Play store
DHAKA, Sept 9: Images styled to resemble photographs from the 1980s have recently gone viral on social media, drawing widespread attention from users eager to recreate the look and feel of the bygone era.
The trend uses artificial intelligence (AI) to transform modern photographs into vintage-looking images featuring period clothing, hairstyles, backgrounds and photographic effects.
Users can upload a photograph to an AI image-generation platform and provide a prompt asking it to recreate the image in an authentic 1980s style.
The technology can alter the surroundings, clothing and overall visual appearance while retaining the subject’s facial features and identity.
The resulting images often feature faded colours, soft focus, film grain and the texture associated with photographs taken with analogue cameras and printed on photographic paper.
The trend has become particularly popular among social media users seeking to recreate the nostalgic appearance of old family albums and studio portraits.
Some are also using AI-generated images to imagine how they or their family members might have looked in the 1980s.
To create such an image, users generally need to upload a clear photograph and specify the desired period, clothing, hairstyle, setting and photographic style.
A prompt can also instruct the AI to preserve the person’s facial identity while removing modern elements from the scene.
A typical prompt may ask the AI to transform the photograph into an authentic South Asian image from around 1980, using period-appropriate clothing and surroundings, 35mm film characteristics, subtle grain, faded colours and soft lighting.
The growing popularity of the trend highlights how AI-generated imagery is increasingly being used not only for creative purposes but also to recreate memories and visual styles associated with earlier generations.
