To restore a face is to revive a soul. Through the lens of AI, a younger generation is turning faded pixels into powerful tributes, moving families to tears and bringing heroes back to the light.
From blurry old photographs, AI is gradually becoming a familiar image restoration tool on social media. Beyond just sharpening or coloring, this technology also helps recreate facial features, patterns, and convert still images into short videos.
Youth groups such as Skyline are applying AI to help restore photos for families of fallen soldiers and war veterans. According to Mr. Tien Anh, a representative of Skyline, AI currently plays the role of a powerful supportive tool in the photo restoration process.
The AI-assisted journey of reclaiming memories
“Each piece requires two to three hours of intense focus through multiple complex stages,” Mr. Tiến Anh, one of the member of Skyline shared.
For the volunteers, the work is not just technical labor, but also a race against time to preserve personal and historical memory through photographs once thought too damaged to recover.
Each restoration follows a different process depending on the condition of the original photograph. For clearer images, AI and Photoshop are combined to improve sharpness and repair visual details more efficiently than traditional manual editing alone.
Recovering the details
Editing the black and white version
Colouring
For severely damaged photographs, however, the process becomes far more personal. Team members consult with relatives to reconstruct facial features based on family resemblance, memories, and verbal descriptions before beginning the coloring process.
The breakthrough of Skyline lies in the use of AI to transform static portraits into living videos.
Subtle movements, such as a blink, a smile, or a slight turn of the head, often create emotional moments for families seeing the faces of their loved ones move for the first time.
“It was pure serendipity.”
From the perspective of the martyrs’ relatives, Mrs. Hằng shared difficulties in restoring the rare old photo of martyr Đặng Thị Kim (Oanh).
She shared: “Our family only had one small, blurry, black-and-white photo from when she was a child. I repeatedly tried to get a photo restored to look like her (Oanh) at age 19. But every photographer said they couldn’t do it. (…) Her chubby 8-year-old face was too different from a 19-year-old young woman who had gone through puberty.”
The opportunity came when Skyline’s humane restoration work reached Mrs. Hằng, and she reached out to Mr. Hoàng. Seeing the faded photograph, he felt a deep sorrow. He worked until nearly 2 AM to bring her back to life, and vowed to return the portrait to the family with solemnity.
Ms. Hằng: “The Skyline team did a wonderful job. They are so friendly and down-to-earth. What they are doing is truly meaningful.”
Eternal reunions
With their starting point being photos blurred by time, Skyline has helped restore the faces and stories of fallen soldiers whose memories continue to live on through their families and the country they fought for. Below are some of the restored portraits.
1. Martyr Đặng Thị Kim (Oanh)
Martyr Đặng Thị Kim (Oanh) served as a reconnaissance squad leader. She and her three-month-old unborn child were killed by beheading after days of torture. (Source: Skyline)
2. Martyr Nguyễn Sỹ Vân
3. Martyr Trịnh Kim Giỏi
4. Martyr Lê Văn Huỳnh
5. Three martyr siblings in Sóc Sơn
Notably, at Trung Giã, Sóc Sơn, on May 8, 2026, the Skyline team, Dream Album company, war veterans, and VTV Television reporters were present to personally deliver the restored portraits of three martyr siblings from a family of 11 children over 50 years.
The restored portraits marked the solemn and long-awaited return of their three martyr brothers: Nguyễn Trung Khải, Nguyễn Văn Bầu, Nguyễn Văn Be. (Source: Skyline)
“Today, it feels as if our brothers have come home to us one more time…”
Restoring honor to the unseen
Amidst the photos entrusted to them with all the hope of relatives, the members of Skyline have also restored pictures of unnamed martyrs in the hope that one day, these keepsakes may find their way back to the families still searching for them.
When AI carries human values
In today’s race of technology, AI is often associated with speed and the ability to replace human work. Yet photo restoration projects reveal another side of it: technology can also preserve memories and heal emotions.
For Skyline, each restored photo is more than just an AI product. It is a family story, a chance for people to see the faces of their loved ones again after years of fading memories. That is why the group does not pursue technological perfection alone, but the genuine emotions of the people receiving the photos. From old faded pictures and AI-animated videos to tears of happiness when memories are brought back to life, technology is no longer just a set of cold algorithms. It becomes a bridge between the past and the present, connecting today’s young generation with the values of yesterday.
And perhaps the greatest value of AI lies not in how much it can do, but in how people choose to use it to preserve the things that matter most.
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