It’s hard to feel connected to someone who went through a static photo. So a company called MyHeritage which provides automatic photo enhancements based on artificial intelligence, now offers a new service that can animate people in old photos by creating a short video that it looks like it is included while posing and getting ready for the portrait.
Called Deep nostalgia, the resulting videos are reminiscent of the Live Photos feature in iOS and iPadOS, where several seconds of video are recorded and saved before and after the camera app shutter button is pressed. But where Live Photos is meant to be used to find the perfect photo and framing that might have been missed the moment the shutter button was pressed, Deep Nostalgia is instead meant to bring photos to life, even those that aren’t a modern smartphone. .
The conversion process is fully automated. Users just need to upload a photo through the MyHeritage website where it will be sharpened and enhanced first to improve not only the quality of the final animation, but also the deep learning algorithm (created by a company called DID) to do his thing. The person’s orientation in the photo is analyzed to determine which direction their head and eyes are looking in, then a matching driver video – a modern shot of a face making movements as if posing for a photo – is selected to guide how the photo is animated.
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The results are eerily lifelike and manage to maintain the aesthetics of the original shot to help sell the effect of this video that was shot when the actual photo was taken. Deep Nostalgia has some limitations, however. In a photo with multiple subjects, users are asked to select just one person they want to see animated because the tool, at least in its current form, cannot bring the entire shot to life. The animations are also limited to the subject’s head and neck. If it’s a shot where they play tennis, you won’t see them swing at the ball.
The MyHeritage website requires users to sign in before using Deep Nostalgia. But once that’s done, you can animate up to five different photos for free. After that, you have to pay for a subscription to bring other friends and family back to life. Is it a bit scary? Yes, but at the same time it is another fascinating application of AI and deep learning that seems straight out of science fiction. And while the service is limited these days, it won’t be long before AI will be able to bring an entire photo to life, so a static moment at your grandparents’ wedding can easily turn into a new family video.