Bring pictures of your ancestors back to life with this next-gen AI tool

Gone are the days when you would look at old photos of your ancestors in those big black-paged albums with expressions bordering boredom. Now at a tap of your touchpad you can see those pictures come to life!

The online genealogy website MyHeritage has unveiled its latest AI tool, ‘Deep Nostalgia’ (seemingly an offshoot of Deefake technology) that realistically animates faces in still photos to make it appear as if they were preparing for the photo.

The technology MyHeritage uses pre-recorded driver footage and combines it with video re-enactment technology, licensed from the AI experts at D-ID, to predict gestures and make faces, smile, blink, or move. Drivers are selected based on the composition of the photos.

MyHeritage sharpens the photos using its Photo Enhancer, as the quality of old photos aren’t usually that great before animating the faces. The website explains the importance of this process to ensure optimal results and produce high-quality video animation for your ‘historical’ photos.

The website describes the service as
“MyHeritage integrated this technology to animate the faces in historical photos and create high-quality, realistic video footage. The Deep Nostalgia feature uses several drivers prepared by MyHeritage. Each driver is a video consisting of a fixed sequence of movements and gestures. Deep Nostalgia can very accurately apply the drivers to a face in your still photo, creating a short video that you can share with your friends and family. The driver guides the movements in the animation so you can see your ancestors smile, blink, and turn their heads. This really brings your photos to life!”

The website was known to revive old family photos though refinement in colour and image details but now due to ‘Deep Nostalgia’ AI tool, it can animate faces and give realistic expression to the faces of your ancestors and old family photos. Netizens have shared interesting examples of its usages on famous personalities