Selection criteria
Y2K, 90s, and restoration are three different requests
The Y2K templates lean on early digital compacts: harsh on-camera flash, hard falloff into a dark background, a slightly green colour shift. The 90s templates are warmer and softer with more film character, and the flash-luxury one adds the specific look of a point-and-shoot fired indoors at night. Then there is a restoration template that runs in the opposite direction entirely — it reduces damage, grain and softness in a genuinely old scan rather than adding age to a new photo. People frequently pick the wrong one of these three, so read the names before uploading.
Why most retro filters fail and these do not
A filter warms the colour and adds grain on top. What actually dates a photograph is camera behaviour: the falloff pattern of a direct flash, softness in the corners from a cheap plastic lens, the colour cast of consumer film processed at a lab, and often a date stamp burned into the corner. These templates rebuild that behaviour instead of layering an effect over your image, which is why the results read as photographs from the period rather than as processed modern photos.
Usage guidance
- Decide which of the three you want: Y2K flash, 90s film, or restoring a genuinely old photo.
- For period looks, use a normal modern photo — the template supplies the era, not your source.
- For restoration, upload the highest-resolution scan you have, uncropped and unsharpened.
- Check whether your chosen template burns in a date stamp before generating.
- Judge the result on the flash falloff and corner softness, not on the colour.
- Download at full resolution; video templates cost more credits than stills.
Related models
The date stamp question
Some of these templates burn in a date stamp because it is part of the idiom and a strong period signal. It is also nearly impossible to remove convincingly afterwards without damaging the surrounding pixels. Decide before you generate: if you want the image to be usable in a context where a fake date would be confusing, pick a template without one rather than planning to edit it out.
Restoring an old photo instead
If what you actually have is a damaged scan of a real old photo, the restoration template is the one you want, and the input rules are different: scan as high a resolution as you can, do not pre-sharpen, and do not crop before uploading. Restoration works from whatever detail survives in the file, so anything you remove first is gone. It reduces grain, creasing and softness; it will not invent a face that is not there.
Compliance and constraints
Limitations and decision check
Acceptance test: use this reviewed requirement as a pass/fail criterion on one representative result; compare the result with the requirement and stop, revise, or choose another route if it is not met: Decide which of the three you want: Y2K flash, 90s film, or restoring a genuinely old photo.
A strong style match can still distort faces, hands, clothing details, or small props. Compare the result with the source at full size and regenerate only after deciding which identity and composition details must remain fixed.
