Even the best photographers get the occasional blurry snaps. But the mediocre ones like me get them all the damn time.
Thankfully, a new AI tool can make even crappy snappers look like Mario Testino. Okay, thatās a slight exaggeration. But it does an impressive job of giving fuzzy portraits a creepy, HD makeover.
The tool was developed by Duke University researchers as a new approach toĀ photo correction. It works by searching through AI-generatedĀ images of HD faces until it finds ones that look like the input image whenĀ compressedĀ to the same size.
The photos are created using generative adversarial networks (GANs), which produce new pictures by pitting two neural networks against each other. One of them generates new images and the other checks how they look. The first network gets better with experience until the second thinks the images could pass as the real thing.
[Read:Ā Nvidia teaches AI to create new version of Pac-Man just by watching gameplay]
The team says it can turn a handful of pixels into realisticĀ faces with up to 64 times the resolution of the input. They claim that it can even āimagineā new features that were imperceptible in the original, such as wrinkles, eyelashes, and stubble. They also think it could createĀ pictures for a range of other applications, from microscopy to satellite imagery.
āNever have super-resolution images been created at this resolution before with this much detail,ā said Duke computer scientist Cynthia Rudin, who led the researchĀ team.
My HD makeover
I put Professor Rudinās bold claim to the test. When I fedĀ the system a slightly pixellated picture of me, hereās what it spat out:
I think the results are rather flattering. Iām not mad on the Lego hair, but Iād definitely consider a face swap with either of these hunks.
Letās see how it did when I pixellated myself into oblivion:
Now Iām genuinely impressed. The photos donāt quite look me, but they could pass as cousins from the uncanny valley.
You can give the tool a go yourself by visiting the teamās website.
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