Sunday, June 21, 2020

New App Adds Detail to Blurry Image

New software is able to take a low resolution image and add missing detail. 


The tool supplies missing information using a generative adversarial network. It draws on a big data set to generate a plausible looking face that matches the pixellated version.


Researchers at Duke University who developed it describe the process this way: "The system scours AI-generated examples of high-resolution faces, searching for ones that look as much as possible like the input image when shrunk down to the same size."

The resulting face is photographically detailed, and it fits the initial pixellated image, but it's really only one of several possible solutions.
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Articles about the process from Hypebeast and Techxplore

9 comments:

Eugene Arenhaus said...

It's sufficiently inexact for the result to look fake and, at best, not quite like the original person.

Roberto Quintana said...

WoW! This is really cool!
So… garbage in, a reasonable facsimile out.
I have often wondered why this hasn’t been done sooner.
It seems like such a logical thing for a computer-algorhythm-App-thing to do!
I really like playing around with images in photoshop. As low-rez images are enlarged, they naturally pixilate and must be converted to vector images. I wonder if this may be a work-around.
Also, for portrait work. So many times the client’s original photo is a blurry postage stamp of Aunt Shirley squinting in the sun. This would definitely be helpful to get at least a clearer image of her beautiful squint.

At Eugene:
“…not quite like the original person.” But Way Better than pixels!
Why do you think they look ‘Fake’? -RQ

Roberto Quintana said...

WoW! This is really cool!
So… garbage in, a reasonable facsimile out.
I have often wondered why this hasn’t been done sooner.
It seems like such a logical thing for a computer-algorhythm-App-thing to do!
I really like playing around with images in photoshop. As low-rez images are enlarged, they naturally pixilate and must be converted to vector images. I wonder if this may be a work-around.
Also, for portrait work. So many times the client’s original photo is a blurry postage stamp of Aunt Shirley squinting in the sun. This would definitely be helpful to get at least a clearer image of her beautiful squint.

At Eugene:
“…not quite like the original person.” But Way Better than pixels!
Why do you think they look ‘Fake’? -RQ

Loretta said...

I love the blurry, or chunky look. Do you know of a program or app that takes a photo and makes and keeps it pixelated?

Loretta

CatBlogger said...

Is this how image recognition software work?

Loretta said...

JAMES,
I NEED AN APP THAT LEAVES THE IMAGE PIXELATED. ARE YOU AWARE OF ANY PROGRAMS THAT DO THIS?

Gumby said...

There is no way to restore original picture from pixelated one. There is simply no information for that, so this app must invent missing information somehow...
But, as Roberto stated, this thing can really be of good use for portrait painter who must paint from bad quality photo (I had the same problem many times...)
By the way, did you know, that Obama is white ������?

https://twitter.com/Chicken3gg/status/1274314622447820801/photo/1

//sorry for my english - i am Slovenian
//and thank you James for all inspiration and information you are giving to us

Mara Mattia said...

That link was an interesting example, Gumby!

Anonymous said...

For those of you who want to capture the pixelated look, try art studio pro. But I really think this is a cool app!