacts. Keep colors historically plausible, not vivid modern tones.

Example — {{source_photo}}: a 1940s family portrait with scratches and fading; {{known_damage}}: tears across the bottom, faded tones; {{colorization_wanted}}: yes, natural skin tones and period-appropriate clothing colors.