GAN inversion aims to invert a given image back into the latent space of a
pretrained GAN model, for the image to be faithfully reconstructed from the
inverted code by the generator. As an emerging technique to bridge the real and
fake image domains, GAN inversion plays an essential role in enabling the
pretrained GAN models such as StyleGAN and BigGAN to be used for real image
editing applications. Meanwhile, GAN inversion also provides insights on the
interpretation of GAN's latent space and how the realistic images can be
generated. In this paper, we provide an overview of GAN inversion with a focus
on its recent algorithms and applications. We cover important techniques of GAN
inversion and their applications to image restoration and image manipulation.
We further elaborate on some trends and challenges for future directions