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

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

#331

Post by nimbleal »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #291
laurent92 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's impossible to just 'enhance' an image to make a license plate readable. Well, a phone can reconstruct this license plate, and in fact any license plate in lieu of this one! And invent a new one! Which is worrisome for justice. Presenting proof, that was uploaded to servers, horodated and geostamped, won’t be enough in a court of law. Anyone can answer: “What if the iPhone recreated and inferred the presence of…

> This face, is it real? The distance, is it repositionned? Deepfakes, robocalls and Caller ID and voice impersonation, automatic ML in photos, if this train keeps going, we won't know what's real at all. I am struggling to see how we will function.

> we won't know what's real at all. I am struggling to see how we will function

That's where we started, in a way. Perhaps our short time of feeling we had a grip on reality will just have been a passing phase, before returning to normality.

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

#332

Post by max48 »

dagmx wrote: post #269
Cerium wrote: post #9

"Cameras" making changes to the image like this make the discussion about the image processing pipeline during the Rittenhouse trial seem a little less bizarre.

Any technically savvy person should be able to differentiate different types of upscaling algorithms. The judge was arguing about enlarging an already recorded video, not about the merits of the original recording. This post is about image processing during the capture process. Conflating them is disingenuous, unless we're taking very large leaps of logic

>Any technically savvy person should be able to differentiate different types of upscaling algorithms.

Even the company who makes the software couldn't explain what was done to the picture when their "expert" was asked during the trial. There is a wide range of different methods that can be used to get more details out of a blurry pictures, including ML/AI-based algorithms that are indirectly getting extra details from other pictures.

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

#335

Post by tsimionescu »

radlad wrote: post #285
Gigachad wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never has been accurate. Even on dumb traditional cameras, colors are more of an interpretation than a reality.

I don't know about this - RAW files are recordings of sensor values. Those sensor values are accurate of what light the sensor measured. Then the sensor values are converted to a JPEG. So it's still an accurate rendition of the light - even though yes, it is a rendition of the light. But to completely replace some sensor values with some computer-generated values is a different ballgame, IMO. It's more akin to Photos…

The least that modern phone cameras do is to blend multiple RAW files into a single picture, to improve various metrics. That brings the risk of producing results like the one seen here.

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

#336

Post by dagmx »

max48 wrote: post #332
dagmx wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any technically savvy person should be able to differentiate different types of upscaling algorithms. The judge was arguing about enlarging an already recorded video, not about the merits of the original recording. This post is about image processing during the capture process. Conflating them is disingenuous, unless we're taking very large leaps of logic

>Any technically savvy person should be able to differentiate different types of upscaling algorithms. Even the company who makes the software couldn't explain what was done to the picture when their "expert" was asked during the trial. There is a wide range of different methods that can be used to get more details out of a blurry pictures, including ML/AI-based algorithms that are indirectly getting extra details fr…

The device in question was an iPad, the company that made the software (Apple) was not involved, the "expert" was a third party explaining the standard enlargement methods.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/12/22778801/kyle-rittenhous...

If the judge mistrusted the enlargement method, he should have ordered them to display it on another device or software.

Real-time video upscaling is very standard filtering that's not introducing extra hallucinated details. At most, some TVs use ML to tune their sharpening and color rendition, but it can always be disabled. The iPad has never been shown or proven to use those for video playback, and even if it did, the courts should have a standard video player to present details with standard filtering.

The judges non-technical stance on things, isn't borne out of reality and again, any capture time post processing should be completely independently viewed from playback time processing.

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

#337

Post by tsimionescu »

max48 wrote: post #329
Gigachad wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No free lunch, but an incredibly good value lunch. The quality that comes out of phone cameras is remarkable. And the times it messes up are so rare that it becomes a talking point worthy of hundreds of comments.

>The quality that comes out of phone cameras is remarkable It's more than that, it's completely mind blowing when you compare it to a DSLR. In "good" lightning condition, your iphone will give you a picture 75% as good as what you could get with a 4k$ fullframe DSLR kit that's 10" long and weight a few pounds. the problem is when light is not perfect, that's when the bigger lens/sensor are worth it even for a beginne…

> the problem is when light is not perfect, that's when the bigger lens/sensor are worth it even for a beginner that doesn't know much about photography.

I think the opposite is true, from my (amateur) experience. It's much harder to get a good photo in poor light with a dedicated camera if you don't know what you're doing than it is to get a good photo with a smartphone.

In good light, the better sensors shine through, but in poor light (e.g. and overcast day, not talking about some limit of darkness condition) the superior processing and auto-adjustment of a top-end phone will make for much better photos. Again, talking exclusively about amateur photography, not what a master can do.

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

#338

Post by dagmx »

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.

Except, specifically to the Rittenhouse trial, it was about playback processing NOT capture time processing.

Capture time processing is also verifiable with regards to what stack a particular device uses with the use of metadata, and as such has little in the way of extra problems over other potential doctored evidence which have been possible for years without smart phone devices.

Do we question what color film would portray an image for example? Is a particular lensing affecting the truth of an image? A specific crop? There's no such thing as a perfectly true photo or video.

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

#339

Post by nucleardog »

perardi wrote: post #168
KarlKemp wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note that recent iPhones contain the same M1 chip as last year's MacBooks. They are not limited by processing power. DSLR and mirrorless cameras have better optical properties. But they are held back by starting too late and being much worse when it comes to software. These cameras also are limited by their CPUs, which are a decade behind, and by their batteries, which are much smaller but expected…

I had to check that, as these big chunky camera batteries “feel” like they should have a lot of mAH compared to a phone. And I am wrong. Depending on the phone. A Nikon battery: 2280 mAh. An iPhone 13: anywhere from 2406–4352 mAH. Yeah, that’s a way smaller power budget than a Pro iPhone, especially as you have autofocus and image stabilization systems that have to move around a lot more mass.

Keep in mind that my Nikon really only consumes power when it's _doing_ something. I can leave my camera "on" for months at a time and come back to a fully charged battery.

The screen is off except when I'm previewing a photo. The viewfinder is physical. The metering is only on for 10-20 seconds after I wake the camera by touching the shutter release and is only displaying on a low power monochromatic LCD. Autofocus only happens while I'm holding the shutter release until it finds focus then locks.

Meanwhile the iPhone battery is powering what is, effectively, an entire laptop with a 5+" screen and cellular, wifi and bluetooth radios.

Articles I can find are quoting an iPhone taking a few hundred shots on a charge. Nikon's testing puts my camera able to take a few _thousand_ per charge. There's literally an order of magnitude difference from my Nikon's 1400mAh battery to a iPhone's 2500-4500mAh battery. Two to three times the capacity for 1/10 the pictures.

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

#340

Post by dagmx »

tagoregrtst wrote: post #246
wmf wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If linear interpolated zoom isn't allowed... Think about analog/optical/chemical photography. In the old days did juries look at camera negatives with a loupe? Of course not, they looked at enlargements. What "algorithm" does an optical enlarger use?

Continuously linear implemented with an analog device vs digital “linear” (ie, watch your floats! Take care of quanization error! Have you kept the colors separated according to the Beyer pattern?). No one has a problem with a mathematically perfect linear transformation, and film enlargers come very close to that ideal (yes they distort, but in a very obvious way and by degrading detail not adding detail that isn't…

Film development is actually quite a bit more subjective. There's a much larger variance in film type, and the chemical process.

Perhaps it's harder to doctor, but it's also not necessarily truer either.

With regards to sensor size and detail recorded...well that depends. Are you assuming 35mm sensors? Because people shot 8mm and 16mm too back in the day. That's not far off from smaller sensors today. Are we also accounting for film sensitivity? Because digital sensors have far eclipsed the sensitivity range of most common film types now, so would be more likely to resolve image data.

It's not so cut and dry.

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