Acceleration Story: Colorize it

Genesis Cloud has already driven many businesses to success by fulfilling their hardware needs.

So we created a new series in our blog to inspire you to be the next one. 🤩

Acceleration Story tells the stories of small to large companies that utilized our cloud features — such as API, ML images, Volumes, and GPU instances — to take their businesses to the next level.

Each one of them illustrates how our facilities are suitable for specific applications, from basic to complex ones.

Today, you’ll learn how our GPU instances were a game changer for Colorize it. 📸

Colorize it is an app that automatically colorizes black and white images by using artificial intelligence and neural networks.

Genesis Cloud drives businesses to success by fulfilling their hardware needs ⚙️

A Successful Case is a dose of inspiration. In this series, you will get to know stories of small to large companies utilizing our cloud features — such as API, ML images, Volumes, and GPU instances — to take their businesses to the next level. Each one of them illustrates how our facilities are the right solution for specific applications, reaching from basic to complex levels.

Today you will find out how our solutions gave new colors to one of our clientsʼ applications. Colorize it: bringing your black and white photos to life 📸

Have you ever wondered what that old black and white portrait of your grandmother would look like in colors? Colors can tell a whole different story. Thatʼs the purpose of the Colorize it app: give black and white images a new life by automatically colorizing them using artificial intelligence and neural networks.

Colorized deer

All you need is an internet connection to edit any photo, from totally black and white or sepia until the ones with only a few decolorized areas. First, select an image from your gallery or capture one using the app.

Colorize it will send the archive to a server that runs the whole process. In a few seconds, youʼll get a completely colorized picture. Whenever the application needs to make any changes, it uses Genesis Cloudʼs GPU instance as a server and connects it via SSH in a terminal. Furthermore, the app has an image configured in its instance that is ready to migrate the work to another instance in emergency cases.

The founder of the company told us all about it:

Whoʼs behind the app?

Iʼm José, a computer scientist, specialized in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Iʼm currently working at the Universitat Politècnica de València (Polytechnic University of Valencia), developing cutting-edge software based on machine learning. As a researcher, I realized that thereʼs a lot of advanced technology developed in this field that is unreachable for regular users. Thatʼs how I came up with the idea creating reAImagine, a brand that brings these kinds of techniques to everyone in the most accessible way - through their phones. So here we are, with three apps already published, the second of which is *Colorize it*. This was my first big commercial idea, as the first reAImagine app is more research-oriented.

The computer scientist behind colorize: José

Making Colorize it come true

I am fascinated about automatic image colorization, because if a machine can bring semantically correct color to an image, it means that it understands what is in that photo. Moreover, being able to see in color photographs taken long ago keeps them alive and brings them closer to us.

The developing process was hard because I’m on my own: I donʼt have resources to invest much money on my idea or a team to help me. I’m not a graphic designer, and my computational power is quite limited — which is an issue in this field. However, I managed to design the app, develop the backend that makes the colorizations, connect them, and luckily find Genesis Cloud hosting the backend and providing the power.

The search for a GPU that suits the application needs

I had *Colorize it* mostly ready to go out, and the last step was to find a host to provide power to it. I thought that my requirements were quite affordable — I needed a GPU with enough memory that would be available when I sent a request, and turn off once the result was ready. My surprise was to find out that this service doesnʼt exist. This means that if you hire a GPU, you do it full time, whether you use it or not.

Searching for this service, I found Genesis Cloud, and I sent them an email — like I did with many other sites. The main difference compared to other providers was the people working for Genesis Cloud. Julian was the one that received the message in which I described what I had done and what I needed. He explained that the company didnʼt offer this service, but that it was an exciting case of use, so he asked me for more details about my project. He was interested in it and, as I couldnʼt afford a full-time machine, he finally offered me an arrangement.

Why Genesis Cloud: itʼs not just about machines

I chose Genesis Cloud because of the price and the people behind the service. For the people, not only because they cared about my situation and were interested in my project, but also because they allow clients to post anything on their “Feedback” section and even ask for new features - I think this is fantastic! And for the price, because they are really competitive. I had a special offer due to my situation, but even the regular prices are way better than those of other service providers. Besides that, it was not something decisive to me, but it is great knowing that they run their systems 100% on renewable energies.

The next challenge

Acquiring new users is the next enemy to defeat. I have absolutely no experience in marketing, so I’m a bit ashamed to recognize that *Colorize it* took its first steps a little bit on its own. Currently, I focus mainly on providing the best product that I can, so users notice that. However, as everything is growing slowly but steadily, I have already created Instagram and Twitter accounts to keep people aware of any updates and promote our products. A web page is also being designed.

What the future holds

“Busy” is the word that describes our roadmap for the future. *Colorize it* is our most successful project by now, and I have two significant improvements in mind of which I think will make a real difference. Briefly, I want to allow the user to correct the color of the elements of the photo. I also want to improve the overall performance of the colorizer on human portraits. So Iʼll make these updates available as soon as possible.

Apart from that, Iʼm also preparing some significant updates for Enhance It, our most recent project, and I also have in mind three ideas for three new apps.

Accomplishing goals for the next year with Genesis Cloudʼs support

If everything goes as planned, I hope one year from now reAImagine has grown quite a bit. I would like to have about five machine learning-based apps out there. The website is finished, and a small team would be excellent too. Hopefully, if this keeps growing, I would love to continue working with Genesis Cloud with more GPU instances, as I will need them.

Right now, I intend to keep working hard so that I can accomplish all these great goals.

Colorize it is one of many Genesis Cloudʼs Acceleration Stories. You think your solution also belongs to this category? give us a shout. 📧