Nano Banana Prompts to Restore & Colorize Old Photos

Restore this old photograph. Keep the people, their faces, clothing, poses and the background exactly as they are. Repair the damage only: remove scratches, creases, tears, dust and stains, fix faded areas, and recover lost detail. Keep it a natural, true-to-period photograph, not over-smoothed, with realistic film grain retained. High-resolution.

Telling the model to keep the faces and only repair damage stops it from inventing new people, the number-one way restorations go wrong.

Colorize this black-and-white photo with natural, believable, period-accurate colors. Keep every face, feature and detail identical; add color only. Realistic skin tones, a muted natural palette, no oversaturation. Photorealistic.

'Add color only' plus 'keep every feature identical' gives a believable colorized shot instead of a repainted one.

This photo has yellowed and faded with age. Correct the color cast back to neutral, restore natural contrast, and bring back faded detail in the highlights and shadows. Do not change faces, composition or content. Photorealistic, true to the original.

Age casts are a color problem, not a content problem; naming that keeps the model from redrawing the picture.

Repair the physical damage in this photo: remove scratches, white cracks, torn corners, tape marks and missing chunks by reconstructing what was clearly there. Do not alter undamaged areas, faces or the background. Seamless, photorealistic repair.

'Reconstruct what was clearly there' bounds the model to the obvious fix instead of imagining new content.

Enhance the resolution and sharpness of this old low-quality photo to look like a clean scan. Recover fine detail in faces, hair and fabric, and reduce blur and noise, but keep it natural and true to the original, with no plastic AI smoothing. High-resolution, photorealistic.

Asking for a 'clean scan' with 'no plastic smoothing' fixes sharpness without the waxy over-processed look.

Carefully reconstruct the damaged parts of this person's face using the visible undamaged features as the guide. Keep their identity, age, expression and skin texture exactly; repair only what is scratched or missing. Do not beautify or change their features. Photorealistic.

'Use the visible features as the guide' plus 'do not beautify' keeps the real person instead of a generic prettier stranger.

Take this restored photo and produce a clean, print-ready version: balanced exposure, natural color, gentle sharpening, and edges cropped square with any old border removed. Keep all content identical. Photorealistic, ready to reprint or frame.

A final balance-and-crop pass turns a rescued file into something you can actually print and gift.