I’ve scanned thousands of old images over the years that are now archived online either at Amazon or Google. I entertain myself from time to time by browsing through them and downloading a few of interest that I had forgotten about.
This morning I spotted this oldie of my mother holding me on her lap. According to a notation, it was taken sometime in 1949. As you can see, the photo was seriously damaged in storage for some seven decades. From its condition, I’m guessing it was made from a B&W negative that had been mistreated over the years.
Another guess is that it was taken at my grandparents’ home in Waipahu during a family visit to that side of the island. My 2nd birthday, perhaps?
After trying to clean up the damage using traditional photo software, I decided to give AI a try. For this, I turned to Google’s Gemini. My instruction was simple. Create a clean image from this old photograph.
It only took a few seconds to produce this pretty amazing result.
Of course, it raises questions. Which photo is more “authentic”? Although, in this case, I don’t know whether that matters. The result speaks for itself.
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A precious moment! You so cute!
What an incredible find, Ian! It’s just a lovely shot of you and and your beautiful Mom. Whether it’s true to the original or not, I’m so happy you retrieved this treasure.
That is an awesome clean up by AI!
You still have the damaged image but now you can see what the original may have looked like.
good job Gemini!
In the ‘clean’ photo you have a different facial expression, eye contact and hairdo.
This is fantastic! You got great results. I’ve been using AI for the current pix on my phone,but hadn’t considered using it for old photographs. Will give it a try!
Indeed the result speaks for itself.