Apple isn’t one of the top players in the AI game today, but the company’s new open-source AI model for image editing shows just how much it can contribute to the field. It is a model called MLLM Guided Image Editing (MGIE), which uses multimodal large language models (MLLMs) to interpret text-based commands when processing images. In other words, the tool has the ability to edit photos based on the text the user writes.
Apple developed MGIE technology with researchers from the university
The company developed MGIE with researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara. MLLMs have the power to transform simple or vague text prompts into more detailed and clear instructions that the photo editor can follow. For example, if a user wants to edit a photo of pepperoni pizza to make it healthier, MLLMs can interpret this as add veggie toppings and edit the photo that way.
In addition to making major changes to images, MGIE can crop, resize and rotate photos via text prompts, as well as improve their brightness, contrast and color balance. It can also edit certain areas of a photo and, for example, change the hair, eyes and clothing of a person in the photo or remove elements from the background.