Untouched Tenderness
In the deepest corner of the wardrobe, in the tin box, the album with curled edges hides too much untouched tenderness. On the third page of the faded family photo, grandmother holds the young me under the sophora tree, sunlight jumps through leaves on her silver-white hair - but today, the creases on the photo are like an abyss, her smile in the eye corners blurred by stains.
Only when I gently brushed the dust of time with old photo restoration technology did I discover that her gaze then hid so much unspoken love.
Only Solace of Longing
We always think that relatives' appearances will be forever engraved in our memory, but over time, even the outlines in dreams gradually fade. Those old photos smeared by time, those yellowed black and white images where you can't see expressions anymore, have become the only solace of longing.
But now, technology can help us do far more than just 'preservation': through AI photo colorization, the red cotton jackets in the 1980 family photo can become vibrant again, father's blue work pants from his youth can restore their calm tone; using photo restoration, scratches and mold spots on old photos can be removed one by one, grandfather's military badges in the barracks can become clear as yesterday.
Awakened Details
Even more moving are the moments brought by static image-to-video technology. That black and white photo of mother holding me as a baby, after processing, shows her gently swaying arms, the falling hair when looking down, as if you could hear her lullaby.
This is not a fabricated illusion, but details that technology 'awakens' from static images - these moments frozen by the shutter originally hid flowing love, they were just solidified by time.
The Tenderness of Technology
A user once wrote that after repairing father's last birthday photo before his death with our tools, his 7-year-old daughter suddenly pointed at the screen and said: "Grandpa smiles, his eyes become crescents." This is the tenderness of technology: it cannot turn back time, but it can prevent the details of family bonds from being forgotten.
When blurry images become clear, when black and white moments get color, when static images become dynamic, those deceased relatives seem never to have gone away and still smile at us in the photos.
Meeting Them Again
If you also have an old photo album that you don't easily open, try using technology to help you meet them again. Perhaps in the restored photos, you'll discover the small daisy flower that mother wore in her hair then, which hid tenderness you never noticed.