Photo Animation

Grandfather Comes Alive!

I recently discovered a photo animation tool available on MyHeritage.com called "Deep Nostalgia". This remarkable application can produce limited lifelike movement from still photographs.

I never met my paternal grandfather, Michael Michalik, who died at age 45 in 1927. Only five pictures of Michael remain in my possession. Two photos show him as a young man about 20 years old. Three other pictures show him looking worn out shortly before his death. I used the first image below to bring my grandfather back to life as a young man. It's a poor quality black and white picture from somewhere between 1901 and 1905. Michael stands behind his brother, Ignacy, and Ignacy's new bride, Caroline.

In the first step, I cropped the image to show Michael alone.

Next, I adjusted levels in Photoshop to darken the haziness.

Then I enhanced the previous image using the MyHeritage automatic enhancement tool. The amazing enhanced result clears away many fuzzy imperfections of the original picture.

Then I colorized the previous enhanced image using the MyHeritage automatic colorization tool. Overexposure of Michaels's forehead is more obvious in color than in black and white. His dark jacket also has inaccurate purple areas. This seems to be a common flaw in many colorizations of dark clothing.

Finally, the spectacular "Deep Nostalgia" animation tool brought Michael to life as you can see in the following short video.

The animation works incredibly well! Apparently, Michael might have been wearing a hat before the photo was taken because his hair is crushed in along the left side.

Animations work best with isolated, forward facing heads with no beards or hats. It also works best if smiles are subtle without too many teeth showing. Animations often add brief, small, charming smiles to originally unsmiling faces. For example, check out the hint of a smile near the end of a different less enhanced animation of young Michael.

Another photo from near 1900 shows Michael standing to the right of someone named Karoll Lichtman. I wish I knew the circumstances of the picture. The colorized version looks particularly good. There are no purple patches on the dark suits.

Michael's animated face from this picture seems more rounded than the previous animations. His hair is also slicked down.

A slightly different animation was produced from the black and white original version. I don't know why "Deep Nostalgia" treats different levels of enhancement differently, but I like the nice little hint of a smile at the end of the uncolored animation.

The next 25 years or so after 1900 were not kind to Michael's face. In the next picture he stands between his wife, Barbara, to the right, and Barbara's niece, Victoria, on the left, in the year 1926.

The colorized animation of Michael's 1926 face did not work as well as the black and white one shown next.

Although these videos are short and artificially produced, they brought my unknown grandfather back to life for a few wonderful seconds.