Restore your family photos in 60 seconds (with Gemini 3 Pro's Nano Banana Pro)
Just over 48 hours ago, Google released an AI model that changes everything for photo restoration.
Imagine sitting around at Thanksgiving and watching a treasured photo come back to life. You upload it and the cracks fill, the colors return, and everyone sees the face they remember.
That’s the magic of this week’s prompt pack, and you can experience it side-by-side with family right now.
Get the up-to-date guide on ChronicleMakers.com
What happened that AI can do this so well now?
Just over 48 hours ago, Google released an update to their image generation model called Nano Banana Pro. In this update, the AI reads your prompt, builds an internal map of what should go where, and assembles the image step by step. Along the way it creates interim “thought images” you never see, which help it fix cracks, keep grain, and preserve identity.
This reasoning step between your prompt and the image output is why these photo restorations feel true instead of over-done like other AI models (ChatGPT in particular).
If you haven’t tried AI photo restoration before—or you did and thought the results were awful—now is the time.
Why you want to restore family photos
Preservation of originals: Working with digital copies means you can safely store fragile originals without further handling.
Sharing with family: Clear, restored images are more likely to be appreciated and passed down by relatives who never saw the original.
Research clarity: Restored photos reveal details—faces, clothing, backgrounds—that help confirm identities and historical context.
Appreciation of the past: You see your ancestors the way others saw them at the time.
Now before I show you the AI prompts, let me tell you what else Nano Banana Pro can do.
Two pro features worth knowing
If you want to use Nano Banana Pro for things other than photo restoration (and I’ll share some ideas in the coming weeks), you should know about two unique technical capabilities.
Smart Layout for Charts and Maps: When you ask for charts, timelines, or labeled maps, Nano Banana Pro uses smart spacing and order to put things in the right places. Complex pictures look correct instead of just pretty but wrong. (The technical term for this is semantic processing.)
Movie-Style Picture Controls: You can adjust lighting, camera angle, colors, and focus using simple commands. Because the description and the final picture are handled separately, you can make these changes without making the image look fake. (The technical term for this is physics-aware image synthesis.)
What both these features mean is that you can now make family tree charts, migration maps, and relationship diagrams in seconds direct from text. No more fumbling with shapes and arrows for hours or days.
The 4 prompts in this pack
Each prompt tackles a different type of damage. Run them in Gemini 3 Pro with Nano Banana Pro. Full copy-paste text is in the pack.
Prompt 1: Complete Overhaul — Repairs cracks, neutralizes yellowing, restores depth. Your go-to for most damaged photos.
Prompt 2: Severe Damage — Fixes deep tears and missing emulsion. Use this first if the photo is badly torn or crumbling.
Prompt 3: Colorize & Revitalize — Brings flat or faded photos back to life. Choose rich black-and-white or realistic color.
Prompt 4: Gentle Face Fixer — Clarifies blurry faces without inventing features. Preserves identity when detail is uncertain.
Get the exact prompts here
What you need to restore photos today
Your scanned photos: Save as PNG or TIFF when possible. JPEGs work but lose some detail.
A good scan: 600 DPI minimum.
Gemini Pro subscription: About $20/month for access to Nano Banana Pro. Cancel anytime.
That’s it. The prompts handle the rest.
Queue up photos for holiday gatherings
Families are gathering. This is your moment.
Pick 3 to 5 damaged favorites before the holiday. Restore them together after dinner. Watch cracks disappear, colors return, faces emerge.
It takes seconds per photo and you get to enjoy it together.
And the results become instant story starters for your chronicles.
Happy chronicling!
—Denyse
P.S. I hope this Thanksgiving creates many memorable moments for you! And I’ll see you next Sunday with more that you can do with AI for family history.
Hehe I love the 📞 these are astonishingly good . I’m already thinking of the old damaged photos it might be able to clean up - thanks for doing the hard work of testing and retesting so I don’t have to 😉
Great info! Worked really great on a photo from the late 1960s! Thanks!