Bespoke Ai Photo & Portrait Restoration Services

I’m photographer and digital artist Frank Biganski, and I am obsessed with restoring old paintings, portraitures, and photos using a combination of Ai technology and traditional Photoshop editing software. The above side-by-side comparison shows it’s possible to transform original painted portraitures into realistic lifelike photographs. And most importantly, whilst retaining the facial expressions and details that were conveyed by the original artist, 12th Century portraits can become 21st Century high resolution photographs.

Breathing Life Into Old Imagery

The beautiful and charming young lady in the above sample imagery is Abigail Finch-Southerland, my 6th great grandmother. Abigail was an American Colonial settler who married Scottish descendant Deacon Roger Sutherland on 23 July 1732 in Greenwich, Connecticut. Roger is the great grandson of William Sutherland II, direct descendant of the Clan Sutherland of Scotland. At the moment, I won’t digress further into my ancestorial heritage, but this newfound information became the inspiration to begin offering bespoke Ai-assisted digital photo restoration services.

Bespoke Ai Photo & Portrait Restoration Services

AI photo restoration tools offer speed but when restoring old family memories, accuracy and care matters more. As a professional Photoshop restoration expert, I will deliver precision, authenticity, and human judgment combined with the amazing results Ai can achieve.

A Partnership Between Ai and The Human Touch

Every old photo tells a story and a skilled restorer knows which details to keep and which damage to repair. Wrinkles and creases will show reality, but scratches do not. So when Ai falls short in determining the indifferences, an experienced digital Photoshop editor can help.

Precision and Attention to Detail

In professional restoration, every pixel counts which is why I repair cracks, stains, and fading with care and intention. Ai-assistance can sometimes blurs details or fills-in areas with incorrect “information”. And that can sometimes create an unnatural, plastic-looking result.

True To The Original

I restore and breathe new life into your old photos and portraits so your original image returns to life while staying true to its original form.
And whilst today’s Ai is superb at creating areas that fill-in the missing portions of an image or faded portrait, it takes the human touch and experience of a digital Photoshop editing professional and artist to complete the work.

Every photo is unique. Every family is different. And I will work with you to match your vision and preferences. Whether it’s preserving sepia tones or creating colours that are true to an image’s time period, carefully and gently restoring those colours and digitally repairing areas of a photo or old painted portrait requires the combination of both Ai technology combined with human experience.

Handling The Tough Jobs

Severe damage needs skill and creativity. Water stains, tears, and heavy fading challenge Ai systems, but the experience of a digital editing professional combined with Ai can solve just about any issue thoughtfully and with precision.

I’ll preserve your memories with care and precision so if you have any additional questions about imagery you’d like transformed into a brilliant work of art, contact me for a personalized consultation.

Realistic Ai Photo Restoration Isn’t Achieved In One Click Of The Mouse

The above example shows just a few of the multitude of steps that were involved to reach the final lifelike results. Using both Ai and traditional Photoshop editing helped retain and match the original facial features as closely as humanly possible. 😉

There’s a common misconception that one can just upload an image online and in one click, your image is restored or created. And whilst this may be possible with simple photograph restoration where one just wants to repair some scratches and tears, the same does not hold true when wanting to retore a 400 year old wood etching portraiture.

I spent a few hundred quid of my own money to find the proper contextual prompts to instruct the Ai what I wanted to achieve. And still with Ai, no two results will ever be exactly the same. Sometimes I get incredibly lucky with the results of a facial expression as with Abigail, but the hands or fingernails need to be edited “the old fashioned way” using manual Photoshop editing .

As of February 2026, there’s nearly a dozen Ai companies providing Ai services. Each service provides it own individual results as each is driven by their own unique and coveted algorithmic coding. Consequently, I must process or run an image through three or four different Ai models to achieve the final results. These results are not from just simply uploading an image to Nano Banana Pro, although Google’s Gemini with Nano Banana Pro is often used as one of the steps.

I’ve been involved in the photographic industry since 1975, and I began my career in photography printing and restoring old images from damaged negatives. And I guarantee you that without the intervention of Ai technology, photo restorations on this level would not be possible. The above is an old family photo from the late 1800’s where my 2nd great-grandfather worked as a blacksmith forge. Along with his two younger brothers, they likely experienced the demise of their trade as the arrival of horseless carriages began taking over.

As with most all digitally-restored images, the restoration of this photo required over a dozen steps (or processes) to digitally squeeze out as much information as possible. Then those Ai images were blended together, colour corrected, and edited into a final image where additional manual edits were performed such as placing the fire in the kiln. Another fun odd fact is Ai kept wanting to install some green grass or weeds in the floor boards. Maybe weeds might’ve been present in the day, but I chose to digitally and manually remove the weeds.

This is a digitally restored image of my 2nd great-grandparents Catherine and William Weeks of Westchester County, New York, USA. Although a digital artist could spend hundreds of hours manually repairing the blemishes, I have to ask why?  When used properly, the implementation of Ai-assistance during the restoration process will help transform images better than ever imaged possible. Understandably I cannot divulge the contextual Ai prompts and steps I use to in reach these results, but when I saw a glassy glow in the eyes of these ancestors of mine, it literally brought tears to my eyes. I felt as if I was meeting them in person for the first time in my life. And I also definitely feel that if they told me to be home before dark, I’d be there an hour early! 🤣

This 1896 photograph is of my maternal grandmother Alice, and she is my connection not only to the Clan Sutherland of Scotland but also to King John (Plantagenet) Lackland of England and even to Saint Margaret of Scotland (I only recently discovered this January 2026, so Happy New Year to me!).  But I digress.

This photo was extremely challenging for Ai to assist with as the Ai either wanted to keep placing a different bonnet on my grandmother’s head or, the Ai kept placing an actual photo of a different cat in her arms, or a combination of both. In situations like this, I will have to manually edited 3-4 Ai-generated images using Photoshop, using different parts of each image to reach the most realistic and natural result possible. In one of the images I was working with in Ai, the Ai added the wall, window, and foreground, without me prompting it to do so (scary).  But I liked the results so much, I decided to use it in my final image on the right. I think my “Nanny” would approve! 😉

The following are before and after images for your review.

Thank you for reviewing my sample images. If you have any further questions, please reach out via email at frankbiganski@yahoo.com. And feel free to provide digital copies of any images you would like a quote and I’ll be happy to provide the quote for free and as quickly as possible.

Cheers!