Tutorials · 2026-10-27 · 3 min read

How to Colorize Black and White Photos With AI in Minutes

Add believable color to a black and white photo in one step. Which of the four color styles to pick, and how to prepare the scan first.

Black and white photos are often all we have of grandparents, old streets, and family events. Adding color by hand means painting every region with a brush. The Colorize tool on AirGallery adds color in one step and gives you four styles to choose from. This guide covers how to prepare the photo, which style to pick, and what to expect from the result.

Before you start

  • Get a clean scan. If the print has scratches, creases, or stains, run it through Old Photo Restore first with Restore faded colors turned off, so the repair pass does not try to add color of its own.
  • Save it as JPG, PNG, or WebP, up to 25 MB.
  • Sign in. The credit cost is shown on the page before you run anything.

Steps

  • Open Colorize and choose a style. Natural aims for realistic skin tones and environment colors. Vintage gives warm, slightly faded tones like color prints from the 1950s to 1970s. Vibrant produces rich, saturated, modern color. Cinematic applies a movie-style grade with balanced contrast.
  • Upload the black and white image.
  • Click Colorize and wait for the result to appear next to the original.
  • Compare the two. Check skin, sky, and anything with a known color such as a uniform or a car.
  • If the look is wrong, pick another style and click Colorize again. Each run is charged separately.
  • Click Download or Save to Gallery when you are happy with it.

Tips

  • Start with Natural. It is the most forgiving and the easiest to judge. Move to Vintage if the photo is from the mid twentieth century and you want it to feel of its time.
  • The model infers color from context. It does not know that a dress was actually green. Treat the result as plausible, not historically accurate.
  • Flat, gray scans produce muddy color. If the original lacks contrast, run Enhance with the Fix Lighting mode first, then colorize.
  • Colorizing a set of photos from the same event? Use the same style for all of them so they sit together.
  • Colorize at the scan resolution, then take the result to Upscale if you need a large print. Doing it in that order keeps the color consistent across the whole image.

What the styles are good for

  • Natural: family photos, portraits, and anything where the goal is to make it look like it was shot in color.
  • Vintage: mid century photos, street scenes, and anything that will sit next to real color prints from the same era.
  • Vibrant: posters, social posts, and photos with strong shapes where muted color would look flat.
  • Cinematic: landscapes, architecture, and moody portraits where a graded look suits the subject.

Sepia and tinted photos

A sepia or lightly tinted print is still a single-tone image, and the tool treats it the same way as a true black and white one. You do not need to convert it to gray first. If the tint is strong and the result comes back with a warm cast everywhere, run Enhance with the General mode on the original to neutralize it, then colorize again.

Colorizing an old photo changes how people see it, so it is worth keeping the black and white original alongside the new version. Most AirGallery runs cost one to three credits, credits never expire, and there is no subscription, so you can try two styles on a photo and let the family decide which one goes on the wall.