Monday, March 28, 2011

How Does the Mona Lisa Look Without Mona Lisa?

Recognize this 77 x 54-centimeter oil on canvas painting? Believe it or not, it's perhaps the best-known Leonardo da Vinci painting this side of The Last Supper.

Yes, it's the Mona Lisa without Mona Lisa, as interpreted by Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Artist Mike Ruiz got a high resolution photograph of Leonardo's art, scanned it in Photoshop, selected the smily girl, and used content-aware fill in Photoshop CS5, a tool that borders in witchcraft—so much that it may make sandwiches for you (almost).
Adobe's tool interpreted the surroundings and generated the complete background in place of the mysterious woman, who apparently was Jesus or his daughter or his third cousin or whatever. One of those. After clicking the OK button, Ruiz sent the result to China, where artists used the image to actually create the oil painting in the same style as da Vinci himself.