"When AI brings back stunning portraits!" Topic

In case you missed it:

Excellent

Great picture of the Emperor but I must have missed the original thread. What is happening here?

Great picture of the Emperor but I must have missed the original thread. What is happening here?

It is a composite image made from known drawings of the Emperor and photos of real persons combined with AI. They used a site called Art Breeder if I remember correctly.

Basically, the algorithm understands the features from the drawings and rebuild a "photography" from thousands of features from real persons.

You get a photorealistic Napoleon. It is astonishing.

Brilliant, if a bit unsettling. If I understand correctly, while this image is clearly based on the J-L David portrait, nevertheless it is a composite of this and other images of N, together with numerous small details of real human features? If that's right, can such a composite then be "animated", or convincingly superimposed on moving images of a real person? While I now hope for some historical drama with the definitive portrayal of N, it's more likely we'll soon have a holographic guide at our elbows in various museums, endlessly justifying his achievements and ambitions.
This picture is now the screen-saver for my Mobile Phone.

If that's right, can such a composite then be "animated", or convincingly superimposed on moving images of a real person?

a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y.

You have animated pictures of Mona Lisa, Deepfakes of US president saying things and acting in ways they never had, and so on.

I find the humanity of the picture breathtaking.

Wow. A brilliant concept.

At what age is this supposed to have captured l'empereur

"I find the humanity of the picture breathtaking."

Surely you mean 'lifelikeness'…

Looks nothing like Rod Steiger.

The portrait itself is 1812, so theoretically early forties. It does seem a bit younger – not much in the way of wrinkles around the eyes, but then Napoleon deliberately affected a serious demeanour, seldom smiling – though there's evidence of an extra few kilograms around the jawline. The density of "pixels" allows a skin texture far more detailed than an artist using oils could achieve, excepting maybe Jan van Eyck.

Several contemporaries said/wrote that none of the portraits of N were really like him (and there is quite a difference among several, allowing for different ages). I wonder if this were in part because portraits – painted or sculpted – are of necessity static, whereas one well attested feature of N was an impression of great energy, of restlessness, vivacity in short, of perpetual motion. The absence of this quality in the official portraits must have diminished the likeness more than for most subjects/sitters.

This is really tangential, but can anyone more technologically informed than I say whether, in such fake broadcasts as repaint mentions, a convincing reproduction of the subject's own voice can be "sampled"(?) from numerous real recordings? George Orwell experimented, rather crudely, with such "fake news" back in the late 1940s. The subject was Churchill, the connection of the fakery with "1984" being pretty clear.
And if such a wonder can now be done convincingly, even with the quality and timbre of a classical singer's voice – could we get Caruso performing "Nessun Dorma"? Or something like a quartet, or sestet, done by singers who didn't even live at the same time? A computer-generated choir made up of the hundred finest operatic stars of the last century!

Ah, le reve passe.

He was taller than that.

I wonder if this were in part because portraits – painted or sculpted – are of necessity static

Much of it will probably be most leaders aren't 'Warts and all' subjects. Not sure how long an artist who painted his faults would have been able to be allowed to find work!

That said, a good looking chap with some obvious intelligence – the eye being windows.

Speaking of the necessity for a portraitist to present what we might call an appropriate image of the sitter, Queen Victoria is said to have asked a French portraitist whether the newly invented art of Photography would make his occupation obsolete. "Mais non!" he exclaimed (excitedly), "Photographie, it cannot flattere".

Try this

youtu.be/8OJnkJqkyio

All of that time spent outside on campaign and yet his skin held up well.

Didn't he spend quite a lot of time in his HQ carriage when on the march?

Did they do one of Wellington – his portraits vary wildly.

There is that remarkable "photo" (I think a Daguerrotype) of him old age, but certainly Goya's painted version is totally unrecognisable.

Would be neat to see others

Speaking of the necessity for a portraitist to present what we might call an appropriate image of the sitter, Queen Victoria is said to have asked a French portraitist whether the newly invented art of Photography would make his occupation obsolete. "Mais non!" he exclaimed (excitedly), "Photographie, it cannot flatter".

To be fair, he couldn't have known about PhotoShop. :-)