Try New Hairstyles with AI!

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Exciting Application of GANs
3. The Fear of Changing Hairstyles
4. How GANs Can Help
5. The Process of Hair Transfer Using GANs
6. The Impressive Results
7. The Challenges of Using GANs for Hair Transfer
8. The Alignment Step in GANs
9. The Importance of Segmentation Maps
10. Conclusion

The Exciting Application of GANs for Hair Transfer

Have You ever wanted to change your hairstyle but were too afraid to commit? Well, fear no more! Thanks to the exciting application of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), you can now transfer your hair to see how it would look before making the change.

The Fear of Changing Hairstyles

Changing your hairstyle can be a daunting task. Many of us are used to the same haircut for years, telling our hairdresser "same as last time" every 3 or 4 months, even if we'd like a change. We just can't commit, afraid it would look weird and unusual. Of course, this fear is all in our heads as We Are the only ones caring about our haircut, but this tool could be a real game-changer for some of us, helping us to decide whether or not to commit to such a change by providing great insights on how it will look on us.

How GANs Can Help

GANs are a Type of artificial intelligence that can learn to generate new data that is similar to a given dataset. In the case of hair transfer, GANs can learn to transfer the hairstyle and color of a specific picture onto your own picture while changing the results to follow the lighting and property of your picture to make it convincing and realistic all at once, reducing the steps and sources of errors.

The Process of Hair Transfer Using GANs

To transfer your hair using GANs, you can give three things to the algorithm: a picture of yourself, a picture of someone with the hairstyle you would like to have, and another picture (or the same one) of the hair color you would like to try. The algorithm then merges everything on yourself realistically. The results are seriously impressive, with their solution being preferred 95 percent of the time in a user study conducted on 396 participants.

The Impressive Results

The results of hair transfer using GANs are seriously impressive. You can not only change the style of your hair but also the color from multiple image examples. The algorithm merges everything on yourself realistically, providing a great approximation of how something like a new haircut could look like, relieving us of some of the stress of trying something new while keeping the exciting part.

The Challenges of Using GANs for Hair Transfer

The problem with using GANs for hair transfer is that they often look unrealistic because of the lighting differences, occlusions it may have, or even simply the position of the head that are different in both pictures. All of these small details make this problem very challenging, causing artifacts in the generated image.

The Alignment Step in GANs

To overcome the challenges of using GANs for hair transfer, Peihao Zhu et al. added a missing but essential alignment step to GANs. Instead of simply encoding the images and merging them, it slightly ALTERS the encoding following a different segmentation mask to make the latent code from the two images more similar. This alignment makes the encoded information much more easily comparable and reconstructable.

The Importance of Segmentation Maps

Segmentation maps are essential in the process of hair transfer using GANs. They tell us what the image contains and where it is, hair, skin, eyes, nose, etc. Using this information from the different images, they can Align the heads following the target image structure before sending the images to the network for encoding using a modified StyleGAN2-Based architecture.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the application of GANs for hair transfer is an exciting development in the field of artificial intelligence. It allows us to see how we would look with a new hairstyle before committing to the change. While there are still challenges to overcome, the results are seriously impressive, and the potential for this technology is vast. Who knows what other applications we may see using AI to "see into the future" in the future?

Highlights

• GANs can transfer your hair to see how it would look before committing to the change.
• The fear of changing hairstyles can be overcome with the help of GANs.
• GANs can learn to transfer the hairstyle and color of a specific picture onto your own picture while changing the results to follow the lighting and property of your picture to make it convincing and realistic all at once.
• The alignment step in GANs is essential to overcome the challenges of using GANs for hair transfer.
• Segmentation maps are essential in the process of hair transfer using GANs.

FAQ

Q: What is GANs? A: GANs are a type of artificial intelligence that can learn to generate new data that is similar to a given dataset.

Q: How can GANs help with changing hairstyles? A: GANs can transfer the hairstyle and color of a specific picture onto your own picture while changing the results to follow the lighting and property of your picture to make it convincing and realistic all at once.

Q: What are the challenges of using GANs for hair transfer? A: The challenges of using GANs for hair transfer include lighting differences, occlusions, or even simply the position of the head that are different in both pictures.

Q: What is the alignment step in GANs? A: The alignment step in GANs is a missing but essential step that slightly alters the encoding following a different segmentation mask to make the latent code from the two images more similar.

Q: What are segmentation maps? A: Segmentation maps tell us what the image contains and where it is, hair, skin, eyes, nose, etc. They are essential in the process of hair transfer using GANs.