Old family photos: move the camera instead of bringing faces to life
Animating old photos with AI is, in my opinion, still pretty creepy. We’ve all seen those “brought to life” portraits: the eyes blink, the lips move, and we still land squarely in the uncanny valley.
But there’s another approach that I think works better.
Instead of “animating” the person in the photo, you can move the camera. In other words, look at the same photo from a different angle. From the left. From the right. From slightly above.
The AI fills in what isn’t visible in the original, and the result feels magical rather than eerie.
How to do it
Use this tool in Google AI Studio:
- Upload your old photo
- Get 3 new views from different angles
- Enjoy them as they are, or use them to animate a camera move from one view to the next
Here’s an example: the original photo of my grandmother with my great-grandmother and great-great-grandfather, followed by two “new” looks at them.
Link to the tool: https://aistudio.google.com/apps/drive/1jlpp5B_wwatR0ibZsgujwv12MC_yxj29