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Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

diyphotography.net

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Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#181

Post by spuz »

acdha wrote: post #168
IAmGraydon wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She put the photo up for sale on a stock photo site and Samsung apparently bought it and used it. Where are you seeing her state otherwise?

The article says nothing about being paid but does say this at the end: “Since I’d made my first sale on EyeEm and saw the image on Samsung Malaysia’s website right after that, I didn’t even assume that they’d stolen the image. I mean, why would they? It’s not expensive for a huge company like that to buy one stock photo. Although, to be honest, I think that they should have paid more for a better retoucher. But just…

Your quotes from the article don't support your original claim that she claimed that Samsung did not pay her for her photo. Just the opposite. I think you are reading the text incorrectly. To paraphrase what I think she is saying: "My photo was bought on EyeEm via Getty Images. I don't know who bought my photo from Getty Images but it was probably Samsung".

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#182

Post by cududa »

reaperducer wrote: post #109
conradev wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a commercial for McDonald’s, except instead of using real food, they use fake stuff that looks better.

It's surprising how much of McDonald's advertising is regional, by the franchise holders, and not from corporate. In some markets, ads for the breakfast sandwiches are deliberately made to look "messy" with splattered egg and crumbs from the muffin all around so that they look more rustic and authentic.

It’s regional but absolutely under no circumstances are franchise holders allowed to advertise in this way. They’re restricted to issuing coupons in middle school fundraisers and buying billboards at little league baseball fields

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#183

Post by cududa »

spuz wrote: post #174
runjake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are being down-voted because, despite the tiny disclaimer, the main content of the page heavily suggests that the images are from the phone camera. This is scummy.

I understand that the disclaimer would be missed be most people but I don't see the background blur photo as communicating "this is what our camera can do". To me it says "Our camera can do background blur and this is an example of a photo with and without background blur". Maybe it's too subtle a difference and in that case, it's fair enough that Samsung would get flack for poor communication.

I’m tally certain no one else on this site would find that disengenuosness prrmicible. Chime in with a comment if you disagree

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#184

Post by spuz »

baroffoos wrote: post #176
IAmGraydon wrote: post #100

Who cares? They disclose the fact that the photo wasn’t taken with the phone right on the page. It’s for illustrative purposes, not to show the exact quality of the phone’s functions. The author of this blog also just outed a paying client. If they paid, they can use it however they like (within the terms of the licensing agreement). This is a great way for the author to ensure they never sell another photo to a larg…

What point is there in using the photo if not to trick viewers in to thinking its a photo from the phone. What exactly is it illustrating? Its deceptive and wrong. I have no trust for a company that tries to trick its users like this.

The point is illustration of a photographic technique. If you simply say "The camera has a background blur feature" that doesn't mean much to most ordinary consumers or help them understand why they might want that feature. If you say "Here is a photo with background blur" and "Here is a photo without background blur" they can instantly understand its value. The fact that they deliberately modified the photo to remove background blur should tell you there is a message they are trying to communicate here beyond "here is what our camera can do".

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#185

Post by dmix »

megy wrote: post #161
gnopgnip wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These ads are made months before the product is released, and often the team making the ad does not have physical access to the product. Even if they could get access it is standard to use stock photography to keep cost down and get the ads turned around quickly. For the same reason restaurants use stock photography instead of taking their food to a studio or any other type of marketing

I like the idea that it takes longer to make the ad than to make the actual device, so they need to fake it.

Marketing teams working on different timelines than the production/manufacturing divisions doesn't necessarily mean one takes longer than the other...

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#186

Post by ghostly_s »

reaperducer wrote: post #109
conradev wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a commercial for McDonald’s, except instead of using real food, they use fake stuff that looks better.

It's surprising how much of McDonald's advertising is regional, by the franchise holders, and not from corporate. In some markets, ads for the breakfast sandwiches are deliberately made to look "messy" with splattered egg and crumbs from the muffin all around so that they look more rustic and authentic.

Source? I would be highly surprised if franchisees are allowed to produce any marketing assets independently. The brand is the most valuable asset McD Corporate has. It's much more likely they have a catalog of assets/campaigns that franchisees can choose from depending on their market. (Similarly to how they allow franchisees a certain amount of leeway in what menu items they feature, but they can't just make up their own sandwiches.)

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#187

Post by DenisM »

mattnewton wrote: post #56
josho wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poor schlep did what his manager told him to do. The manager used the schlep because he wasn’t given budget to do it right. So, don’t excuse the behaviour the organization enabled it.

Can confirm at least that it can be done better than this. I used to work at Apple and you better believe they cared about details like this all the way up the chain. Every photo we used had to come from a marketing-blessed source, all modifications were auditable in source control, and the end result was blessed again by marketing.

Despite that Apple shipped a watch face in iOS 6 that was ripped from Mondaine:

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-accused-of-ripping-off-famou...

This crap can happen to anyone, it's how they handle it what matters most. Apple apologized (and paid for it).

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#188

Post by ljp_206 »

These sorts of 'illustrative only' graphics get pumped out every day in marketing design, even for large brand names. As a young junior designer, I once had a creative director ask me to use a Samsung phone asset to illustrate how 'Bixby Vision' or whatever it was called worked. He wanted an Asian language text in the background on a menu with the phone in the front, showing translated text. I attempted to comply with his request for a little while before pushing back gently; I was a greenhorn in the industry and didn't have a great relationship with the CD anyway.

Thankfully nothing came of it and we moved forward with another concept. But I was appalled at the time that he would have wanted me to grab seemingly anything off of Google Translate and create a graphic representing how the phone would supposedly work, all of which I was extremely uncomfortable doing. But I suppose he saw it as an extension of our other usage of stock imagery and device assets.

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#189

Post by braythwayt »

conradev wrote: post #77
reaperducer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view this as more of an example of a company's marketing showing their product in the best possible light. But it doesn't show their product in the best possible light. It shows some DSLR company's product in the best possible light. It's like a magazine ad for a Kia, and inside the car photo the dashboard has been replaced with a Tesla's.

Or a commercial for McDonald’s, except instead of using real food, they use fake stuff that looks better.

In Canada, they are required by law to only show their actual food. That still leaves them a lot of leeway to show it in the best possible light. For example, they cook an entire tray of burger patties and pick the best one or two for the shoot.

They explain the process in a video, it went viral:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSd0keSj2W8

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#190

Post by acdha »

spuz wrote: post #181
acdha wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says nothing about being paid but does say this at the end: “Since I’d made my first sale on EyeEm and saw the image on Samsung Malaysia’s website right after that, I didn’t even assume that they’d stolen the image. I mean, why would they? It’s not expensive for a huge company like that to buy one stock photo. Although, to be honest, I think that they should have paid more for a better retoucher. But just…

Your quotes from the article don't support your original claim that she claimed that Samsung did not pay her for her photo. Just the opposite. I think you are reading the text incorrectly. To paraphrase what I think she is saying: "My photo was bought on EyeEm via Getty Images. I don't know who bought my photo from Getty Images but it was probably Samsung".

That’s why I was asking whether there was a subsequent confirmation. It’s definitely possible that they bought it but it’s easy to find photographers who’ve been ripped off by companies which are big enough to know better and given that the main story is an ethical lapse, a second one is hard to rule out.
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