AI Eerily Transforms Low-Res, Pixelated Faces Into Sharp Portraits

Sarim Pixako

6 years ago

A new AI app has the confounding ability to transform low-res pixelated photos into stunning portrait photos.

Designed by Russian developer Denis Malimonov, the AI-powered ‘Face Pixelizer’ uses a StyleGAN algorithm that generates realistic portraits of people that don’t exist.

Face Depixelizer takes in pixelated photos of faces before narrowing into them and forming faces it perceives to best match the originals.

The input faces don’t even have to be of real people. You can use any character you wish to see how it might look in human form.

Unfortunately, this app seems inapt of recognizing pixels of dark-skinned people. A Twitter user tested a photo of Barack Obama, and it turned him into a white person.

While people have pointed out that the tool is great for identifying faces obscured for privacy, Malinomav explained that the technology doesn’t restore features of the person but creates a fitting image.

If you wish to try out the app, head over to Google Colab.

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