Grok 2 used to be amazing for restoring my family photos. What changed?

I've been digitizing old family photo albums for the last year or so.

One of the biggest surprises was how good Grok 2 was at restoring scanned photographs. It could remove cracks, clean up damage, improve colors, and generally make old photos look much better with very little effort.

Then sometime around January/February it stopped working for me. Now it often refuses the request because the image contains a real person and says I need their permission.

The issue is that these aren't modern photos. Many are more than 50 years old and contain family members who are no longer alive.

Has anyone else run into this?

I also found this article about deploying Grok 2 through an API:

Complete Guide to Deploying Grok2 for Beginners

Would using an API version of Grok 2 potentially restore the functionality I used to have, or are the exact same restrictions applied?

And if not, what are the best free tools for restoring old family photographs these days?