Nano Banana
After my recent post about using A.I. to edit a photo to replace humans with goats, it got me thinking about the possibility of using A.I. to restore some of my favorite genealogy photos. However, before I could attempt one, my blogging Canadian friend AC did exactly that and also using the same A.I. that I had used for the goat trail photo called Nano Banana Pro which is linked through Google's Gemini A.I. Seeing his success, made me sit down and make the time to restore a photo and the one I chose is the one above.
It is an inherited photo from my grandparents taken when they were dating. When I received it, it has been folded a bit causing the broken white lines across the upper portions of the photo but was in fair shape overall. Above is the result that I obtained after scanning it using my flatbed scanner and doing some minor altering such as cropping off the photo edges and adjusting the contrast a bit. So I uploaded it to Gemini and per AC's post, simply typed in the word "Restore" and hit enter.
As you can see, it removed those white lines perfectly to my eyes and looks great though I see it added some sort of watermark in the lower right hand corner, I suppose to indicate that it had been altered. I didn't see the same watermark on AC's picture so I'm not sure yet why I have one.
But I thought while I was using A.I. to restore a photo, I might as well see what else I could do with the photo so I asked it next to remove the wire shadow line across the siding behind my grandmother's back.
Again, Gemini had no problem doing that. So I thought, why not see if it could take care of all the reflections in the windows.
It also was able to do that and added some curtains to boot which I found less distracting than all the previous reflections but I noticed that it put the wire shadow back into the photograph. So for my fourth and final attempt at it turned out, I asked it to remove the wire shadow again.
Nano Banana Pro through Google's Gemini did as I asked and I think the net result, even with the added watermark, is quite nice and an "improvement" on the original photo. It focuses all the attention on the stars of the photo, my grandparents, and removes all the distractions. I will save the final version in my folder that contains my original scanned version and append the filename to say it was modified using A.I. I'm still not sure of the ethics of saving and potentially passing on photos that have been altered in content, even if just subtracting distracting things, that might allow future generations to believe it to believe it unaltered.
As AC discovered and for the second time, I discovered, I am only allowed four attempts using Nano Banana Pro per day. I can use the default cheaper editing method labeled only as "fast" which says it is using Nano Banana but leaves out the "Pro" label part and indeed it does things much faster with each photo iteration taking maybe 5 seconds versus a minute or two for the Pro treatment.
Below is the best I could do after four iterations using only the fast option. Again it allowed me to remove the folding marks above though it took two iterations to do it completely and it also removed the wire shadow mark across the siding. Despite asking it to remove the reflections and objects in the window panes, it seemed unable to do so.
But since I have unlimited options (at least I never reached a limit), I asked it to remove the watermark in the lower right hand corner. It flat out refused saying it would likely infringe upon copyright issues. Seeing as I own the original, I asked it to remove the four pointed star in the lower right corner thinking that perhaps the word "watermark" was the issue but again it refused for the same reason.
On a related note, I did click the button to see what a subscription would cost and it as $20/month to have unlimited access to Nano Banana Pro and other features it has. Since I am not likely to do very many such restorations and haven't mentally dealt with the ethics part of it, I am not likely to subscribe anytime soon. But for those who don't have the ethics issues I am hung up on, I can see them putting costlier subscription packages for photo editing software out of business really soon. I have a free software called GIMP that go likely do what a professional paid for software can do but I have struggled to learn it. But if I can type into A.I. plain English commands to edit a photo how I want, I'm not sure I'll take the time to learn any photo editing software anymore.
Cute couple. He must've been delighted that his girlfriend would even ride on the motocycle. Yeah, I heard the ethics birdie in the background in my head. Like some improvements changed the framing of the window; wouild curtains make it seem like the building wasn't from a struggling family? Is that a porch area, living room or part of a chicken coop with it's long side? (No offense intended.) Nice family pic. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteIt definitely seems like one of those slippery slopes where it is hard to define a line to cross once one starts.
Delete1. I didn’t know that you could access the app through anything but Adobe.
ReplyDelete2. I am pretty sure that I could get rid of the watermark by conventional means, but I may be mistaken.
3. There seems to be some sort of consensus that removing things from a photo, like reflections, is different than adding them. Some will do the former but not the latter. But then again, doing it on your own photos as opposed to fixing someone else’s is a slightly different question. I filled in the corners in my example, and I didn’t have a conscience issue.
1. Yes, I accessed it directly through Google's Gemini webpage. I no longer pay for Adobe products.
Delete3. You do bring up two good distinctions. Subtracting versus adding and my photos versus someone else. I guess what bothers me the most is that most of these I have inherited by default after the death of those who had them before me. I inherited actual physical prints and due to the timing, am reasonably certain none of them have been altered. But what happens when a couple generations from now, grandkids inherit my digital scans (if that even is possible). They would have no idea what has been altered. They might think I actually took a picture of goats on the Goat Trail when I'm pretty sure a goat hasn't been on it in at least 70 years if ever. For me in the here and now, the best compromise seems to append the fact that it has been edited to the file name itself.
I get goats, and what a good idea to include a disclaimer of sorts in the file name. :)
DeleteBut removing scratches and reflections are pretty valid restorations, especially with the scratches just attempting to return it to the original condition.
That is beyond the scope of my playing with photos. I do like the reflections in the windows with the cleaned up fold lines. Keeps it real imo. My problem with Ai is that we will not know what is real vs what is altered anymore.
ReplyDeleteThis adds a watermark which I'm assuming can easily be removed. I have wonder if there is something added within the file coding that could be detected? But for the average person like me, I agree, we won't know what has been altered anymore.
DeleteIt turned out beautifully but it's almost frightening what these programs can do. You were only trying to improve the picture but not fundamentally alter it. I think some others have more nefarious purposes.
ReplyDeleteFor sure. I have heard of AI engines being used for nefarious things that makes me cringe so I know it already it probably too late to stop that.
DeleteYou've brought up things that might never had entered my mind. Still... restoring the photo by taking out the creases, etc. is very handy.
ReplyDeleteI have been experimenting using my daily limit and am constantly impressed by how well it can restore pictures. I even had it restore a facsimile of a photo that I have and turn it into a photo. I was blown away. I will post that in another post perhaps this weekend.
DeleteInteresting. I tend to like creased photos, as it shows something of the "life" of the photo as an object, if that makes sense. Of your corrections, I actually like the "cheap" version best. I think it's nice to have those objects in the windows -- otherwise the house looks a bit funereal!
ReplyDeleteYou make perfect sense and I tend to agree with you on both accounts Steve. I'm pretty sure I could make it look like a photo I took with my iPhone yesterday if I desired but then removing the aging, or at least too much of it, loses the context of the photo. I still have the original photo and it's creases in a box in my basement and someday it will get passed on. But I now have an unblemished version of it which I like to look at as well. After going through this entire process, I tend to like the final "fast" version better too. But comparing them side to side with the "pro" version, it does make the pro version look too formal for the occasion, like a funeral.
DeleteLooks like an option. I would write on the back of the "fixed" photo that it was altered and what was done and might even include a copy of the original on the back of the new photo:)
DeleteRight now there is no back as they are digital only. But if I printed one out for an album, that would be a good idea.
Delete