The MyHeritage Photo Enhancer is powered by deep learning technology that was licensed by MyHeritage and seamlessly integrated into the platform. The feature enhances photos by upscaling them (increasing their resolution). This produces exceptional results for historical photos, where the faces are often small and blurry, but works well on new color photos too. Enhancement works best on photos that feature multiple people, and enhanced faces can be viewed one by one.
The photos are enhanced using this specialized technology and are not manually retouched in any way. The technology infers what the original faces may have looked like by bringing blurry low-resolution or low-quality photos into clear focus. The results are simply stunning. However, since the enhancement is a simulation, done by algorithms, its results may be inaccurate and, in rare cases, even distorted.
The addition of the Photo Enhancer, complemented by the MyHeritage In Color™ feature, makes MyHeritage the best platform for uploading, enhancing, and sharing historical photos.
You can view the individual faces close up to see how they’re brought into focus:
Example: A wedding party in 1930:
How to access the MyHeritage Photo Enhancer
To begin, visit myheritage.com/photo-enhancer. If you don’t have a MyHeritage account yet, you’ll be asked to create one for free.
If you already have photos uploaded to your family site on MyHeritage, follow the directions below for “Enhancing photos already on MyHeritage”.
MyHeritage Photo Enhancer main page on myheritage.com/photo-enhancer
Click “Upload photo” to choose a file from your computer. Or, drag and drop a photo of your choice into the photo frame.
Once you upload your photo, you’ll be asked to sign up to MyHeritage to enhance your photos. Signing up is free. If you already have a MyHeritage account and you aren’t logged in already, simply select the “Log in” option on the bottom of the popup.
Enhancing a photo typically takes 15–30 seconds, depending on its size and the number of faces in it. While the photo is being enhanced, an animated magic wand will appear in the middle of the photo.
Once enhancement is complete, you can drag the slider across the image to see the impact of the enhancement:
Before and after slider for enhanced photos. What a difference!
When you enhance a photo, the original photo remains intact and the enhanced photo piggybacks on the original so that you benefit from the same meta-data of the original photo: same title, date, place, people tagged, and so on. We love enhanced photos but believe the original photos should not be modified or replaced.
Face detection
One of the greatest strengths of the Photo Enhancer is its ability to automatically detect faces in a photo, and bring them into focus.
Below the enhanced photo, you'll see a bar that shows the individual faces detected in the image. Click on any of the faces to zoom in and see the enhancement up close.
Enhancement + Colorization
You can combine the power of the MyHeritage Photo Enhancer with MyHeritage In Color™ to colorize an enhanced photo. Both these features use deep learning technologies so the result is a reimagination of what the original scene may have looked like in focus and in color.
To colorize an enhanced photo, click the Colorize photo button on top of an enhanced photo.
After colorizing an enhanced photo, you can drag the slider across the image to see the before and after effect of both enhancing and colorizing the same photo:
You can also enhance photos after colorizing them.
Indicating enhanced photos with a special symbol:
A magic wand symbol will be added in the bottom left corner of enhanced photos. This symbol, like the palette symbol for colorization, will inform others that a photo has been artificially enhanced so they would not consider it as an original photo.
If a photo has been both enhanced and colorized, it will have both the magic wand and palette symbols in the bottom left corner of the photo.
Enhancing photos already on MyHeritage
You can also enhance any photo that is already on MyHeritage by selecting "My Photos" from the Family Tree tab on the navigation bar.
Select any album from the list on the left, or remain within the default album “All Media Items”.
Note that any photos in your albums that you have previously colorized will have a colorization symbol in the bottom right corner of the black and white version of the photo. Similarly, an enhancement symbol will soon be added to the photo thumbnails.
Click on any photo on the screen to open the photo page. Once you’re on the photo page, click the new “Enhance” button to enhance the photo quality. Your original photo always remains intact, without any changes.
After enhancement, you can drag the slider across the image to see the before and after effect of enhancing your photo, or click the buttons above the photo to toggle between the original (before) and the enhanced (after) version.
Toggle between the before and after photos to see the difference.
Choose from the options on the top left of the photo to download the original photo, the enhanced photo, or the comparison, to rotate the photo, delete the enhanced photo or the original, or to share the photo to social media.
Download, delete, or share a photo
Select one of the faces below the photo to see the enhancement that this particular face has underwent.
Tagging people in photos
We’ve made it easier to tag people in photos. You can now hover the mouse over any of the faces detected in the photo and click “Add Name” to tag the individual.
Tagging an individual detected in a photo.
At any point throughout this process, while viewing your photo in the photo section, you can also click “Colorize” to colorize the photo. There is no difference in which order you enhance and colorize your photos — you can complete the actions in whichever order you choose and you will get the same results.
To learn more about this amazing feature, read this article on the MyHeritage Knowledge Base: Enhance Your Family Photos Using the MyHeritage Photo Enhancer. On MyHeritage Knowledge Base, you'll find additional articles, webinars, and how-to videos that can help you master your genealogy skills.