Photo Retouching (fal.ai)

Reviewed 2026-10-13mediaPrompt / Rule# photo-retouching # image-restoration # fal-ai # face-restoration # image-editing

fal.ai's official fal-recipes skill: restore and clean up photos (deblur, denoise, dehaze, fix faces, restore scans) through the genmedia CLI.

Security Reviewed

Low to moderate risk: Markdown instructions that upload your photos to fal.ai for paid processing, with a pipe-to-shell CLI installer documented.

Install Photo Retouching (fal.ai) in Google Antigravity

Antigravity loads skills from .agents/skills/ in your project or ~/.gemini/config/skills/ for all projects (official docs). Full guide

EasiestOption 1: paste this to your Antigravity agent

Install the "Photo Retouching (fal.ai)" skill for Google Antigravity.
Follow the steps at https://www.antigravityskills.org/install/photo-retouching.md (source: https://github.com/fal-ai-community/skills/tree/main/skills/fal-recipes).
Before running anything, show me what you will download and whether it includes scripts, and wait for my OK.
Install it into this project (.agents/skills/) unless I say global. When done, check that Antigravity lists it as an installed skill.

The agent reads the install file, shows you what it will download and waits for your OK.

Option 2: install it yourself

1. Clone the source repository
```
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fal-ai-community/skills /tmp/fal-skills
```
Downloads the repository (17 skill folders) into a temporary folder.

2. Copy 3 skills into your workspace (this project only)

mkdir -p .agents/skills && cp -r /tmp/fal-skills/skills/fal-recipes .agents/skills/fal-recipes && cp -r /tmp/fal-skills/skills/genmedia .agents/skills/genmedia && cp -r /tmp/fal-skills/skills/fal-models-catalog .agents/skills/fal-models-catalog

Run from your project root. fal-recipes needs genmedia (commands) and fal-models-catalog (endpoint defaults). Antigravity reads workspace skills from <project>/.agents/skills/<folder>/.

3. Or copy them globally (all projects)

mkdir -p ~/.gemini/config/skills && cp -r /tmp/fal-skills/skills/fal-recipes ~/.gemini/config/skills/fal-recipes && cp -r /tmp/fal-skills/skills/genmedia ~/.gemini/config/skills/genmedia && cp -r /tmp/fal-skills/skills/fal-models-catalog ~/.gemini/config/skills/fal-models-catalog

Use this instead of the workspace step. Antigravity reads global skills from ~/.gemini/config/skills/<folder>/.

4. Install the genmedia CLI and add your key
```
genmedia setup
```
Install genmedia from github.com/fal-ai-community/genmedia-cli (the genmedia skill also lists a curl-to-bash installer; read that script first), create a key at fal.ai/dashboard/keys, then run genmedia setup.
5. Check that Antigravity sees it
Antigravity 2.0 app: start a new conversation and ask "What skills do you have?" (the app has no /skills command). Antigravity CLI: run /skills; in a session that was already open, run /skills reload first. fal-recipes should be listed. We have not run this skill in Antigravity.

Paid API usage and image upload apply. The repository README does not mention Antigravity; .agents/skills/ is the folder genmedia init itself uses when it exists.

Using Claude Code, Cursor or Codex? See other assistants below.

What is Photo Retouching (fal.ai)?

There is no vendor skill called photo retouching, so this page covers the closest official match: the image-restoration recipe inside fal.ai's fal-recipes skill. It is for people who want an agent to repair existing photos (blur, noise, haze, damaged faces, scanned documents) by calling paid fal.ai models through the genmedia CLI; it is not a beauty or skin-retouching tool. What we counted at commit 9ca8504 (2026-05-13, the current head of fal-ai-community/skills): fal-recipes has 1 SKILL.md and 10 recipe files, of which image-restoration.md is 141 lines; the recipe dispatches to 5 specialist endpoints (nafnet/deblur, nafnet/denoise, mix-dehaze-net, codeformer, docres) and shows 4 command flows (single defect, face with fidelity, document, chained). The whole repository has 17 skill folders and no LICENSE file.

How to use Photo Retouching (fal.ai)?

Get a fal.ai API key, install the genmedia CLI and run genmedia setup, then copy fal-recipes, genmedia and fal-models-catalog into your skills folder. Ask the agent to fix a photo: it asks for the dominant defect, uploads the image with genmedia upload, runs the matching endpoint with --download into ./outputs/restored/, and should show you a before/after. For several defects it chains passes, for example denoise then deblur, or face fix then upscale.

Key features of Photo Retouching (fal.ai)

✓Smart dispatch table: motion or focus blur to fal-ai/nafnet/deblur, sensor noise to fal-ai/nafnet/denoise, haze to fal-ai/mix-dehaze-net, damaged or low-res faces to fal-ai/codeformer, scanned documents to fal-ai/docres (we counted 5 in image-restoration.md)
✓CodeFormer fidelity from 0.0 to 1.0: lower is cleaner but identity may drift, 0.5-0.7 is suggested for most portraits (recipe says)
✓Chained restoration examples for noisy plus blurry photos and for old portraits (recipe says)
✓A quality bar the agent should check before returning: dominant defect fixed, face identity kept, documents more legible, intermediate results acceptable (recipe says)
✓Part of a bigger skill: fal-recipes has 10 recipe references (cinematography, commercial, virtual try-on, product shot, realism and others) beyond restoration (we counted)

When to use Photo Retouching (fal.ai)

1Deblur a slightly shaky photo
2Remove sensor noise from a high-ISO shot
3Restore a damaged or low-resolution portrait
4Clean up a scanned document so the text is legible

Installation & Setup Guide

Agent Rules / Prompt Setup

Follow these steps (taken from the project's own docs) to configure Photo Retouching (fal.ai) in your development environment.

Step 1: Get a fal.ai API keyall

Create one at fal.ai/dashboard/keys, as the README says.

Step 2: Install genmedia and run setupall

genmedia setup

README: install genmedia from github.com/fal-ai-community/genmedia-cli, then run genmedia setup.

Step 3: Claude.ai: upload the skill foldersclaude

README: upload skill .zip files from skills/ to a Claude.ai project. Upload fal-recipes, genmedia and fal-models-catalog.

Step 4: Any project: default bundle onlyall

genmedia init

README: installs the default skill bundle into .agents/skills/ or .claude/skills/. Per the genmedia reference that bundle is genmedia-ref plus genmedia, so copy fal-recipes and fal-models-catalog yourself.

Step 5: Claude Code and Cursor: foldersclaude

The README names Claude Code but gives no path for these three skills. Claude Code docs (code.claude.com/docs/en/skills): ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ or .claude/skills/. Cursor docs (cursor.com/docs/context/skills): .cursor/skills/ or .agents/skills/. Cursor is not mentioned by the project.

Usage Example & Verification

Prompt / Request Example

1. (recipe example, references/image-restoration.md)
genmedia run fal-ai/codeformer --image_url "$URL" --fidelity 0.7 --download "./outputs/restored/{request_id}_{index}.{ext}" --json

2. (our example)
This old portrait scan is blurry and the face is damaged. Restore it, keep the person recognisable, and show me a before and after.

3. (our example)
This phone photo of a document is noisy. Clean it up so the text is easier to read.

Expected Output / Response

1. Runs CodeFormer on an uploaded image with fidelity 0.7 (the recipe's balance for most portraits) and saves the result under ./outputs/restored/. 2. The recipe tells the agent to pick the dominant defect, run face restoration first and then an upscale pass, check that identity is preserved (raise fidelity if it drifts) and compare side by side. 3. For a scan the recipe routes to fal-ai/docres, which it describes as tuned for text legibility. These are the steps the recipe prescribes; we read them and did not run them (running needs a paid API key).

Installation Confirmation Method

Antigravity 2.0 app: start a new conversation and ask "What skills do you have?" (the app has no /skills command). Antigravity CLI: run /skills; in a session that was already open, run /skills reload first. Then run genmedia --help to confirm the CLI is on your PATH.

Security Review

Static review

Reviewed Date

2026-10-13

Audited Ref / Commit

9ca850412943251fc9a466c4c29fdaf7a303a3d8

Reviewer

antigravityskills.org (static code review)

Low to moderate risk: Markdown instructions that upload your photos to fal.ai for paid processing, with a pipe-to-shell CLI installer documented.

Full review: scope, findings, risks

Audit Scope:skills/fal-recipes (SKILL.md and all 10 references, with image-restoration.md read in full), skills/genmedia (SKILL.md and references/full-reference.md), skills/fal-models-catalog (SKILL.md and image-to-image.md), README.md, skills/index.json and the repository file list at commit 9ca8504, the current head on 2026-10-13. The genmedia CLI itself lives in another repository and was not reviewed. Static review only; nothing was run.

Key Findings:Markdown-only skills; no scripts in the three folders. The commands they tell the agent to run are genmedia upload, run, schema, models, docs and pricing, plus jq. Needs a fal.ai key (genmedia setup stores it encrypted in local config, or use FAL_KEY). The genmedia skill and reference document curl https://genmedia.sh/install -fsS | bash and an irm | iex PowerShell equivalent.

Identified Operational Risks & Permissions:Images leave your machine (uploaded to the fal.ai CDN); paid API calls; a pipe-to-shell installer is documented for the CLI; the licence is stated only in the README, with no LICENSE file.

fal-recipes, genmedia and fal-models-catalog contain only Markdown (fal-recipes: 11 files, genmedia: 2, fal-models-catalog: 11). The image-restoration recipe makes the agent run genmedia upload on your file (CDN upload), genmedia run on one of 5 fal-ai endpoints with --download into ./outputs/restored/, and jq to read the JSON. genmedia setup stores the API key in local config (or reads FAL_KEY); the genmedia reference also mentions auto-loading FAL_KEY from a project .env. The genmedia skill documents installing the CLI with a curl-to-bash command (Linux/macOS) and irm | iex (Windows); we did not review that script or the CLI. Cost is per model call.

Operational Notes & Known Limitations

Known Limitations

•Needs a fal.ai API key and the genmedia CLI; calls are billed per use (genmedia pricing <endpoint> shows the cost)
•Your photos are uploaded to the fal.ai CDN with genmedia upload, so do not use it for images you cannot send to a third party
•genmedia init does not install fal-recipes: its reference says it installs only the 'genmedia-ref' and 'genmedia' core skills, into .agents/skills/ if that folder exists or .claude/skills/ otherwise. Copy fal-recipes yourself as in the steps here (we read full-reference.md)
•The repository contradicts itself on method: fal-models-catalog/references/image-to-image.md says modern instruction-based edit endpoints have replaced specialist deblur and denoise models, while the recipe still dispatches to nafnet specialists. Check the endpoints with genmedia models before relying on them
•Restoration only: no skin smoothing, blemish removal or manual retouching endpoint is documented. The recipe itself warns that heavy CodeFormer at low fidelity makes faces look generic
•The README says MIT, but the repository has no LICENSE file at this commit
•Antigravity: the README names Claude.ai and Claude Code and does not mention Antigravity; the steps below are our adaptation. Difference from the image-generation page on this site: that skill makes or edits images with OpenAI's API, this one repairs existing photos through fal.ai

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the photo-retouching skill safe?

The skill folders are Markdown only. What matters is what they tell the agent to run: genmedia upload sends your image to the fal.ai CDN, genmedia run is billed per call, and the genmedia skill suggests a curl-to-bash installer for the CLI. Read that script or install from GitHub, and keep your key out of shared files.

How do I install it in Antigravity?

Clone fal-ai-community/skills, copy fal-recipes, genmedia and fal-models-catalog into .agents/skills/ (or ~/.gemini/config/skills/), install the genmedia CLI and run genmedia setup. genmedia init alone is not enough, because it installs only the core genmedia skills.

Does it do skin smoothing or blemish removal?

No. The recipe covers restoration (blur, noise, haze, faces, documents) and warns against over-restoring faces. No beauty-retouching endpoint is documented in it.