Unblur Faces in Photos with AI Face Restore

When the face is the problem

Count the pixels across the eyes before you run anything. If the whole head is a few dozen pixels inside a group photo, you are asking a model to guess a likeness from a handful of samples. Sometimes the guess is recognisable to the family. Sometimes the catchlight moves and the person is a cousin. The slider at full zoom is the only check that matters.

General unblur is the free first pass. It will not spend its capacity on eyes. If the face is already a readable face and the frame is merely soft, stay on unblur. Switch to face restore when the features themselves collapsed. That mode is on Pro and Studio, two credits, because the invention is larger.

Do not run face restore on a photograph where the face is not the subject. It will hunt for a face in a statue, a painting, or a pet and “correct” it. Crop to the person first.

Identity is the constraint

Keep the small original beside the result. If you cannot see the original, you cannot tell that the mole moved. FixPhotoQuality does not publish a star rating for this, because a flattering preview is not a likeness. There is no aggregate review schema on the site for the same reason.

The preview of a paid job is the full file, with no watermark. Guest and Free plan accounts cannot start this mode. Batch is available on the paid plans if you are restoring a set of portraits rather than one test.

Uploads and results still delete after 24 hours on every plan, including Studio. Download the file you intend to keep. A failed run returns the two credits. A successful face you later decide is wrong does not.

A face is an identity, not a sharpness score

Face restore is the mode most likely to look impressive and be wrong. Eyes, teeth, and the crease beside a nose are exactly where a model has strong opinions. Those opinions come from other faces. On a sharp portrait they are unnecessary. On a face that is twelve pixels tall they are a guess you must compare against a better photograph of the same person, not against your hope. If you do not have that better photograph, treat the result as a sketch and say so wherever you publish it.

The mode is not on the free tool. It costs two credits and starts on Pro, with 4×. Studio adds 8× for a face that was tiny to begin with, and the same duty to check identity. Run 2× or unblur first if the rest of the frame is the problem. A soft background does not need a new pair of eyes. Crop to the head only when the head is what failed. A full-length snapshot sent through face restore still spends the credits on a body the mode was not asked to understand.

Paid downloads of this result are full size and unmarked. The preview is the same picture you will download, which is the point of judging it. Free pages show ads, Pro and Studio are ad-free, and there is no refund of the subscription if you decide the likeness drifted. Cancel anytime and the plan runs to the end of the period you already paid. The portrait is deleted after 24 hours, so a family archive lives on your drive, not in the job row.

A last look at the person

Put another photograph of the same person next to the slider if you have one. Eyes, the gap between the teeth, the crease beside the nose. If those moved toward a generic portrait, the mode was confident and wrong. Ship the unblur or the 2× instead. A sharp stranger is worse than a soft friend, and an 8×10 will not make the stranger familiar.

What to keep beside the slider

Face restore costs two credits and it is not on the free tool, so the cheap test is unblur or 2× first. If the eyes are merely soft, stop there. If they have collapsed into a smear, Pro will run the face mode and you still owe the picture a likeness check. Studio's 8× makes that check stricter, not easier. A generic smile at poster size is a confident error. Cancel the plan later if you want. The fee for the period stays paid. The portrait itself is deleted after a day, which is another reason the better photograph of the same person should live on your disk, not in the job.