On February 11th, MyHeritage launched a new service allowing users to upload black and white photos to have them colourized in seconds as if by sheer magic! The magic is actually MyHeritage In Color™ which is licensed technology from DeOldify created by software engineers Jason Antic and Dana Kelley. The results are nothing short of incredible!
Of course, not every picture is going to be colourized as expected. It really comes down to the quality of the original photo you are uploading. As you can see in the photo below, much of the building, deck and even clothes worn by the man have a green tint to them.
I was curious what this technology would do with a photo that started out in colour, was made black and white and then uploaded and colourized using the MyHeritage tool. As you can see it did a great job with skin tones, hair and some clothing. However, not a perfect rendition so you can assume that not all colours that you will see in the final result will be the same as they were originally intended.
Original Photo
Black & White
Colourized by MyHeritage
I also wanted to know what it would do with pure colours. I tested this by taking an image that had clear solid colours, making a black & white copy and then uploading it to MyHeritage. While it’s not surprising that the colours do not match exactly, I was most surprised by the shaded areas within each colour band when the original was one uniform colour.
This tool is clearly meant for photographs and that is what it does best!
After comparing the output from this new tool at MyHeritage to output from other sites that offer automated colourization tools, I would rank it top of the class!
To use this new tool, simply visit www.myheritage.com/incolor. If you do not have a paid account with MyHeritage, you will be able to try it out by colourizing up to 10 photos. However, if you are a MyHeritage Complete subscriber, you are able to upload and colourize an unlimited number of photos which are stored online for you. You are able to download directly to your computer or device and there are option to share to social media platforms. There is also a handy mobile app available as well.
After only 5 days, over a million photos have been colourized using this game changing tool that offers a substantial benefit to becoming a subscriber to the MyHeritage service. By definition, a viral sensation! MyHeritage has made it incredibly easy to breath new life into old photos and see them through a new lens.
Check out the original launch blog post by MyHeritage here.
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