Fun and exciting developments here at Sunshine Skies headquarters. I've been testing out all sorts of AI apps for restoring old photos and the results have been spectacular. Dozens of faded, dirty, and low resolution images have been cleaned up, restored and added to the website this week. Some of the transformations are truly amazing.

Here are a few of the newly added images, many of which were previously unusable because of their poor quality. Each one links to its respective page.

Air Carolina BN-2 Islander N30BN in 1978. 

Vero Monmouth Airlines Piper Aztec N5647Y.

Vero Monmouth's DH-114 Heron N14146 is pictured at St. Petersburg - Clearwater International Airport circa 1974.

This formerly noisy, lo-res image of USAir Express B99 N99GH, operated by Chautauqua Airlines (courtesy of Todd Scher) is now crystal clear.

A great example of how old graphics can be cleaned up. This is an AI enhancement of a photo I took of a Golden Isles Airlines poster many years ago. It now looks brand new.

Using the poster seen above as a reference, combined with the magic of AI, I was able to transform this extremely low resolution newspaper photo from 1960 into this gorgeous color image. Any images of this type will clearly be labeled as AI enhanced on the website.

And, finally, I've also been experimenting with AI as a way to create route maps for many of the obscure airlines profiled in Sunshine Skies. This Winnipesaukee Airlines example is my first attempt at AI mapmaking.

I'll be posting more of these on Facebook and Instagram.

Hello! My apologies for the small amount of new content during the past few months, but I have been quietly working on the website behind the scenes. I have an enormous collection of low resolution .jpg files of slide scans from the late 1990s and early 2000s that have been collecting digital dust on numerous hard drives for a quarter of a century. For the most part, they are horribly pixelated, discolored, poorly lit, and generally unusable for the website, which is a shame, because they are historically significant. In the past few months I've been experimenting with various photo restoration programs and AI editors which have produced some fairly spectacular results. While I've been hesitant to rely on AI programs (older apps distorted and jumbled important details), the technology has finally reached a point to where the restoration results are historically accurate. 

Here's an example of what I've been working on. This is good shot of Aero Coach's Bandeirante N134EM, but it's a typical bad scan from the early 2000s. It's pixelated, has too much contrast, the slide was dirty, the color has an annoying blue tint, etc.

After a little tweaking in Photoshop and some AI noise reduction and white balance, the photo magically looks like it could been taken last week. I'm really happy with the result. It almost looks a little too perfect and smooth, but the alternative is that it would probably never be seen again.

This is a more extreme example. This scan of Air Miami Heron N121G at Marathon, Florida is a mess, but it's an incredibly rare photo and one of the few I've ever found of their short-lived service to the Keys.

Once again, the restored photo looks like it could have been taken last week. It does look slightly unreal, but it's certainly a better representation of the real thing than the deteriorated slide seen above.

To use AI or not?  I think it's an amazing tool when the alternative is being stuck with a photo that is otherwise unusable.

I'd love to know your opinion.