Latest news with #AlexKachkine
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Put the paintbrush down – AI can restore artworks quicker and better
Artificial intelligence (AI) could spell the end of art restoration by humans after MIT showed that damaged paintings can be repaired in just a few hours. Typically, conservators spend months or years researching and matching paints, colours and techniques to ensure the finished product is as close to the original as possible. But Alex Kachkine, an engineering graduate at MIT, has shown it is possible to use AI to fill in the damaged areas digitally, then print the restored layers onto a thin film to attach on top of the painting. It means the painting appears restored even though the original is still intact beneath. The method was applied to a highly damaged 15th-century oil painting, and AI immediately identified 5,612 separate regions in need of repair, and filled in these regions using 57,314 different colours. The entire process, from start to finish, took just three and a half hours. 'There is a lot of damaged art in storage that might never be seen,' said Mr Kachkine. 'Hopefully with this new method, there's a chance we'll see more art, which I would be delighted by.' In recent years, digital restoration tools have allowed conservators to create virtual representations of restored works. AI algorithms can quickly sift through huge amounts of data about artists and time periods to generate a digitally restored version of a particular painting, in a way that closely resembles the correct style. However, digital restorations are usually displayed virtually or printed as stand-alone works and until now there has never been a way to translate the digital restorations on to the original work. The new technique involves first scanning the painting and then using software to create maps of the areas that require repair, before matching the correct colours. The maps are then inkjet printed onto two sheets of a film. One film, which sits underneath, is printed in white so that the colours overlaid on the second sheet are not muddied by the colours of the original painting. The layers are carefully aligned and overlaid by hand onto the original painting and adhered with a thin spray of varnish. The printed films are made from materials that can be easily dissolved with conservation-grade solutions, in case conservators need to reveal the original, damaged work. The digital file of the mask can also be saved as a detailed record of what was restored. For the painting that Mr Kachkine used, the method was able to fill in thousands of losses in just a few hours. 'A few years ago, I was restoring this baroque Italian painting with probably the same order magnitude of losses, and it took me nine months of part-time work,' he said. 'The more losses there are, the better this method is.' The new technique may even help restore botched restorations such as Elias Garcia Martinez's Ecce Homo, which was restored so badly it was dubbed Monkey Christ, because of the Simian features of Jesus. Mr Kachkine acknowledges that there were ethical issues to consider, in terms of whether a restored version was an appropriate representation of an artist's original style and intent. He said the process should be carried out in consultation with conservators with knowledge of a painting's history and origins to check the AI programme was not going off-piste. 'Restoring a painting is fun, and it's great to sit down and infill things and have a nice evening,' he added 'But that's a very slow process.' The research was published in Nature. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Science
- Telegraph
Put the paintbrush down – AI can restore artworks quicker and better
Artificial intelligence (AI) could spell the end of art restoration by humans after MIT showed that damaged paintings can be repaired in just a few hours. Typically, conservators spend months or years researching and matching paints, colours and techniques to ensure the finished product is as close to the original as possible. But Alex Kachkine, an engineering graduate at MIT, has shown it is possible to use AI to fill in the damaged areas digitally, then print the restored layers onto a thin film to attach on top of the painting. It means the painting appears restored even though the original is still intact beneath. The method was applied to a highly damaged 15th-century oil painting, and AI immediately identified 5,612 separate regions in need of repair, and filled in these regions using 57,314 different colours. The entire process, from start to finish, took just three and a half hours. 'There is a lot of damaged art in storage that might never be seen,' said Mr Kachkine. 'Hopefully with this new method, there's a chance we'll see more art, which I would be delighted by.' In recent years, digital restoration tools have allowed conservators to create virtual representations of restored works. AI algorithms can quickly sift through huge amounts of data about artists and time periods to generate a digitally restored version of a particular painting, in a way that closely resembles the correct style. However, digital restorations are usually displayed virtually or printed as stand-alone works and until now there has never been a way to translate the digital restorations on to the original work. The new technique involves first scanning the painting and then using software to create maps of the areas that require repair, before matching the correct colours. The maps are then inkjet printed onto two sheets of a film. One film, which sits underneath, is printed in white so that the colours overlaid on the second sheet are not muddied by the colours of the original painting. The layers are carefully aligned and overlaid by hand onto the original painting and adhered with a thin spray of varnish. The printed films are made from materials that can be easily dissolved with conservation-grade solutions, in case conservators need to reveal the original, damaged work. The digital file of the mask can also be saved as a detailed record of what was restored. For the painting that Mr Kachkine used, the method was able to fill in thousands of losses in just a few hours. 'A few years ago, I was restoring this baroque Italian painting with probably the same order magnitude of losses, and it took me nine months of part-time work,' he said. 'The more losses there are, the better this method is.' The new technique may even help restore botched restorations such as Elias Garcia Martinez's Ecce Homo, which was restored so badly it was dubbed Monkey Christ, because of the Simian features of Jesus. Mr Kachkine acknowledges that there were ethical issues to consider, in terms of whether a restored version was an appropriate representation of an artist's original style and intent. He said the process should be carried out in consultation with conservators with knowledge of a painting's history and origins to check the AI programme was not going off-piste. 'Restoring a painting is fun, and it's great to sit down and infill things and have a nice evening,' he added 'But that's a very slow process.'
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Science
- The Guardian
Researchers create AI-based tool that restores age-damaged artworks in hours
The centuries can leave their mark on oil paintings as wear and tear and natural ageing produce cracks, discoloration and patches where pieces of pigment have flaked off. Repairing the damage can take conservators years, so the effort is reserved for the most valuable works, but a fresh approach promises to transform the process by restoring aged artworks in hours. The technique draws on artificial intelligence and other computer tools to create a digital reconstruction of the damaged painting. This is then printed on to a transparent polymer sheet that is carefully laid over the work. To demonstrate the technique, Alex Kachkine, a graduate researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, restored a damaged oil-on-panel work attributed to the Master of the Prado Adoration, a Dutch painter whose name has been lost, as a late 15th-century painting after Martin Schongauer. The painting is extremely detailed but visibly split into four panels, covered in fine cracks and dotted with thousands of tiny patches where paint has fallen off. 'A lot of the damage is to small, intricate features,' said Kachkine, who estimated it would have taken about 200 hours to restore the painting with traditional conservation techniques. 'It has undergone centuries of degradation.' Kachkine started with a scan of the painting to determine the size, shape and position of the damaged areas. This identified 5,612 separate sections that needed repair. A digital mask was then constructed in Adobe Photoshop. To restore missing specks of paint, spots were added and colour-matched to surrounding pigments. Damage to patterned areas was corrected by copying similar patterns from elsewhere in the painting. The missing face of an infant was copied from another work by the same artist. Once finished, the mask was printed on to a polymer sheet, varnished to prevent the ink from running and overlaid on the painting. In all, 57,314 colours were used to infill damaged areas. The corrections are designed to improve the painting, even if they are not perfectly aligned. On seeing the result, Kachkine was delighted. 'It followed years of effort to try to get the method working,' he said. 'There was a fair bit of relief that finally this method was able to reconstruct and stitch together the surviving parts of the painting.' The approach, described in Nature, can only be used on varnished paintings that are smooth enough for the sheet to lie flat on. The mask can be peeled off or removed using conservators' solvents, leaving no traces on the original artwork. Kachkine hopes the method will allow galleries to restore and display scores of damaged paintings that are not deemed valuable enough to warrant traditional restoration. But he acknowledges there are ethical issues to consider, such as whether having a film covering a painting is acceptable, whether it hampers the viewing experience, and whether particular corrections, such as copied features, are appropriate. In an accompanying article, Prof Hartmut Kutzke at the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History, said the approach provided a way to restore damaged paintings faster and more cheaply than was possible with conventional techniques. 'The method is likely to be most applicable to paintings of relatively low value that would otherwise be housed behind closed doors, and might not be suitable for famous, valuable artworks,' he said. 'However, it could widen public access to art, bringing damaged paintings out of storage and in front of a new audience.'
