Draw a box round any text in a photo - a menu, a shop sign, a poster, a label, a whiteboard. Tap the words you want to change and type the new ones. Recovoly writes them back in the same font, size, colour, lighting and texture, and leaves every other pixel of your photo exactly as it was.
Lemon Drizzle → Carrot
Same chalk hand
Lighting matched
Texture & grain kept
Rest of photo
Pixel for pixel original
Animated walkthrough of the AI Restore Studio changing one line on a photo of a café chalkboard menu.
0
pixels changed outside the text you mark
3
moves: mark the line, tap the words, type
12
text edits per photo, each one on its own
Full
resolution export as PNG, JPG or PDF
It's lit by the room, bent by the lens, printed on a surface with its own grain. That's why typing over it never looks right - and why regenerating the whole picture changes things you wanted to keep.
The usual way
With Recovoly
Choose a replacement for the cake on this café board and drag the handle. The new words keep the chalk strokes, the dotted leader and the price - and the brick wall, string lights and every other line stay the photo they were.
Replace “Lemon Drizzle Cake” with
THE CORNER CAFÉ
Today's Specials
Fresh bakes daily!
THE CORNER CAFÉ
Today's Specials
Fresh bakes daily!
Illustration. Drag the handle - only the marked menu line changes; the wall, lights, plant and every other word stay exactly the same.
No font files, no layers, no clone stamp. Most edits take under a minute.
Sign in to Recovoly and open the AI Restore Studio. New? A free account takes a minute.
Drop in a JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP or TIFF straight from your phone or camera - or a PDF.
Draw a box round the words. The studio reads them for you - no retyping, no font hunting.
Tap the words to replace, type the new ones and press Restore. Compare, then export.
A believable edit is more than the right letters. Hover a card to see what the AI carries over from your photo.
Serif, sans, script, stencil or someone's own hand - the new words are drawn in the style already on the photo.
Letter height, stroke weight, tracking and line position match the words either side of your edit.
Printed ink, paint, chalk, marker or vinyl - the same colour and the same way it sits on the surface.
Chalk dust, wood grain, paper fibre, brushed metal or fabric weave shows through the new letters too.
Highlights, shade and colour cast are carried across, so the text is lit like everything around it.
Text on a sign seen from the side, a bottle label or a bent page follows the same angle and curve.
Camera grain, JPEG softness and depth of field are matched, so the edit doesn't look pasted on.
Outside your mark the photo is the original file, pixel for pixel - faces, logos and background included.
If the picture is right and only the words are wrong, change the words.
Update a dish, a price or the specials on a menu photo without reshooting the board.
Show new opening hours, a new name or an offer on a photo of your shopfront or window.
Change a date, venue or headline on a photographed poster for the next event.
Try a new flavour name or tagline on a real product photo before you print.
Fix a typo or a number in a photo of a whiteboard, flip chart or projected slide.
Correct the size, colour name or price tag in a listing photo and keep the studio lighting.
Update the agent board, room sign or wayfinding text in property and venue photos.
A misspelled banner, cake, mug or T-shirt in a photo you love - fix the word, keep the moment.
The AI copies the lettering already in your photo instead of choosing a font from a list, so it works on text no font file could ever match - a sign-writer's brush, a barista's chalk, a teacher's marker. We'd rather tell you up front where it shines and where it struggles.
Works great
Harder
These can still work - mark a wider area, use the sharpest photo you have, or try Rebuild strength.
Image generators redraw everything. Recovoly works inside your mark and nowhere else - here is how each edit is made.
The text inside your mark is read and its style - font, weight, colour - is noted.
The area is cut out with enough of the photo around it to see the surface and the light.
Only the words you picked are replaced; the rest of the line is kept in place.
The result is aligned and colour-matched to the untouched pixels around it.
It is blended through a feathered mask of your shape. Outside it, the photo is original.
Tap to pick words
The text in your mark appears as tappable words. Pick one word, a phrase, or nothing to replace the whole line.
Fix what was read
If a word was misread - a stylised logo, a messy hand - tap Fix and correct it before you restore.
Box, ellipse, lasso or brush
Use a box for a straight line, a lasso for curved or slanted text, a brush for awkward shapes.
Auto-detect text
One click finds every line of text in the photo and marks it for you. Free to run.
Strength per edit
Gentle, Balanced or Rebuild - from the lightest touch to fully redrawing a damaged line.
Reference images
Attach up to four images - a logo or the same sign from another photo - for the AI to copy from.
Compare before & after
Drag a slider across the photo or zoom right in to check every letter against the original.
Export at full size
Download PNG, JPG or PDF at the original resolution, or save it to your Recovoly assets.
| What you need | Recovoly | Manual photo editing | AI image generator |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matches the font without you finding it | Sometimes | ||
| Follows perspective, light and texture | By hand | Sometimes | |
| Changes only the words you pick | |||
| Rest of the photo stays pixel-identical | |||
| Reads the existing text for you | |||
| Works on handwriting and chalk | Hard | Varies | |
| No design skills needed | |||
| Full-resolution export | Often lower |
A few habits make the difference between a good edit and one nobody can spot.
Include the words either side of your change. The AI copies the style from them, so more context means a closer match.
A replacement of about the same length looks most natural. If it's longer, draw the box a little wider.
Full-resolution originals beat screenshots and messaging-app copies, which blur fine letter edges.
Change a heading and a price as two separate areas - each gets its own reading and its own result.
Glance at the words the studio read. If a stylised letter was misread, tap Fix before restoring.
Use compare and zoom at 200% or more. If you want it subtler, run it again at Gentle strength.
Keep menu and window photos current without a new photoshoot every time a price changes.
Re-use a great photo for the next campaign by changing the offer, date or headline in it.
Mock up packaging, signage and labels on real photos in seconds, in the brand's own lettering.
Correct product photos and keep the lighting you paid for, instead of reshooting.
Fix the slip on the whiteboard photo before it goes into the class notes or deck.
Rescue the photo with the misspelled banner, cake or sign - the moment stays, the typo goes.
Change text in your own photos - menus, signs, marketing images, pictures with a typo. Don't use it to alter IDs, money, receipts, certificates, contracts or official records, or to mislead anyone. That is against our terms of use and, in many places, the law.
Log in, open the AI Restore Studio and upload your photo. Draw a box (or ellipse or lasso) around the line of text, choose the Text area type, and the studio reads the words for you. Tap the word or words you want to replace, type the new ones and press Restore. The new words are written into the photo in the same font, size, colour and texture.
Yes - that is the point of the tool. The AI looks at the letters around your edit and rewrites the new words in the same typeface or handwriting, at the same size, weight, spacing and colour, with the same texture: printed ink, paint, chalk or marker. You do not need to know or install the font.
It does. Because the AI sees a crop with plenty of surrounding context plus a view of the whole photo, the new words follow the perspective, curve, lighting, shadows, blur and camera noise of the original text. Very steep angles or text that is badly out of focus are harder, so a reasonably straight, sharp photo gives the best result.
No. Only the area you mark is edited. The result is colour-matched to its surroundings and blended back through a feathered mask of the exact shape you drew, so every pixel outside your mark is the original photo.
No. The studio reads the text inside your marked area automatically and shows it as tappable words. If it misreads a word you can tap Fix and correct it. Then pick the words to replace - or none, to replace the whole line - and type only the new words.
Yes. The same tool handles printed type, hand-lettered and painted signs, chalkboards, marker on whiteboards and handwriting. The AI copies the hand that is already there, so new words keep the same strokes and style.
Small differences are fine - the line is rebuilt so the spacing looks natural. For the cleanest result, keep the new text roughly the same length, or mark a slightly larger area so there is room for it.
Up to 12 marked areas per photo at a time. Each area is restored on its own, one after another, so you can change a price, a date and a heading in the same picture.
Upload JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, TIFF and more, or a PDF. Export the edited photo at full size as PNG, JPG or PDF, or save it to your Recovoly assets.
Each marked area costs 10 points from your Recovoly balance; reading the text and auto-detecting areas are free. See the pricing page for plans and point packs.
It uses the same studio, but this page is about photos - signs, menus, posters, labels and whiteboards taken with a camera or phone, with real lighting and perspective. For flat scans of letters, newspapers and records, see Edit text in scanned documents.
No. Recovoly is for correcting and updating your own content - menus, signs, marketing images, photos with typos. Altering identity documents, money, receipts, certificates or records to deceive anyone is not allowed under our terms of use and may be illegal.
Change words on flat scans of letters, records and newspapers.
Mark any area of an image and restore only that area.
Fix one spot and leave the rest of the image untouched.
Remove stickers, stamps, marks and objects from an image.
Bring faded, washed-out words back to full strength.
Plans and point packs for the studio.
Log in, upload a photo and change your first line of text in under a minute.
10 points per edit · reading text is free · see pricing
