"If working had been this much fun, I might not have retired."
-Carol Williams
This week, during the weekly Tuesday Zoom meeting, Praful Thakkar introduced us to the Nano Banana app in Gemini. Here is the link he used. The homework assignment at the end of the meeting was to work in the app and enhance some interior or exterior photos of a house. 
Here is a plain Jane picture of my house on a cloudy fall day. To the left used to be a bed of 13 roses, but I lost all but one in a freeze a few years ago. I planted three Hydrangeas in the space, but only one of them did well. Maybe they don't like full sun.
In the middle (near the house) are two blueberry bushes that are much bigger now. The right side shows my dogwood tree and 3 firebushes. In front of the fire bushes is a bed of purple phlox, which I love in the spring, but they aren't particularly attractive the rest of the year. 
I've been wanting to redo the landscaping, but haven't gotten around to it. After yesterday's Zoom session on the NanoBanana app, I thought it might be a good chance to see what options it might give me for redoing the landscaping.
I uploaded the original picture by hitting the + sign and gave NanoBanana the simple prompt: "Make the sky blue and show me a beautiful landscaping option". I like it because it's not overdone, but if and when I redo the landscaping, I'll probably make it a bit more colorful. 
Then I got to wondering what my house would look like if it were painted in patriotic red, white, and blue colors. Working from the enhanced photo, I gave it another simple prompt: Repaint the house with a patriotic theme of red, white, and blue. Enhance the landscaping to reflect the patriotic theme." 
Then, for a little more fun, I gave Gemini the prompt to "Repaint the house with a Seattle Mariners color theme. Enhance the landscaping to reflect the color scheme. I forgot to ask for the Mariner logo to be put on the side of the house, so I redid it by asking it to: "Add the Seattle Mariner logo to the right side of the house". This is what I got. I see it also added a yellow door behind the privacy screen, which looks nice, but it's not something I'd do, so I would have to ask it to remove that. 
Moving inside the house, I pulled up a photo I had taken of my sitting room. It was dark, so I wanted to lighten it up.
I gave Gemini the simple prompt to: "Enhance the attached photo with better lighting to brighten the room." 
All in all, I was pleased with the results, and I had some fun. I will continue to use Gemini when generating AI Images.
Zoom Assignment: Nano Banana 12-2-2025
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