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What an unprocessed photo looks like

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Re: What an unprocessed photo looks like

#161

Post by ssl-3 »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #134
Eisenstein wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you also want the IR light to be in there? That would make it more of 'genuine representation'.

Wouldn't be a genuine version of what my eyes would've seen, had I been the one looking instead of the camera. I can't see infrared.

Perhaps interestingly, many/most digital cameras are sensitive to IR and can record, for example, the LEDs of an infrared TV remote.

But they don't see it as IR. Instead, this infrared information just kind of irrevocably leaks into the RGB channels that we do perceive. With the unmodified camera on my Samsung phone, IR shows up kind of purple-ish. Which is... well... it's fake. Making invisible IR into visible purple is an artificially-produced artifact of the process that results in me being able to see things that are normally ~impossible for me to observe with my eyeballs.

When you generate your own "genuine" images using your digital camera(s), do you use an external IR filter? Or are you satisfied with knowing that the results are fake?

Re: What an unprocessed photo looks like

#162

Post by dheera »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #136
dheera wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalistic/event photography is about accuracy to reality, almost all other types of photography are not. Portrait photography -- no, people don't look like that in real life with skin flaws edited out Landscape photography -- no, the landscapes don't look like that 99% of the time, the photographer picks the 1% of the time when it looks surreal Staged photography -- no, it didn't really happen Street photography -…

Re landscape photography: If it actually looked like that in person 1 percent of the time, I'd argue it's still accurate to reality.

There are a whole lot of landscape photographs out there I can vouch for their realism 1% of the time because I do a lot of landscape photography myself and tend to get out at dawn and dusk a lot. There are lots of shots I got where the sky looked a certain way for a grand total of 2 minutes before sunrise, and I can see similar lighting in other peoples' shots as real.

A lot of armchair critics on the internet who only go out to their local park at high noon will say they look fake but they're not.

There are other elements I can spot realism where the armchair critic will call it a "bad photoshop". For example, a moon close to the horizon usually looks jagged and squashed due to atmospheric effects. That's the sign of a real moon. If it looks perfectly round and white at the horizon, I would call it a fake.

Re: What an unprocessed photo looks like

#163

Post by kdazzle »

brookst wrote: post #96
barishnamazov wrote: post #7

I love posts that peel back the abstraction layer of "images." It really highlights that modern photography is just signal processing with better marketing. A fun tangent on the "green cast" mentioned in the post: the reason the Bayer pattern is RGGB (50% green) isn't just about color balance, but spatial resolution. The human eye is most sensitive to green light, so that channel effectively carries the majority of t…

Even old school chemical films were the same thing, just different domain. There is no such thing as “unprocessed” data, at least that we can perceive.

Exactly - film photographers heavily process(ed) their images from the film processing through to the print. Ansel Adams wrote a few books on the topic and they’re great reads.

And different films and photo papers can have totally different looks, defined by the chemistry of the manufacturer and however _they_ want things to look.

Re: What an unprocessed photo looks like

#164

Post by imoverclocked »

bmitc wrote: post #159
MyOutfitIsVague wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Green is in the center of the visible spectrum of light (notice the G in the middle of ROYGBIV), so evolution should theoretically optimize for green light absorption. An interesting article on why plants typically reflect that wavelength and absorb the others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Earth_hypothesis

Green is the highest energy light emitted by our sun, from any part of the entire light spectrum, which is why green appears in the middle of the visible spectrum. The visible spectrum basically exists because we "grew up" with a sun that blasts that frequency range more than any other part of the light spectrum.

I have to wonder what our planet would look like if the spectrum shifts over time. Would plants also shift their reflected light? Would eyes subtly change across species? Of course, there would probably be larger issues at play around having a survivable environment … but still, fun to ponder.

Re: What an unprocessed photo looks like

#166

Post by Renaud »

thousand_nights wrote: post #63
barishnamazov wrote: post #7

I love posts that peel back the abstraction layer of "images." It really highlights that modern photography is just signal processing with better marketing. A fun tangent on the "green cast" mentioned in the post: the reason the Bayer pattern is RGGB (50% green) isn't just about color balance, but spatial resolution. The human eye is most sensitive to green light, so that channel effectively carries the majority of t…

the bayer pattern is one of those things that makes me irrationally angry, in the true sense, based on my ignorance of the subject what's so special about green? oh so just because our eyes are more sensitive to green we should dedicate double the area to green in camera sensors? i mean, probably yes. but still. (⩺_⩹)

Not sure why it would invoke such strong sentiments but if you don’t like the bayer filter, know that some true monochrome cameras don’t use it and make every sensor pixel available to the final image.

For instance, the Leica M series have specific monochrome versions with huge resolutions and better monochrome rendering.

You can also modify some cameras and remove the filter, but the results usually need processing. A side effect is that the now exposed sensor is more sensitive to both ends of the spectrum.

Re: What an unprocessed photo looks like

#167

Post by herpdyderp »

NiloCK wrote: post #142

You may know that intermittent rashes are always invisible in the presence of medical credentials. Years ago I became suspicious of my Samsung Android device when I couldn't produce a reliable likeness of an allergy induced rash. No matter how I lit things, the photos were always "nicer" than what my eyes recorded live. The incentives here are clear enough - people will prefer a phone whose camera gives them an impre…

I remember when they did this to pictures of the moon: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/03/samsung-says-it-adds...

Re: What an unprocessed photo looks like

#168

Post by jamilton »

barishnamazov wrote: post #7

I love posts that peel back the abstraction layer of "images." It really highlights that modern photography is just signal processing with better marketing. A fun tangent on the "green cast" mentioned in the post: the reason the Bayer pattern is RGGB (50% green) isn't just about color balance, but spatial resolution. The human eye is most sensitive to green light, so that channel effectively carries the majority of t…

Why that ratio in particular? I wonder if there’s a more complex ratio that could be better.

Re: What an unprocessed photo looks like

#169

Post by acomjean »

kccqzy wrote: post #74
barishnamazov wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Kindle ads were available in my region in 2015 because I don't remember seeing these back then, but you're a lucky one to fix this classic mistake :-) I remember trying out some of the home-made methods while I was implementing a creative work section for a school assignment. It’s surprising how "flat" the basic average looks until you actually respect the coefficients (usually some flavor of 0.21R + 0.…

I remember using some photo editing software (Aperture I think) that would allow you to customize the different coefficients and there were even presets that give different names to different coefficients. Ultimately you can pick any coefficients you want, and only your eyes can judge how nice they are.

>Ultimately you can pick any coefficients you want, and only your eyes can judge how nice they are.

I went to a photoshop conference. There was a session on converting color to black and white. Basically at the end the presenter said you try a bunch of ways and pick the one that looks best.

(people there were really looking for the “one true way”)

I shot a lot of black and white film in college for our paper. One of my obsolete skills was thinking how an image would look in black and white while shooting, though I never understood the people who could look at a scene and decide to use a red filter..

Re: What an unprocessed photo looks like

#170

Post by benatkin »

mvdtnz wrote: post #119
packetslave wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right-click, "Search Google for 'ADC'", takes much less time than making this useless comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog-to-digital_converter

My point wasn't "I can't find this information", my point was "this is poorly written".

I wanted to say I that I think it's overrated in terms of its position on HN, but rather than criticize side issues of it, which often point to something being a weak article in general, I probably should have just said exactly what I don't like about it as a whole. So I'll do that.

I think the headline is problematic because it suggests the raw photos aren't very good and thus need processing, however the raw data isn't something the camera makers intend to be put forth as a photo, and the data is intended to be processed right from the start. The data of course can be presented in as images but that serves as visualizations of the data rather than the source image or photo. Wikipedia does it a lot more justice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format If articles like OP's catch on, camera makers might be incentivized to game the sensors so their output makes more sense to the general public, and that would be inefficient, so the proper context should be given, which this "unprocessed photo" article doesn't do in my opinion.

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