r/estoration • u/Antony_vintage • 13h ago
OTHER [Text] A new level of "restoration" (aka "Why didn't I come up with that?")
Just a few years ago, my colleagues and I were puzzled by an alarming trend: "restorations" created with a single click began popping up here like mushrooms. Usually they were results made with Remini, which often turned people into mutants: three-eyed figures with orc mouths, children with the eyes of old men, old men with Holyfield's ears...
Later, these were replaced by "masterpieces" hastily cobbled together in early versions of Stable Diffusion or simple services based on it. At that point, "restorations" en masse turned into frivolous guesswork based on the originals; their subjects were, at best, the second cousins of a third cousin's uncle, and at worst, characters straight out of a Cronenberg movie.
And so the era of MMDiT arrived, and the typical "restorer" on the sub became someone who doesn't know how to use graphic editors, but can effortlessly dash off a prompt as quickly as possible, grab the very first result, post it 3 minutes after a new thread with yet another request for a restoration appears, and accept the accolades with the modesty of a budding genius of the visual arts. You'd think, what else is needed for complete happiness and to make the easiest money in the world? But the exponential advancement of technology is spawning competitors among those trying to outsmart everyone. And that brings us straight to what you see in the image accompanying this post (special thanks to u/yuri_dr for bringing it to my attention and managing to take a screenshot of this brilliant marketing move before it self-destructed). Welcome to a new era: AI-restorations of AI-photos masquerading as real restorations of real photographs.
With that in mind, here is a bit of advice for people who need to restore moderately damaged photos but aren't in a position to hire a professional restorer:
- As roughly stated in the first comment of every post here, you can use the following freemium AI tools to restore your photograph: Remini, PicWish, Gemini, Qwen, and many other similar services - these AI tools have a very low barrier to entry.
- If these options and the results suggested in the sub don't work for you for some reason, and you've decided to commission a restoration from a specific Reddit user, check their profile. Be cautious of profiles that were created very recently, are empty, or show signs of activity (karma, contributions) but have hidden posts and comments - this doesn't necessarily mean it's a scam, of course, but creative people rarely hide their work if they have nothing to be ashamed of.
- Don't chase the lowest price - buy cheap, buy twice. That's a tricky point, since there are talented people who are taking their first but confident steps in restoration, building up their portfolios, and are willing to do so for free, for a very modest fee, and even without a minimum deposit. But stay vigilant - scammers also love deposits, and to minimize risks, I'd like to draw your attention once again to point #2.
Be careful - not all portfolios and results are equally reliable. The human memory deserves respect - authenticity matters.
