Who said photographers can't be produce fine art, too? Through DeepArt, a free website that translates digital photos into artistic creations, you can now see your iPhone selfies in the style of Pablo Picasso himself, or transform a simple photo of your backyard into a glowing pointillist landscape mimicking the hand of Claude Monet.
Developed by five neuroscience and artificial intelligence researchers based in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium, DeepArt is built from a database of famous paintings, illustrations, and sketches. Users simply upload their photos and then select a style from DeepArt’s samples (or upload their own sample). The photo conversion is based on an algorithm that simulates the process by which our brains recognize visual patterns. Then the user’s new image is emailed directly to them. You can even print your works of art in high resolution as a poster or glass print.
“The algorithm uses so-called deep, artificial neural networks—a mathematical model built of units called neurons linked with each other,” computer scientist and DeepArt co-creator Lukasz Kidzinski told Live Science.
Replicating this object-recognition process between computers and images, the technology essentially teaches a computer how to identify and reproduce nuanced artistic styles, from the bold strokes of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, to the colorful cubism of Hans Hofmann.
“The neural network that we’re using was initially made for object recognition,” explains Kidzinski in a demo video. “The network tries to extract very simple features from the photo, like small shapes. The next step is to try to generate a new picture which has similar representation of style that you provided. It tries to a picture that is closest to the representation of the style and the content.”
The service is totally free, but typically has a long queue of images waiting to be converted. Check out the latest creations, and then try it for yourself!