Photo Colorizer API for Developers
Photo Colorizer API
Restore historical stills, sketches, and grayscale assets with believable modern color palettes.
Free to start
No watermarks on paid plans
Subscription or usage-based
Auto-scaling
Trusted by teams at
Everything You Need to Ship Photo Colorizer
Great for genealogy products, museum archives, and print services digitizing old media.
Authentic Tones
Adds natural skin, fabric, and environmental hues instead of flat tints.
Archival Pipelines
Batch-ingest scanned negatives and glass plates automatically.
Portrait Sensitivity
Handles faces carefully to avoid cartoonish skin shifts.
Fast Processing
Interactive enough for consumer-facing heritage apps.
Auto-Scaling Infrastructure
Process entire archives when donors upload thousands of scans.
Commercial-Ready
Offer paid restoration tiers with predictable per-image economics.
Integrate in 3 Steps
Bring grayscale libraries into color with one integration.
1
Get Your API Key
Sign up free and generate an API key from the Developer dashboard. You get free credits to start.
2
Upload a Grayscale Image
Reference image_file_path on POST /v1/photo-colorizer to create a colorized still.
3
Get Results & Scale
Receive the swapped output via response or webhook. Deploy to production — infrastructure scales automatically.
Code Examples
Photo Colorizer in a few lines of code. Install an SDK or use the REST API directly.
from magic_hour import Client
from os import getenv
client = Client(token=getenv("MAGIC_HOUR_API_KEY"))
res = client.v1.photo_colorizer.generate(
name="Colorized",
assets={"image_file_path": "/path/to/archive.png"},
)SDKs for Every Stack
Official open-source SDKs with full TypeScript/type support. Install and start building.
Photo Colorizer API Pricing
Subscription plans for standard usage.
Prefer usage-based pricing?
Email us or message us in Intercom and we will set up your usage-based pricing.
API Calculator
Use our calculator to estimate your API costs.
Tier
Estimated monthly cost
$1.73
Based on 24 FPS
Built for Builders
See how developers use the Photo Colorizer API to power real products.
Genealogy & History
Let families preview ancestors in color instantly.
Museums & Archives
Digitize exhibitions with respectful color restoration.
Documentary
Prep B-roll stills for color-graded films.
Print Shops
Upsell restoration services on upload flows.
Social Nostalgia
Power #ThrowbackThursday filters with authentic palettes.
Games
Colorize concept art archives for remasters.
Try before integrating
Try Photo Colorizer Free — No Code Required
Test quality first with the free tool, then plug the same output quality into your app with the API when you are ready.
Photo Colorizer API — Frequently Asked Questions
Heavy damage may need manual cleanup first; colorization works best on reasonably clean grayscale inputs.
POST /v1/photo-colorizer with assets.image_file_path.
Results are plausible rather than historically perfect—disclose AI enhancement to users.
Fire parallel jobs per asset; Magic Hour scales workers automatically.
Python uses photo_colorizer.generate; Node uses photoColorizer.generate.
Each output uses the photo colorizer rate from pricing documentation.
Refer to plan-specific max dimensions in the API reference.
docs.magichour.ai covers errors, limits, and example responses.