A little photo restoration project.

Long story. I actually started it a few years ago using Photoshop and whatever rudimentary photo restoration apps were available at the time. The results were adequate enough that the landlords gave a copy to the local library for their archives. Then I kept improving and AI kept improving and I’d continue working on it every year or so.

Then Gemini 3 happened. When I work with Gemini 3, I first upscale the image dimensions and ppi to 300 to give the AI enough pixels to work with. Then I take individual square sections of areas that need work (faces, hands, feet, articles of clothing, various objects), and work on each section separately after pasting and resizing the result back onto the original. (By the way, I learned one of the most important prompts one can use when editing with Gemini, for example, “Improve the quality and anatomy of the hands, with particular attention to the fingernails. Leave everything else as is.”) Gemini likes to take liberties on occasion, so that last sentence is important. I even developed a keystroke shortcut for it.

Anyway, to answer your question, years. But all in all, maybe 8 hours total.