We propose a novel learning approach, in the form of a fully-convolutional neural network (CNN), which automatically and consistently removes specular highlights from a single image by generating its diffuse component. To train the generative network, we define an adversarial loss on a discriminative network as in the GAN framework and combined it with a content loss. In contrast to existing GAN approaches, we implemented the discriminator to be a multi-class classifier instead of a binary one, to find more constraining features. This helps the network pinpoint the diffuse manifold by providing two more gradient terms. We also rendered a synthetic dataset designed to help the network generalize well. We show that our model performs well across various synthetic and real images and outperforms the state-of-the-art in consistency.
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