DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

This AI turns pixelated faces into real portraits, but not without hiccups

Jun 22, 2020 by Dunja Djudjic 3 Comments

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

We’ve already seen some AI software that can upsample low-res images. You know, CSI-style. Face Depixelizer is another AI-powered software, particularly focused on faces. It can take a pixelated, low-res photo and turn it into a realistic portrait. While the results are pretty impressive – the app doesn’t come without its quirks.

Face Depixelizer relies on StyleGAN, the same technology that creates faces of people that don’t exist. It was made by Russian coder Denis Malimonov, who shared it on GitHub and Colab. Basically, the software takes a heavily pixelated photo, analyzes the database, and generates a face that would have the matching features.

Face Depixelizer

Given a low-resolution input image, model generates high-resolution images that are perceptually realistic and downscale correctly.

?GitHub: https://t.co/0WBxkyWkiK
?Colab: https://t.co/q9SIm4ha5p

P.S. Colab is based on thehttps://t.co/fvEvXKvWk2 pic.twitter.com/lplP75yLha

— Denis (@tg_bomze) June 19, 2020

The app like this could have different applications. One of them is breaking the anonymity of people in pixelated videos and photos. While Denis points out that it couldn’t restore the original face, he believes that it could “help with the identification of facial features.”

This tool will not restore the original face, however, it can help with the identification of facial features.

— Denis (@tg_bomze) June 20, 2020

Some Twitter users found a way more fun purpose of the app. It helped them to imagine what video game characters would look like if they were real people. Some results were epic, but the others… Well, see for yourself:

With default settings, I got this result. pic.twitter.com/mRkqqTwhJF

— Bomze (@tg_bomze) June 20, 2020

So that one is Wolfenstein, here is Doom pic.twitter.com/ixpItQyJ5q

— Hani ✊?? (@h_bash) June 20, 2020

my effort pic.twitter.com/48DCgEfKn7

— Linguica (@andrewrstine) June 20, 2020

yeesh pic.twitter.com/TCXFLtDKNV

— general yikes (@said_mitch) June 20, 2020

even creepier in its own way pic.twitter.com/WESdfkaKQf

— general yikes (@said_mitch) June 20, 2020

All interpretations downscale to the same pixels, so this is an equally valid real life DoomGuy. pic.twitter.com/RwjZSFk9Tg

— Jonathan Fly ? (@jonathanfly) June 20, 2020

eehhh pic.twitter.com/72Y4zyvKXx

— Moritz Klack (@moklick) June 20, 2020

The app turned pixelated face of Donald Trump into a cute little girl. That’s another proof that artificial intelligence isn’t always all that intelligent, I guess:

? pic.twitter.com/2JBvc5mPBg

— Moritz Klack (@moklick) June 20, 2020

Finally, Face Depixelizer shows a feature that can be troublesome. Apparently, the app does “blackface” as one of the users noticed. The AI was trained on Caucasian faces, so it gets pretty confused when the input image is a pixelated face of a black person.

*beep boop* AI does blackface. pic.twitter.com/BeUDoAsfvj

— Kiloku (@Kiloku) June 20, 2020

I also tried with Samuel L Jackson and it wasn’t much better. I guess the images used to train the AI were of predominantly white people? pic.twitter.com/nplylusczo

— Kiloku (@Kiloku) June 20, 2020

As I mentioned, Face Depixelizer can help revealing facial features of people whose faces are obscured. But judging from the results, it could use some more training before that happens. In the meantime, you can have some fun with it and try it out here. If you’ve ever wondered what video game characters from your childhood would look like as humans, maybe this app will help you.

[via PetaPixel]

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Neural network turns your Pixelated, black and white gameboy photos into realistic portraits Real-Time Digital Make Up Alters Real Faces In… Real-Time Can you guess which of these faces is real and which is computer-generated? Adobe makes a record $11 billion annual profit despite 2019 hiccups

Filed Under: news Tagged With: Artificial Intelligence, portrait photography

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.net

About Dunja Djudjic

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

« Fox News pulls a Photoshop fail reporting fake news
Photographer regrets buying this gear; what are your regrets? »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Learn photography

Recent Posts

  • AstrHori new 28mm f/13 2x Macro Periscope lens sees round corners
  • Sony World Photography Awards under fire for age limitations in Student contest
  • 5 ways to find inspiration when the weather is sad and grey
  • Photographers, keep an eye out for auroras around the world this weekend
  • How to make beautiful frozen soap bubble photos this winter

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.netDunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy