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MyHeritage in Color™ Goes Viral: Over a Million Photos Already Colorized!

  • By Esther
February 16, 2020
MyHeritage in Color™ Goes Viral: Over a Million Photos Already Colorized!

5 days ago we released an amazing feature, MyHeritage In Color™, which automatically colorizes black and white photos with breathtaking results.

We are indebted to Jason Antic and Dana Kelley of DeOldify for developing the wonderful colorization technology upon which this feature is based.

The response has been incredible. The feature is a sensation: in the first 5 days, more than a million photos have been colorized — and the numbers keep growing! Users from all over the world have been stunned, and sometimes tearful, at how adding color can revive memories of their loved ones and change the way they relate to the photos. Many have shared with us that the colorized pictures have sparked interest in family history among the younger generation, and that seeing their ancestors in color makes them feel more real and tangible. Hardcore genealogists have been “complaining” that they will never get any other work done and spending long nights colorizing all their photos and marveling at the new details that suddenly emerge. Even people who have had a hard time connecting to genealogy before, have been scouring their homes for black and white photos to scan and colorize and are enthusiastically sharing the results with family and friends. It’s addictive! What a joy for genealogy!

If you haven’t joined the fun yet, try it for yourself at www.myheritage.com/incolor. Anyone can colorize up to 10 photos for free, and an unlimited number of photos with a subscription.

Here are some of the reactions and testimonies we’ve seen in social media:

Blogs

Genealogy tours of Scotland: “MyHeritage Colourization Tool — GAME CHANGER.

In what is probably the biggest genealogical breakthrough since DNA, MyHeritage announced yesterday their new Colorization Tool, MyHeritage In Color™…

As the keeper of the family memories, I have hundreds of photos. The tool is quick and easy to use and I must say the transformation from black and white to ‘living colour’ is impactful. It hits you right in the feels…

Photos evoke memories long suppressed. Seeing the black and white photos come to life with the colourization tool deepens and strengthens those memories and all of the warm feelings of love, belonging, and connection that the memories hold. Without a doubt, the MyHeritage In Color™ tool is the new big thing in genealogy and family history. Well done to the MyHeritage team.”

DNA Explained: “Be still my heart… This is my mother and the colorized version looks very much like her in life. Just kind of took my breath away. What a difference… This is SOOOO easy… The opportunities are endless and the results are AMAZING. I may never get anything else done. What series of photos can you bring to life and create a colored collage through time? What a great gift, if not for someone else, for yourself.

Try it out! Thank you, thank you, MyHeritage!!!!!!”

The DNA Geek: “MyHeritage has just released an exciting new feature called MyHeritage In Color™.  They can now automatically colorize your black-and-white photos!

It’s quick, easy, and — best of all — you can try it for free!”

Family Cherished: “Everyone is talking about and trying out the new colorizing tool for old black and white photos that was recently released by MyHeritage. Here are some ideas on how to get your best results… THIS is used to bring life to your story by using a different version of the original image. In the picture above, I never realized that I resemble my great-grandmother so much until I did this, as it wasn’t apparent before in the black and white photo. Colorizing can bring out details that might help you learn new information. Colorized photos bring out details that are often missed in the black and white… Family members who were not that interested in family history before are suddenly interested and asking questions about the people in these colorized pictures. THIS alone is a reason to try out this new tool. Try it, you’ll like it!”

Genealogy’s Star: “This fabulous new technology has been online only one day as of the date of this post. The concept of MyHeritage In Color™ is fairly simple: it adds outstanding color to existing black and white photographs.”

Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter: “I have tried the colorization process briefly this morning and am impressed. It allows you to do more than look at old photos — it lets you experience them, creating a deeper connection with your family history than you ever thought possible. I plan to use this process on ALL my old digitized black-and-white photographs.”

Family History Hound: “I’m impressed with the ease of use for this new feature, and I could have stayed up all night trying it on my other family photos. What photos are you going to try it on?”

Legal Genealogist: “But give credit where credit is due: with certain exceptions, the colors in these colorizations are reasonably accurate, and it seems to be pretty darned good with most of the skin tones. It’s easy. It’s fast. For those of us with MyHeritage accounts, it’s an unlimited source of fun — at least until we run out of black-and-white images to play with. Making this is a really cool tool. Thanks, MyHeritage!!“

Scottish Genes: “I’ve been having quite a bit of fun with the new tool from MyHeritage that allows you to change black and white images into colour pictures. The MyHeritage tool is not only fun, it is beyond addictive! As can be seen, the artificially colourised version is off by a few points, and yet I don’t think that really matters at all, because the emotional response from the generated image is the same.There is something magical about seeing an old black and white image restored into colour (even if not 100% true), because we live in a colourful world. When I showed some of the images to my younger brother, he commented that there was something ‘wonderfully World War 2 in Colour’ about them, i.e. they seem so much fresher and closer to us, and yet still have an air of history about them. I wish that family history toys like this came out on a daily basis — well done MyHeritage!”

Gould Genealogy: “…Incredible, isn’t it!! To use this amazing new feature, head to the MyHeritage In Color™  page, simply upload a photo and it will colourise it for you. But just a word of warning … once you start, you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP. You’ll keep finding other photos that you’d like to see colourised, and will keep playing!”

The Genealogy Reporter: “I have always loved seeing the colorized photographs of the Civil War and WWI and WWII. It just seems to make the people and places in the photos seem more real. I remember thinking, ‘Wow! I wish I could add color to my old photos.’ Now, I can.”

Genealogy à la carte: “I’ve tried another online colourizing products, but I think this one may be the easiest to use and fastest to produce results.”

Geneamusings: “Obviously, the colorized photographs are only as good as the original black and white photos, and there may be errors because the colorizing process tries to determine the color of different objects using the shades of gray in the photos.  Considering the process and limitations, I think it does pretty well! Thank you to MyHeritage for releasing this wonderful new colorizing feature. The photos are more realistic than black and white photos.“

And others: Who Do You Think You Are Magazine, The Genealogy Guys Blog, Genealogy Bargains, The Ginger Jewish Genealogist, Irish Genealogy News, and many more.

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

Conclusion

At MyHeritage, we believe that family history is a key part of what makes us who we are. Our hope is that our platform will help breathe life into your family history, and help you connect deeply and personally with your family’s stories, and your ancestors and relatives who star in them. And help you pass down your family treasures to the future generations. MyHeritage In Color™ is our latest feature to help you achieve all that.

We have been so excited to release this feature, and we’re delighted and humbled with the response. Adding color to black and white photos helps bring the past to life so powerfully.

We are working hard on improvements that we will roll out continuously.

Try MyHeritage In Color™ today and please keep sharing your colorized photos with us — we love being a part of your family history journey!

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Comments

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  • June Butka

    February 16, 2020

    I love the new colorized photo of Aunt Helen’s wedding gown. Thank you MyHeritage for this.

  • terry

    February 25, 2020

    great to colour pics wedding flowers dont come out well though , my mother had a red bouquet and came out grey n black

  • Marion

    February 27, 2020

    Black and white photos always give a different aspect of the shot – however, the difference between the black and white and the new coloured photos is absolutely amazing. What a wonderful step forward.

  • Antonio Pérez

    February 27, 2020

    Lo he probado con una antigua foto, y el resultado ha sido ESPECTACULAR!!

  • Alida luz

    February 28, 2020

    Es excelente no crei que podria ver las fotos antiguas a color

  • Tim Manners

    March 12, 2020

    Discovered that if you use the app instead of the browser version, you can download full sized versions of the colorized photos. The browser will not do this.

  • Hobart

    April 22, 2020

    Has anyone had success with getting blue eyes on their colorized photos?

  • Gustav

    May 12, 2020

    Re: Hobart and blue eyes.

    Well, it´s a huge problem also for me. The AI is not able to handle blue eyes and that makes the service mostly useless for me. In some cases, when it´s not close ups on faces, it´s no problem, but it makes it useless in like 70% of the cases.

  • K

    Kate

    June 15, 2020

    I have looked at all the b&w photos I’ve downloaded on to my MyHeritage website as colourised, and seen the difference. But today I downloaded one of my paternal grandparents that I had missed, then colourised it; it was ok, but when I enhanced it and then enlarged it I was close to tears – I had finally met Gran and Grandad as a young couple. The enhancing did a really good job on a not-very-good ~100 year old photo; their eyes looked at me in the eye; I could see Gran’s light blue eye colour and just how much my father was like his mother, and me too, I think, as I’m a lot like Dad. The only sadness is that people didn’t smile much in photos back then, and Gran smiled deeply in later photos I took of her.
    Grandad died when I was 2yrs old so I don’t remember him, but I can see now just how very much like him Dad’s 2 brothers were, and what a gentle man he was – hard to think of him as a groom ‘in service’, caring for horses, and as a veterinary assistant.
    The enhanced and coloured photos aren’t perfect, but then the originals I have aren’t either. The app has enabled me to ‘know’ my grandparents in a way that I could not have otherwise. Thank you, MyHeritage.