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A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

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Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#341

Post by octacat »

Toutouxc wrote: post #156
drtgh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"interpretation of that moment" from a camera it is not a photograph, it's a fake image kidnapping the word "photograph".

A photograph is always an interpretation. A photograph from, say, a modern $2000 big boy camera: Does not capture the color of every pixel, and merely infers it from the surrounding ones. Is usually viewed on a sRGB screen with shitty contrast and a dynamic range significantly smaller than the one of the camera, which is significantly smaller than the one of human eyes, which is still significantly smaller than what…

good enough. decompiling photography make all the magic go away.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#342

Post by TeMPOraL »

actionfromafar wrote: post #302
fsloth wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, computational photography is actually closer to Terry Pratchet’s Discworld version of a camera - a box with an imp who paints the picture. Artistic interpretation of a scene is often very nice. But we would really need to be able to discern cameras that give you the pixels from the ccd from the irreversible kind. In the worst case scenario it’s back to photographic film if you want to be sure no-one is molestin…

I kinda like that scenario!

I don't, because the set sum of population of people who will buy selfie cameras if marketed heavily, and artistic photographers, is orders of magnitude larger than people who proactively know an image recorder could come in handy. And, as tech is one of the prime examples, if the sector can identify and separate out a specific niche, it can... tell it to go fuck itself, and optimize it away so the mass-market product is more shiny and more profitable.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#343

Post by dahart »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #229
dahart wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don’t falsify events […] Cameras that outright lie […] AI generated monstrosity of what apple thinks Oh the irony of framing things (pun intended) so hyperbolically. Somehow it never seems to dawn on people that like to throw around the word ‘lie’ that they’re doing exactly what they’re complaining about, except intentionally, which seems way worse. Nobody sat down to say bwahahah let’s make the iphone create fake…

> Photographs are not and never have been anything but an unrepresentative slice of a likeness of a moment in time, This is a complete absurdity Photos are used daily to find suspects of crimes to convict people to prison to establish the level of devastation in a war To find launch site for rocket attacks To make scientific measurements of distance,size, etc. in architecture and war By scientists to determine positi…

It seems like you completely misunderstood what I said and decided to take it out of context and throw in a jab on top because none of that contradicts my point. What kind of guy does that make you? ;) You are failing to account for how many photos have been used to implicate someone of a crime they did not commit, how many photos have been used to exaggerate or mislead the effects of war (a couple of the most famous photos in all of history were staged war photos), and how many photos suggested measurements and scientific outcomes that turned out to be wrong. Scientists, unlike the general public, are generally aware of all the distortions in time, space, color, etc., and they still misinterpret the results all the time.

The context here is what the parent was talking about, about the meaning and truth in casual photography, and your comment has made incorrect assumptions and ignored that context. I wasn’t referring at all to the physical process, I was referring to the interpretation of a photo, because that’s what the parent comment was referring to. Interpretation is not contained in the photo, it’s a process of making assumptions about the image, just like the assumptions you made. Sometimes those assumptions are wrong, even when the photo is nothing more than captured photons.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#344

Post by TeMPOraL »

jorvi wrote: post #309
fsloth wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, computational photography is actually closer to Terry Pratchet’s Discworld version of a camera - a box with an imp who paints the picture. Artistic interpretation of a scene is often very nice. But we would really need to be able to discern cameras that give you the pixels from the ccd from the irreversible kind. In the worst case scenario it’s back to photographic film if you want to be sure no-one is molestin…

> Yeah, computational photography is actually closer to Terry Pratchet’s Discworld version of a camera - a box with an imp who paints the picture. I mean… you’ve pretty much described our brain. Your blue isn’t my blue. People need to stop clutching pearls. For the scenario it is used in, computational photography is nothing short of magic. > In the worst case scenario it’s back to photographic film if you want to be…

> Your blue isn’t my blue.

Of course it is, in practical sense ("qualia" don't matter in any way). If it isn't, it means you're suffering from one of a finite number of visual system disorders, which we've already identified and figured out ways to deal with (that may include e.g. preventing you from operating some machinery, or taking some jobs, in the interest of everyone's safety).

Yes, our brains do a lot of post-processing and "computational photography". But it's well understood - if not formally, then culturally. The brain mostly does heuristics, optimizing for speed at the cost of accuracy, but it still gives mostly accurate results, and we know where corner cases happen, and how to deal with them. We do - because otherwise, we wouldn't be able to communicate and cooperate with each other.

Most importantly, our brains are calibrated for inputs highly correlated with reality. Put the imp-in-a-box in between, and you're just screwing with our perception of reality.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#345

Post by dylan604 »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #181
dylan604 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think that all lawyers are dumb, and unable to defend against photographic evidence. If you think a lawyer would not be able to find a witness that fully understands how the modern mobile device camera systems alter images, you're just not being honest with yourself. The Apple propaganda videos tout the fact their cameras are doing something with "AI" even if they don't tell you exactly what. To assume th…

No, I do not think that all lawyers are dumb. What a bizarre thing to say. Why derail an interesting conversation in such an aggressive way?

I guess we have different definitions of aggressive, but okay, wasn't meant to be aggressive. Your comment about "so obvious" seems a bit obtuse to me and is where the conversation went off the rails. Why are you even questioning how obvious this is one a source image as the one from the TFA? Just based on that, I rejected your premise of this conversation as not being very conducive to anything approaching realistic.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#346

Post by TeMPOraL »

kaba0 wrote: post #271
TeMPOraL wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No photographer thinks images the they get on film are perfect reflections of reality. The lens itself introduces flaws/changes as does film and developing. Don't fall into this trap. A lens and computational photography are not alike . One is a static filter, doing simple(ish) transformation of incoming light. The other is arbitrary computation operating in semantic space , halfway between photography and generati…

> because each pixel is still correlated with reality, just modulo a simple, reversible transformation It’s absolutely not reversible. Information gets lost all the time with physical systems as well. Also, probably something like the creation of the image of the black hole is closer to computational photography than “AI”, and it seems a bit like yours is a populist argument against it.

> Also, probably something like the creation of the image of the black hole is closer to computational photography than “AI”, and it seems a bit like yours is a populist argument against it.

I do have reservations about that image, and don't consider it a photograph, because it took lots of crazy math to assemble it from a weak signal, and as anyone in software who ever wrote simulations should know, it's very hard to notice subtle mistakes when they give you results you expected.

However, this was a high-profile case with a lot of much smarter and more experienced people than me looking into it, so I expect they'd raise some flags if the math wasn't solid.

(What I consider precedent to highly opaque computational photography is MRI - the art and craft of producing highly-detailed brain images from magnetic field measurements and a fuck ton of obscure maths. This works, but no one calls MRI scans "photos".)

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#347

Post by cubefox »

londons_explore wrote: post #273
Frummy wrote: post #203

I was in a butterfly house, and closeup photos removed the legs of the butterflies to keep only the wings lol. e: image link https://ibb.co/nwbw5xY

That will be the denoising. Legs are thin and can easily be interpreted as noise - especially when using digital zoom and dim light so there are very few pixels and each pixel is very noisy.

Denoising is often great, but sometimes it really destroys details. It is basically impossible to capture a snowy day (or heavy rain) with a digital camera. The denoiser will remove 90% of the snowflakes. Analog cameras, by contrast, remove nothing.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#348

Post by dylan604 »

Dah00n wrote: post #264
dylan604 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think like most things on HN, people are confusing the people here are a much smaller percentage of the population and the majority of the world does not think like HN. Most people don't care one little bit about what the camera does. They only care that it shows them a picture that looks like what they saw. Does it hold up to further scrutiny? Maybe not, but these are also not the people that will be scrutinizing…

>They only care that it shows them a picture that looks like what they saw Here it most definitely does not look like what they saw.

Maybe, but how many "your moms" would even actually notice this on their own?

As far as computational imaging goes, I've seen way way way worse and much more offensive. Samsung's total replacement of the moon comes to mind as being much more offensive. This one just makes me laugh as a developer at the realization of what happened as being such a strange edge case. Other than that, I've seen similar results from intentional creative ideas, so it's not offensive at all to me.

It's just another example of we can not believe anything we hear, and only half (maybe less) of what we see.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#350

Post by dfxm12 »

nickelpro wrote: post #300
doctoboggan wrote: post #103

I don't think this is true, Apple hasn't openly said they do this level of manipulation (although that doesn't mean they don't necessarily), and I don't think the range of motions she would have to go through would be possible within a single capture. Even with "Live Photos" this wouldn't happen.

Ya the uncritical acceptance of these very non-technical articles on HN is a little disappointing

I think you have unrealistic expectations for this community.
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