Palette.fm

Palette.fm is a web-based AI colorization service developed by a team based in Porto, Portugal. Instead of the brown-and-purple tint that generation-one colorizers often produce, the platform uses a purpose-built colorization model and 21+ named color filters — themes like Light, Flowers, Interior, History or Clothes — so users can choose a mood rather than accept a single automatic guess. After the initial pass you can adjust individual colors with plain-language keywords and re-run the colorization until skin tones, foliage and fabrics look natural. Free users get unlimited color previews, but those previews are downscaled to a maximum of 500x500 pixels and carry a Palette watermark in the bottom-right corner. A single free trial credit unlocks one watermark-free, full-resolution colorization, which is a good way to test quality on your own archive before paying.

Pricing is credit-based rather than seat-based: one credit equals one logo-free colorization at up to 5000x5000 pixels. You can subscribe (roughly $6/month billed annually, with credits rolling over up to five times the monthly allowance) or buy a one-time credit pack for around $49 that stays available for two years. Paid plans also remove ads and add workflow conveniences such as self-loading filters, pinning and duplicating filters for repeated editing jobs. The service reports 6.6 million-plus users and 54 million photos colorized, and it has been covered by figures such as Kevin Kelly and the PiXimperfect Photoshop channel.

Palette.fm is best understood as a focused, single-purpose tool: it is superb at restoring and enlivening family archives, historical photographs and editorial imagery, but it is not a general photo editor. There are no masking brushes, layers or compositing tools — the workflow is upload, choose a filter, refine with words, download. That narrowness is exactly why it is fast and approachable for genealogists, archivists, marketers and hobbyists who want convincing color without a learning curve.