Prisma App Makes Photos Into Artwork [Download]

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If you thought that the Instagram filters were impressive, the Prisma app is sure to blow your mind.

A few years ago it was quite a taxing task to edit a photo or put an overlay on it, with plenty of processing power required. These days it’s an everyday occurrence as millions of people use apps such as Instagram and Snapchat to edit and upload photos.

Artificial intelligence turns photos into artwork

It’s got to the stage where we take filters for granted, but now a new app has taken things to a different level. The Prisma app, available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, literally turns your photos into works of art using server-side and AI rendering technology.

The App Store page for Prisma describes it as an “editor for Instagram,” but in reality the app is far more than that. It isn’t just a photo editor, but a unique app that turns your photos into works of art that look like famous pieces by Isaac Levitan, Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh, among others.

The Prisma website says that the app uses a “unique combination of neural networks and artificial intelligence that helps transform memorable moments into timeless art.”

Popularity of Prisma continues to grow

Instead of applying a filter to an image like many other photo editing apps, Prisma makes for a new experience. Put your photos through the app, choose a style that you want to imitate and your otherwise boring photo of your cat will come out looking like a Mondrian masterpiece.

Prisma is the brainchild of a team of Russian developers, who have had to double their server capacity after internet users started downloading the app in droves. The more users of the app, the harder the company servers have to work to process all of the information.

This server load looks set to increase still further with the imminent arrival of an Android version of the app. Prisma will also soon add support for videos. The app requires 15mb of storage and will run on iOS 8.0 or later.

How does it work?

After you download the app you can either choose to use an existing photo or take a new one before choosing from one of 33 different filters. You can choose the intensity of the filter using a sliding scale.

During testing some commentators remarked that certain filters work better for landscapes rather than pictures of people. However this is something that users will find out for themselves as they use the app more regularly.

The app is currently available for download in 25 different countries, with 300,000 people downloading it each day in just 10 of those markets. Prisma provides further evidence of the potential for AI technology, with deep learning algorithms now threatening artists’ livelihoods.

Prisma CEO and co-founder Alexey Moiseenkov believes that the rapid growth of the app is at least partly due to its prominent social share function. You are prompted to post your new creation to Instagram as soon as it is produced.

Instagram continues to grow, doubling its monthly active users to over 500 million in the past two years. Prisma is perfectly placed to capitalize on the popularity of photo-sharing, and people are going nuts for it.

Download Prisma today and start creating your own masterpieces with the help of some very clever technology.

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