Prisma

Style transfer has gone mainstream: Prisma is a mobile app that can transfer styles onto your photos. 

So, now that literal style transfer Instagram filters are here, how do you feel about them? I’ve notice a couple of amateur artists who were taking aback at the computer getting a better result than they thought they could draw, while others have started experimenting rapidly.

Prisma did a very good job training their networks and picking good styles. Some combinations don’t quite work, but the fast turnaround time makes it one of the easier ways to experiment with style transfer.

Style transfer inherently has more variety than older filters since it reinterprets the image. A typical Instagram filter takes away information, hopefully focusing the composition. A style transfer can add information (from the source style) while also hopefully enhancing the interesting parts.

It’s not quite as flexible as I’d like for a professional tool, since the only choices are the style and the amount of blending. Don’t get me wrong: those are both really powerful levers. But I can immediately see possibilities in layering and combining multiple styles. 

I guess I’ll have to keep collecting my own toolset for now. Though I expect that someone will make a dedicated artist’s tool fairly soon. Or a Photoshop plugin.