Google Photos has been pushing the company’s AI image-editing tools with its Remix feature, offering a set of templates for one-tap transformations of photos into different formats, from clay sculptures to comic books, to 8‑bit video games. They have their charm, but they also tend to start to look the same after a while, and can often go far away from the original photo.
Given how effective Google’s Nano Banana and Nano Banana Pro models are at making and editing images with Gemini 3, the Remix feature comes off as a bit bland. You’ll end up with results that are not just more interesting, but often more faithful to the original.
Cinematic scenes
Using a photo of myself as a baseline, I started by going for a simple sylistic shift that’s still true to the photo, aiming for a movie poster, but sending the following prompt to Nano Banana with all several extra prompt tricks:
“Take this photo and reframe it as a cinematic still from a blockbuster movie poster: dramatic lighting, ultra‑high contrast, cinematic framing, lens flare accents, and bold title text at the bottom matching the mood.”
Instead of simply overlaying a few key elements from the photo in the image, I made the AI employ some classic cinematic principles of lighting, composition, and text style. The idea is to ask the AI to treat your photo like a still frame from an imagined world. The result hangs together with mood and emphasis in ways that preset remixes rarely achieve.
And the specificity gives you control over how it should feel dramatic, not just saying it should be dramatic and hoping for the best.
Time capsule
Google Photos Remix choices are pretty generic in terms of the time and place they take place, except arguably the spooky Halloween-style ones. I decided to design a prompt that would set the photo in a very specific temporal context. Embedding the image in a believable past means more than vague sepia vibes, of course, so I requested:
“Turn this image into a historically accurate scene from the 1920s (or your chosen decade): correct clothing styles, period‑specific color grading, era‑appropriate props and background, and realistic film grain.”
The same prompt would work with any era; I just thought the 1920s would be a useful century difference comparison. The city, the suit and hat, the briefcase, and everything else feel more authentic, if still discernible as AI. Again, it’s the specifics, which may take a moment or two more than tapping the image basis from Google Photos, but are worth it if you want to do it all.
Masterful art
The art style remixes are intriguing, but one-note. If you want to a more direct artistic homage, it’s better to ask Nano Banana to study and emulate the characteristic techniques of a renowned artistic school, whether cubism, or, in my case, Dutch Old Masters. Instead of just tapping the vaguely Impressionist image offered as a Remix, I wrote a prompt asking Nano Banana to:
“Reimagine this photo in the style of Dutch Old Masters (though any specific art school or master will do): accurate brushwork, medium texture, lighting, and composition consistent with these artists’ work, while preserving the original subject’s identity.”
The practical difference is that a generic filter might make a photo look rough and stylized, while a prompt like this produces an image that feels like it is based on actual art. Nano Banana recognizes visual texture, lighting cues, and atmosphere in your photo and reshapes them with the brush logic of a master. That’s a kind of creative fidelity Google Photos presets can’t match.
8-bit entertainment
Google Photos already offers an 8-bit remix option, but it’s more of a novelty filter than an authentic transformation. I wanted something that actually looks like the photo, but transported to a world of low-definition pixelated graphics. I asked Nano Banana to:
“Reimagine this photo as an 8-bit video game screenshot: low-resolution pixel art, limited color palette matching retro console specs, blocky environment tiles, simple UI overlay with hearts or score, and characters reduced to expressive pixel avatars.”
Nano Banana made me a chunky sprite avatar with repeating tiles, and any emotional nuance gets compressed into three or four exaggerated eyebrow pixels. It’s a playable scene frozen in time with hearts and a score from some imaginary game in a digital flashback, complete with pixellated drama and low-fi flair.
Steampunk street portrait
I rounded off my prompt style ideas with a bit of a mix of new ideas and improved elements from Google Photos Remix. It’s an alternate world in style and setting, with some throwback design and unreal aesthetic, specifically steampunk. I requested Nano Banana:
“Transform this photo into a richly detailed steampunk setting: brass and copper mechanical elements, Victorian-era clothing with modern twists, steam-powered devices in the background, warm sepia lighting, and stylized gears or clockwork embedded in the environment.”
Nano Banana built out an industrial-fantasy aesthetic beyond my clothes, making a painting appropriate to the Victorian era, albeit in an impossible city with a bizarre suitcase and lots of unnecessary gear. What makes it feel alive isn’t just the props, but the cohesion: Nano Banana made an image that holds together but still looks like me, rather than tossing out the original in favor of making sure it looks like the requested aesthetic.
Google Photos Remix still has its place for when you need something instantly. But it palls in comparison to the far more interesting and complex feats of Nano Banana, especially if you have the right initial suggestions to build off of, like those above.
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ESchwartzwrites@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
