Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Tech & Science

New app uses AI to enhance old photos

Artificial Neural Networks has led to the greatest improvements in image resolution, making older images better.

Using AI to enhance images. Photograph (C) Tim Sandle.
Using AI to enhance images. Photograph (C) Tim Sandle.

AI continues to redefine the world of photography. This extends to increasing image resolution, improving quality, and adding clarity. It is also possible to use a photograph as the basis for generating AI art.

Image super-resolution is progressively becoming a prerequisite in the fraternity of computer graphics, computer vision, and image processing. There is also a growing interest in AI applications for the home market, including taking photographs in older formats capture don photographic paper or on camera film, and not simply digitalising the media but also improving the images.

AI image improving technologies include Interpolation, SRCNN (Super-Resolution Convolutional Neural Network), SRResNet (Super Resolution Residual Network), and GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks: Super-Resolution GAN-SRGAN and Conditional GAN-CGAN).

A related application is with digital images taken in previous years where the image resolution, grain, and colour were taken on inferior cameras and where the outcomes are less exacting.

One example comes from MyHeritage, a genealogy company. The firm has developed a process to aid people in preserving their memories. This is through an app called Reimagine.

The app allows users to scan, enhance, colourise, animate, and conveniently share photographs in a digital format. This solution marks an advancement in preserving and revitalising treasured moments.

The app’s primary objective is to enable users to easily import photographs stored in albums, allowing them the option to enhance the images by improving resolution, correcting scratches and creases, and even restoring colour to black-and-white photos.

An example of the Reimagine process, using AI to enhance an old photograph. Image (C) MyHertitage, with permission.

Another feature is the ability to bring faces to life through animation, a technique that previously was tested by MyHeritage using a process the firm terms as “Deep Nostalgia.”

Reimagine has a user-friendly interface and it integrates additional photo-editing tools specifically designed to safeguard and preserve aged photos. By utilising the app, available on both iOS and Android platforms, a person can capture photos directly from their old albums.

By using an advanced image recognition, the app can automatically identify individual photographs, crop them accordingly, and save them as independent images.

Furthermore, there is the option to enhance these scanned photos by adding essential details such as names, dates, and locations, significantly facilitating the retrieval process.

Reimagine also caters to those who possess a collection of photos stored in shoeboxes or on their phone’s camera roll. For these media, the app enables the scanning of individual photos, regardless of their location, ensuring that no memory is left behind.

Avatar photo
Written By

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

You may also like:

Life

If the government doesn’t think differently about the delivery, it could leave the poorest children and families far behind.

World

Donald Trump doubled down Sunday on hard-line campaign pledges to impose trade tariffs and carry out mass deportations.

World

'I came to see this place that we were banned from, because they wanted us to live in poverty and deprivation,' one Damascus resident,...

Entertainment

"The Lord of the Rings" returns to the big screen this month with a new Japanese anime-style movie.