Restoring old faded photos

Thanks so much for these suggestions everyone. I probably have at least 40 photos I want to restore so it does add up if I take them to be restored professionally and I thought it might be something to tackle myself - just to keep the brain cells ticking and learn a new skill. I didn't know about Rootschat so I will certainly investigate that. Thank you eddiecat.

If you join the Rootschat forum there are people who will restore photos for free. You just upload the photo and they work their magic. To be honest not all will be brilliant but I've had some wonderful results - and you've got nothing to lose.
Rootschat is a brilliant forum for anything family history related with loads of people who go out of their way to help others

I have had one photo restored in a photography shop and it didn’t cost much. The result was well worth it.

Photoshop is the best and most sophisticated imaging software but there may be more basic ones that meet your needs.

It depends on how far you want to develop your digital imaging skills.

I have an Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan which includes the lastest version of Photoshop with all its AI features and costs £9.98 a month.

I use it for digital art as well as editing photographs.

Colin Smith's Photoshop Cafe on You Tube is a very comprehensive tool for the beginner and advanced users.

I had some old photos brought back to life by our local photography shop. I think they cost £1 each if I recall and the end result was very good. My printer is definitely not good enough to print them off myself.
There are lots of free online editing programmes so why not give one or two a try. You cannot damage the originals so it's worth a go. Are you going to put them in a book?
Photoshop is ridiculously expensive and quite heavy and complicated.