Old photos are well-kept family treasures, since there is usually only one copy of it. With a free tool from MyHeritage, you can digitize and animate the portraits to bring loved ones back to life!
Nowadays, most people have thousands of photos and numerous videos, thanks to which great experiences can always be remembered. On the other hand, there are often only a handful of old photos of one’s own ancestors, after all it used to be much more expensive and time-consuming to take pictures – videos were not even to be thought of.
If you still want to see your great-grandparents with lifelike movements, you can animate old photos with the web app DeepNostalgia – no previous knowledge is required for this, because the artificial intelligence calculates the movements automatically. In the meantime, the Internet sensation has delighted over 40 million users.
Deep Nostalgia: Extra gift for registered users
So far, the tool was limited to five images in the free version. Users who have already used Deep Nostalgia and may have even reached the free limit can now rejoice: the manufacturer now allows five more animations to be generated free of charge.
DeepNostalgia: Prepare photos
In order for the result to be convincing, the uploaded photos should be of the best possible quality. In the case of large-format photos, it can be sufficient to photograph the photo with a mobile phone camera in good lighting conditions. Since DeepNostalgia later concentrates the image section on the face, you can also get close enough as long as the camera can still focus. However, it is better if you scan the recordings correctly. Choose a high resolution of at least 300dpi in the settings.
If you want to go one step further, you can convert the digitized black and white photos into color photos before uploading them. Although MyHeritage also offers a coloring function in its web app, this does not offer any setting options if the colors are wrong or too bright. So alternatively try an artificial intelligence like AI Picture Colorizer.
DeepNostalgia: Animate old portraits
Now you can animate the enhanced images using MyHeritage’s DeepNostalgia web app. Click on the “Upload photo” button and select a suitable file – a free account is required to use the service. In the menu item “Family tree | My photos” you will find all your uploaded pictures. Finally, click “Animate” in the preview.
The AI then optimizes the image again, for example by resharpening. Even low-quality photos are improved surprisingly well, and you can even choose between all recognized faces for group photos. However, the algorithm works best with portrait photos.
The finished videos can be saved as MP4 files in the animation window. There are also ten different predefined animations to choose from, in which the person shown looks around, smiles or even blinks.
New feature: MyHeritage LiveStory
A fairly new feature in the MyHeritage app is the “LiveStory”, with which you can not only animate the photos, but also make them speak. To do this, select an image in the “Photos | LiveStory” area and upload it. Then add more info like gender and name to make the story more personal – that portrait then moderates the whole story, so to speak.
You can use the plus button to add many more chapters, for example on different stages of life or other family members. You can also add background images to accompany your own texts.
Tip: Via the settings you can still choose the speaking speed and different voices, either male or female. Admittedly, the selection could be a bit larger so that the language also fits the person shown. At the moment, the artificially generated language doesn’t sound very natural either, which spoils the first impression of the live story a bit.