I found a box of undeveloped photo negatives — AI revealed memories I thought were gone forever

Ever since Google launched Nano Banana Pro, I’ve been testing it in new and unexpected ways — but I would never have guessed my most meaningful test to come from a dusty box in my mom’s attic.

I was helping her clean when I found an old envelope labeled “Summer ’97.” Inside were undeveloped film negatives — moments I assumed were lost forever.

Standing there, I had a simple question: Could AI show me what was on them without a scanner, a darkroom or professional developing?

The idea: Use Nano Banana Pro as a film scanner

Nano Banana Pro, now built into the Gemini app for Android and iOS, is my go-to for AI image tasks. You can sketch directly on photos, annotate edits and get surprisingly realistic results.

But this was different. I wasn’t editing a photo — I was trying to reconstruct one from a negative.

So, I held the negative strip up to the window for natural light, snapped a photo with my phone, and uploaded it directly to Nano Banana in the Gemini app.

Then I wrote a simple prompt: “This is a photo negative. Can you convert it into a full-color image as if it had been developed?”

That’s all it took to finally see what had been hidden for years.

The results: shockingly good

Within seconds, Nano Banana generated a full-color version of the negative — and it looked like a photo from a 1997 photo album. I even tried it again with a photo disc from the 1960s!

There were a few tweaks: I asked it to brighten the image, fix the contrast, and sharpen some details around the edges. I didn’t have to explain how photo negatives work — Gemini understood the context from the image and the prompt.

I repeated the process for the rest of the strip and ended up with half a dozen AI-developed photos from a summer I hadn’t thought about in years — smiling cousins in swimsuits, an old backyard pool, even a shot of my childhood dog I had completely forgotten existed.

How to try this yourself

Nano Banana Pro isn’t supposed to be a film scanner; it’s just something I tried that happened to work. Because it’s trained to understand visual input, lighting, and composition, it can reverse-engineer how the colors and shadows in a negative translate into a normal photo.

If you have old photo negatives lying around (and a little curiosity), here’s how to bring them back to life:

• Place the negative on a white background. You could even try holding up to a light source such as a window, since natural daylight works best. Just make sure the background is clean and uncluttered.
• Snap a clear photo of the negative. Your phone camera is fine — just keep it steady and focused.
• Open the Gemini app and upload the image. Tap the image icon to upload your photo into Nano Banana.
• Use this prompt: “This is a film negative. Convert it into a full-color photo and enhance clarity and detail.”
• Refine if needed. You can add: “Brighten the image” “Sharpen the background” “Fix any red tones” Gemini will keep refining with each instruction — no need to re-upload.

Final thoughts

When this idea first came to me I had no idea it would actually work. But this test wasn’t just another AI test for me, it was a memory I didn’t know I’d get back. Using Nano Banana Pro to reveal old negatives reminded me what AI is really good at: improving every day life in unexpected ways, without making you jump through technical hoops.

In my work, I’ve determined that sometimes the best AI features are uncovered by understanding what the AI can do and then testing it in unique ways. These discoveries are my favorite, especially when they do the impossible, like turning a forgotten moment into something you can see again.

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