What is Face Restoration?
TL;DR
Technology where AI estimates and reconstructs the face in a blurry or low-quality photo to make it crisp. Used to enhance old photos and small faces.
Face Restoration: Definition & Explanation
Face restoration is technology where AI takes a person's face in a photo that is blurry, low-resolution, or noisy and reconstructs the eyes, nose, mouth, and skin texture crisply based on facial features it has learned. Models like GFPGAN and CodeFormer are representative, and it is often built in as a feature of AI image upscaling tools, helping to enhance old family photos and faces captured small. The important caveat is that face restoration is not 'restoring the actual face' but 'generating and filling in a plausible face with AI.' As a result, the face can come out subtly—or sometimes greatly—different from the real person, occasionally looking like someone else. It is unsuitable for uses that demand accuracy, such as ID photos, news, or evidence; it's best understood and used for appreciation and reviving memories.