Using AI To Reimagine Antique Photography Styles

Deep Faking The Past With Generative AI

made in midjourney

During my time studying photography in school, I loved exploring antique photographic methods and techniques.

It’s amazing how much effort went into mixing chemicals and patiently playing with exposure time. Working in the darkroom was just as much a skilled craft as taking pictures with a camera.

Traditional photography is not solely about the image, but the process and the physical object that displays the image. It is the handling of thin sheets of metal, glass plates, and stock paper.

So in that respect, it shouldn’t be compared to digital photography.

But antique photos do have an aura, a style about them. And it is in that vintage charm that we can use digital technology to capture some of that essence.

And generative AI does that extremely well.

So this article is about using generative AI to reimagine some of those unique antique styles, not to diminish that physical sentimentality, but simply to capture some of that charm in the form of a digital representation.

I also decided to stick with portraits rather than other scenic compositions, as portraits have typically been the main use case. And for the…