My neighbor here in Tokyo is 97 years old and still quite active. I was even showing her how to use her new smartphone last year. In this old photo from 70 years ago she is with her husband who passed away last year at age 100. The photo was a small print and I used Google Photo Scan to scan it.

I explained the contents to Gemini and asked if it could colorize it. It responded, “That sounds like a beautiful way to honor them. I would love to colorize that photograph for you. Once you upload the image, I will restore it, carefully add color appropriate for 1950s Tokyo, and present it back to you.

This is what it came up with. It not only colorized it, it also improved some features that had faded or weren’t clear. I printed it off on larger photo paper at the corner 7-Eleven, put it in a simple frame and gave it to my neighbor. She was overwhelmed by it.

The next day she showed me another photo print, also from decades ago, of her with a family member. This time her request was different. She wanted to know if I could somehow make a headshot of just her to use at her funeral someday. She said she was not in a hurry.

I have no artistic ability. That is the sort of thing I would normally ask an experienced old friend if they could help me with. But I scanned the old print and explained the situation to Gemini again.

This was my prompt to Gemini: This one is obviously from some years later. She is the person on the left. Her smile looks lovely here. Although still very healthy she was thinking of using a head shot from this image someday at her funeral. Can you make an image like that, perhaps down to her shoulders, and make the lighting a bit more natural, and if possible replace the background with some nice flowers. She loves taking care of flowers.

This is what Gemini came up with. Pretty amazing I thought.

I printed that off and gave it to her as well. As I mentioned she is very active, and I found her downstairs in her storeroom doing extensive cleaning. She was thrilled by this one too.

Yesterday she surprised me. My doorbell rang and when I opened it she had climbed the stairs to my entrance and gave me a bag of fruits and vegetables. She said I might consider adding a handrail. 🙂 She had no problem getting back down the steps though.

I am careful with how I use AI like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. But I do find it useful for certain technical things. And for restoring and modifying images like this it really is amazing I think.