Prisma Gives Your Photos the Look of Famous Paintings

Prisma is a new camera app that transforms your photos to look like paintings by famous artists. It goes beyond the film simulation filters that are widely available these days to offer a surprisingly realistic painting filter.

The app says it uses a combination of neural networks and artificial intelligence to work its magic. It appears that the algorithm behind the app was originally published back in late 2015, generating quite a bit of excitement at the time. Now the technology can be carried around with you in your pocket.

The app has a minimalist interface and is extremely easy to use. Once you load it up, you can either snap a photo with the built-in camera or select a photo from your device:

You’re then presented with a long list of icons representing the different art styles you can transform your photo into.

Tap a style and after a few moments of computation, the result is shown on the screen. You can slide your finger to the left and right to adjust the intensity of the look from 0% to 100%.

Here’s a before and after example of a photo that had the style “Gothic” applied:

Here are a few more examples from the Prisma website that show what the app is capable of:

You can get started with using Prisma by downloading the free app from the iTunes App Store. Video and Android support are both reportedly coming very soon.