Photo Animation - Part 2

Paternal Great Grandparents Come Alive

My great grandmother, Scholastica Ostrokolowicz, died in January, 1921, twenty-seven years before my birth. Her earliest picture in my possession is from approximately 1888, about one year after her arrival in America from Poland. A colorized version of this picture is shown next. Scholastica sits with her bearded husband, my great grandfather, Jan Ostrokolowicz. Standing to the left is her young son, Xavier. Her approximately 15 year-old daughter, Ursula, stands behind. I believe my grandmother, Barbara, sits on Scholastica's lap.

I was able to animate Scholastica's 31 year-old face from the old, faded picture.

Unfortunately, I could not animate great grandfather Jan's face from the same picture. The animation tool would not recognize his beard and faded facial features. 

About 6 years years after the first picture above was taken, in approximately 1894, another family picture was taken which I was also able to colorize. Now Scholastica is about 37 years old, her daughter, my grandmother, Barbara, on the right, is about 7 years old, and Barbara's younger sister, Johanna, is on the left. Enhancement of the colorization put some erroneous purple and red tints on dresses, but made faces sharper.

Next are two animations of Scholastica's 37-year-old face. The first colorized animation had trouble keeping Scholastica's hat attached to her face. For some reason processing a black and white photo version resulted in more natural movement in the second animation.

Years pass before Scholastica's last picture was taken. Colorization gave life to an old black and white photo. I can only guess at the year. Her daughter, Johanna stands beside her as a young woman. Perhaps the date is between 1914 and 1921. If so, Scholastica is between 57 and 64 years old.

Animation of the black and white photo worked better than the color animation. I was able to chose a version which included a small smile to soften Scholastica's otherwise stern expression.

Enhancement worked miracles on this portrait of elderly, dignified Scholastica which hangs in our bedroom.

Only two old photos of my great grandfather, Jan Ostrokolowicz, produced reasonable animations. The most interesting picture, from about 1892, shows Jan in his Polish cavalry uniform standing with his son, Xavier, on the right. Jan is about 45 years old and sporting a huge beard. The original photo was damaged, making it impossible to repair Jan's missing foot and rifle bottom. 

The animation tool frequently has trouble keeping hats and beards attached to faces. In this case Jan's helmet followed his head, but the beard movement is a bit odd.

The next picture is from about 1898. Jan is approximately 51 years old and has lost his beard. I colorized the original black and white picture, but didn't enhance it. This prevented erroneous purple patches on dark clothing. My grandmother, Barbara, now about 12 years old, stands on the left.

Below are two animated versions of Jan's face with slightly different movement in each. I chose these because they exhibited the least hat distortion. They both show brief hints of smile which really bring Jan to life. 

 

Jan Ostrokolowicz is like a ghost. I've searched and searched for any documented record of him and failed to find any beyond his name on a passenger list from the ship that brought him to America from Poland. I know almost nothing about him.

I continue to be fascinated by these animations!  


 

 

 
 
 
 

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.