iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo • Hacker News Board

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#121

Post by johnisgood » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #29

Those of us who have been shooting large digital cameras for the past decade and are some times sad that our photos often come out unsharp in poor light compared to smartphones can at least take some joy in this “no free lunch” demonstration. If this is due to stabilization and not some background blur face detection then it’s probably not something you can (or would want to) disable. Taking a telephoto shot with a t…

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. They definitely did not ask for their face to be replaced by leaves either. Is it either unmodified, or leaves? Is not there a middle ground?

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#122

Post by formerly_proven » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #94

matsemann wrote: post #12

I hate how much phones lately alters the images. Of course it most of the time makes the images look better, and cameras are a big selling point on a phone. But I don't like how my photos of people suddenly have a filter applied to the faces, how a picture of leaves during fall have vibrance exaggerated, how the sky looks clearer than it really did.

I'm finding it increasingly hard to take photographs of unusual light in the sky, because the phone camera keeps trying to normalize it to something it's seen before (i.e. something which matches its tuning and machine learning models), whether it's auto white balance or other computational trickery.

Sony used to have that problem with their real cameras a few years ago. Earned them the nickname Stareater iirc.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#123

Post by literallyaduck » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:57 PM UTC

Remember the Rittenhouse trial and the big to do about the video being enhanced when zoomed? Digital evidence and photos are suspicious for the purpose of evidence. Not commenting on the results of the trial.

Sidebar not specific to that trial, slow motion, and slowed video shouldn't be shown to jurors because it creates the illusion of having more time to think. Everything in real life happens at one speed, you can't back it up, slow it down, or armchair qb it then decide if an action was appropriate.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#124

Post by post_break » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:57 PM UTC

vardump wrote: post #31

I wonder if this has any implications over iPhone (or cellphones in general) photos in court. This might be brought up to overturn any photo evidence from phones.

This came up big time with the Rittenhouse trial when the judge didn't want to use the pinch to zoom method on video of the event. A lot of people laughed because he talked about AI but he was on the right path, it does inject pixels to scale the image.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#125

Post by hazza_n_dazza » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:57 PM UTC

mynameisash wrote: post #38

matsemann wrote: post #12

I hate how much phones lately alters the images. Of course it most of the time makes the images look better, and cameras are a big selling point on a phone. But I don't like how my photos of people suddenly have a filter applied to the faces, how a picture of leaves during fall have vibrance exaggerated, how the sky looks clearer than it really did.

Fully agree. My wife and I went out on a date about a month ago, and during it, she took a selfie of the two of us. There must have been some filter on by default because our faces looked perfectly lit, our skin completely blemish-free, no smile lines, etc. It was a great picture, but I remarked immediately that it didn't look real. And I don't want that -- it's not us but an idealized, optimized version of us. I sim…

my kid brought home a picture of them taken at school by the school. It didn't look like her. the shiny smiley filters were not real happiness. cameras replacing happiness that is there with happiness that isnt there is quite a delusion.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#126

Post by KarlKemp » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:58 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #103

alkonaut wrote: post #29

Those of us who have been shooting large digital cameras for the past decade and are some times sad that our photos often come out unsharp in poor light compared to smartphones can at least take some joy in this “no free lunch” demonstration. If this is due to stabilization and not some background blur face detection then it’s probably not something you can (or would want to) disable. Taking a telephoto shot with a t…

Apple possibly caught a break here. It could have been worse and people would probably have accused Apple of being bigoted or something else.

Or, maybe, knowing that releasing software that turns out to deliver markedly lower quality results for people already weary from centuries of marginalization would open them up to such accusations, they didn't get lucky so much as their are enjoying the benefit of having listened to such criticism, testing their software across a set of data as diverse as their customers, instead of just that set of photos from D'Brickshaw Ferguson's and Abigail Cumberbatch's wedding.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#127

Post by johnisgood » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #69

tomasyany wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much agree. I took RAW pictures with my Nikon on a christmas party, and even took the time to properly develop and adjust them. Still, people complained on how "old and bad" their faces looked (in pretty normal pics, nothing fancy). I attribute this to the fact that everybody is now used to phones completely editing faces and smoothing skin and adding saturation, etc., which makes us more "instagramable" althoug…

Just wait until the phones are automatically giving people cartoon character eyes...

They already have been giving them a dog tongue and whatnot.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#128

Post by iszomer » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #44

tandymodel100 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a weird rationalization for an absurd case of technical ignorance. Like when people defended nuking hurricanes or using UV lights as a Covid therapy.

Fact is, you have no idea what kind of unsolicited postprocessing the camera in the Rittenhouse trial might or might not have performed, and neither did the court. It's a huge potential problem, and getting worse by the day.

Agreed as we've been living in the era of deep fakes for a while. I shudder to think how computational photography can advance to such a degree to blur the context to any unsuspecting user, whether accidental or intentional.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#129

Post by davidcollantes » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

matsemann wrote: post #12

I hate how much phones lately alters the images. Of course it most of the time makes the images look better, and cameras are a big selling point on a phone. But I don't like how my photos of people suddenly have a filter applied to the faces, how a picture of leaves during fall have vibrance exaggerated, how the sky looks clearer than it really did.

Altering photographic images has always existed. 35 years ago I developed my own films, and took artistic liberty on each photo I printed on photographic paper. I also used a sepia process, and my sister would colour the photos afterwards (we didn’t have colour film, but black and white).

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#130

Post by ShroudedNight » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 12:01 AM UTC

laumars wrote: post #45

naz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so common in consumer tech. Is there a name for it? Like how any new TV has horrible motion interpolation and sharpening enabled by default, or the bassiness of Bose/Beats headphones.

I’ve never owned Bose nor Beats specifically but more generally I find bassiness is a desirable feature rather than a gimmick for dumb consumers. With room sized speakers it’s not a problem because you’ll have multiple cones dedicated to the low end and usually some subs too. Thus it’s easy to have a rich low end without sacrificing the fidelity of the higher end. But with headphones that’s much harder to pull off. S…

If I hadn't been gifted a pair of beats earbuds, I could see myself believing similarly. The ones I was given were very nicely built, with tactile components that felt of significant quality, as though they were assembled with great care. They were also the muddiest, mushiest, and most unpleasant listening experience I've had in the last couple of decades outside of bad laptop / phone speakers or scenarios that used explicitly damaged components. When I first got them I thought that I had received a bad pair, only to find online that the sound profile was intentional.

They were awful.