If you are unhappy with an old tattoo, you have various options to improve the way it looks, or even to remove it entirely.

Reworking an old tattoo should not be problem for any professional artist. Just go to a studio and an artist you trust and explain your problem to him or her. The tattoo artist can go over it again to improve the color or re-work it and change the design.


If you decide to get a cover up, keep in mind that if the inks of your current tattoo are dark, it won't be possible to cover them with lighter inks. You will need to use something similar in shade or go darker. For ideas on cover ups, take a look at the cover-ups in our gallery. Usually they are executed in such a manner that you would never know that there was another tattoo underneath it.

In the worst cases, the only thing left to do is to remove the tattoo. If you decide on a removal, the most effective way to remove it is by laser treatment. Unfortunately, it can be quite a lengthy and expensive process. It will cost $75 per square inch on average, and can take ten sessions or more to remove the tattoo completely. For more information on removing tattoos, see our FAQs about "How to Remove a Tattoo."