Bring Your Old Photos Back To Life With Google’s Nano Banana Pro: A Detailed Guide

Google’s Nano Banana Pro, the AI-driven image production and editing platform, has been making headlines for creating remarkably realistic and computer-generated imagery.

Nano Banana Pro is built on Google’s new-generation Gemini 3 Pro architecture. Users have noted marked enhancements over the previous Gemini 2.5 edition, with the Pro model impressing many through its accuracy and clarity in rendering multilingual text within generated images.

Over the past few days, social media has been buzzing with examples showcasing Nano Banana Pro’s capabilities, with photo restoration emerging as one of its most popular uses. Before exploring some tried-and-tested prompt ideas, it’s worth noting that effective prompts tend to follow a specific structure:

[Source photo description], [Modification needed], [Problem to remove], [Expected quality or appearance]

Here are some prompts you can use to restore old images:

Prompt 1: Revive this old family photograph by clearing away visible scratches, dust marks, and creases. Adjust the colours to restore natural tones and fix any yellowing caused by age. Improve overall clarity, reduce image noise, and refine the texture for a sharp, high-resolution finish.

Prompt 2: Carry out extensive restoration of this heavily damaged photograph. Recreate the torn or missing edges seamlessly. Smooth out the deep centre creases and remove visible watermarks or discoloured spots. Rebuild broken sections while preserving the form of the original subject. The final result should appear clean and fully repaired.

Prompt 3: Repair this aged photograph by clearing heavy surface scratches, mould marks, and emulsion damage across the frame. Refine the paper texture carefully without blurring essential details. Reduce noise significantly to achieve a clean, fully restored look.

Prompt 4: Revive an old family portrait with special attention to facial clarity, eye definition, and natural skin texture. Correct any motion blur present on the faces. Maintain realistic skin tones without excessive smoothing. Preserve the vintage ambience of the background while ensuring the subjects appear crisp and well-detailed.

Prompt 5: Transform this black-and-white image with historically accurate colouring for attire, landscape elements, and architecture. Maintain lifelike warmth in skin tones. The overall palette should be vivid but true to context. Produce a crisp, fully colourised photograph.