Above: Microsoft's new selfie enhancement app for the iPhone.
Image Credit: Ken Yeung/VentureBeat
Microsoft has released a new photo app designed to feel better about your selfies. It’s a simple service, really: you snap or choose a photo from your iPhone’s camera roll and then process it right in the app.
Just like the editing features in Instagram, Microsoft Selfie (that’s the name of the app) is geared towards making sure that while you’re obsessed with that selfie picture, you’re going to look your absolute best in it. In fact, Microsoft has described the app as a “selfie and portrait enhancement application” where it’ll utilize an algorithm to make your photo appear like it was done by a professional.
Although it’s called Microsoft Selfie, you can use either the front-facing or the rear camera to take photos, which means that you can utilize the app’s technology to make basically any photo you have that much better.
The app takes into account factors like your age, gender, skin tone, lighting, noise, and more before making simple changes to your photo. Users have 13 different filters they can choose from to do the post-processing work, but only one can be used at any given time. Although if you want to apply more filters, you could save the file, reopen it again in the app, and edit it using another filter. Once you’re done processing an image, the file is stored on your phone.
Microsoft Selfie does not contain any connections to social networks like Instagram, Google Photos, Facebook, or Twitter, so if you’re looking to share a photo, you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.
On the surface, seeing Microsoft create a selfie “enhancement” app is just bizarre especially when it’s built for the iPhone and not for Windows Phone. Does the world really need another selfie app? However, it’s a good way to showcase the potential of the company’s machine learning, artificial intelligence, and image recognition technology, such as how it is using Project Oxford and its face APIs that debuted in April.
Another possible benefit of using this app is how it’ll could vastly improve the quality of photos taken with the front-facing camera. You probably notice that the pictures taken with the rear-facing lens are often better than the front. When you take selfies, there’s also a bunch of noise (it’s grainy), but now Microsoft’s technology can give you the same look and quality across both lenses on the device.
No word on if this will come to Android phones.
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