5 ms·

Talking as a semi-pro (I've put in some money into cameras and lenses and spent a good bit of time on photo editing), this is a bit underwhelming. For landscape

Talking as a semi-pro (I've put in some money into cameras and lenses and spent a good bit of time on photo editing), this is a bit underwhelming. For landscapes (which this seemed to focus on), I've found that opening up the Windows photo editing programs and clicking 'enchance' or Gimp and clicking some equivalent already gets you most of the way there in terms editing for aesthetic effect. The most tricky bit is deciding on the artistic merit of a particular crop or shot, and as indicated by the difference between the model's and photographer's opinion at the end of the paper, the model is not that great at it. Still, pretty cool that they did that analysis.

dheera 9y ago
The other huge thing that is lacking is content. Image processing is only 10% of good photography. The rest is about conveying an idea to your audience. It can be humor, documenting an event, making people aware about societal problems, taking people to somewhere they would normally not be able to access, or seeing the world in a way that most people don't see. Truly good photographers don't just produce beautiful photos; they produce meaningful photos. The tech is great but I'm not a fan of the title of the article ;)
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  That depends on what kind of photography it is. Photojournalism is almost always about the story and what the picture evokes. It could be a simple pic of a boy covered in dust, but made evocative because the dust is from a bomb explosion that killed his father and not from playing in the park. But in case of a lot of landscape photography, the content is intrinsic to the picture itself—the photo does not get its value from anything external to it. Likewise for portraits.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dheera 9y ago
    Not sure I agree with that. There's good landscape/portrait photography, and there's really great landscape/portrait photography. Great landscape photography takes you to an interesting location or interesting angle. A post-processing algorithm cannot take you somewhere interesting. Good landscape photography makes you say, "Wow, that's beautiful!" Great landscape photography makes you say, "Holy crap, what is that? Where is that?" https://500px.com/photo/4505244/rainbow-glass-by-junya-hasegawa https://500px.com/photo/4505244/rainbow-glass-by-junya-haseg... https://1x.com/photo/41156/portfolio/60972 https://1x.com/photo/41156/portfolio/60972 https://500px.com/photo/103746295/the-white-silence-by-daniel-kordan https://500px.com/photo/103746295/the-white-silence-by-danie... http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/photo-contest/steinmetz-text http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/photo-contest/stei... http://hongwrong.com/verical-horizon-hk/ http://hongwrong.com/verical-horizon-hk/ https://500px.com/photo/103960697/one-thousand-and-one-nights-by-%C4%B0lhan-eroglu https://500px.com/photo/103960697/one-thousand-and-one-night... https://500px.com/photo/5211062/harvest-by-rob-kruyt https://500px.com/photo/5211062/harvest-by-rob-kruyt
    - gervase 9y ago
      Thank you for taking the time to find some examples supporting your argument; I found them quite persuasive.
    - Retric 9y ago
      I significantly prefer the article's photos to those. Buildings are boring as is snow, photo of person or animal / shadows not landscape, and over edited. Now, I suspect as someone that's looking at a lot of photos those pinged some novelty feeling in you, but that does not mean they are objectively good. By comparison the article's photos (and those linked: http://google.github.io/creatism http://google.github.io/creatism) generally evoked that I wish I was there feeling.
      - eru 9y ago
        I see what you mean, though I do like buildings. (But I always had a soft spot for Hong Kong.) I predict a similar divide will crop up in computer generated music: very soon normal people will prefer their pleasant sounds, even while more discerning (semi-) pros will deride their lack of artistic merit for a lot longer. Computer generated art will shine as Gebrauchskunst first---eg get a 'professional level' soundtrack and video editing for your youtube video shot on a phone.
  - e12e 9y ago
    > But in case of a lot of landscape photography, the content is intrinsic to the picture itself—the photo does not get its value from anything external to it. Likewise for portraits. Any photo is a tiny square cut out of an infinite number of 360 degree spheres taken at a single point in time. For every photograph there will always be much more outside of the frame than in it. That doesn't even begin to touch on things like lighting for portraits - but to think that even a landscape photo is anything but subjective expression is naive at best, dangerously so at worst.
    - tormeh 9y ago
      The algorithm does do cropping from panoramas, though.
      - e12e 9y ago
        I'm not arguing that machine learning can't take great photographs, just that there are great photographs (and so, also many not-so-great photographs). I suppose one could get into deep philosophical discussions about if a machine intelligence can make art, if it does so, does it have to be regarded as a higher level of intelligence, or does the art have to be regarded as inferior art, etc. Interesting stuff, but not my point at this time.
- wst_ 9y ago
  Exactly this. I don't want to say getting good mountain shots and applying some filters doesn't require experience and esthetic touch. Yet, for me as a consumer, the showcase looks just boring. Photography is about capturing the moment, not about applying some filters.
- soylentcola 9y ago
  Agreed completely. I'm an on-again/off-again hobbyist photographer, but my personality tends to focus on the technical and processing stuff most easily. As such, I completely recognize the limitations of this aspect of photography. I personally enjoy learning how to use tools so I like messing with processing techniques. Since I'm very much an amateur, it's an effective way to improve the objective quality of an image. Still, it has made me very aware of the limitations when it comes to improving the subjective quality of my photos. Essentially, I can save an underexposed RAW photo or use levels, curves, and masks to improve the quality and balance of lighting and color...but it will never fix a poorly composed shot or help me to better understand how to get a point across.
deegles 9y ago
Yeah I was hoping this would take a larger image and crop it to make it more appealing.
- forgot-my-pw 9y ago
  It already crops quite a lot from the images in the middle of the article. I think it's pretty good at selecting the subject to crop.
- halflings 9y ago
  It is picking the crop! (from a panoramic image)
croon 9y ago
> I've found that opening up the Windows photo editing programs and clicking 'enchance' or Gimp and clicking some equivalent already gets you most of the way there in terms editing for aesthetic effect. As someone who's also spent a fair amount on gear, the post-processing part is the thing I've had most issues (read: spent least time with) to get right, and while I haven't tried all software, I haven't found a one-click solution of sufficient quality. I've been hoping for a while that ML might lead to something like this. I would like if I could spend all that time taking photos, and no time fiddling with them afterwards. Could you recommend any "enhance" feature that you've encountered that you think is okay?
averagewall 9y ago
If you're right, that's still a fantastic world which might open up. In my simple view, to make a good picture before the invention of photography, you had to be able to: * Choose good scenes AND make them pretty AND paint well. With photography, to make a good picture, you have to be able to: * Choose good scenes AND make them pretty. With this technology, to make a good picture, you might have to be able to: * Choose good scenes. Reducing the number of skills required massively increases the number of people who can do them all.
BeetleB 9y ago
>Talking as a semi-pro (I've put in some money into cameras and lenses and spent a good bit of time on photo editing), this is a bit underwhelming. For landscapes (which this seemed to focus on), I've found that opening up the Windows photo editing programs and clicking 'enchance' or Gimp and clicking some equivalent already gets you most of the way there in terms editing for aesthetic effect. First, semi-pro means you've made money through photographs - not spent money. Second, I heavily dispute the utility of those "Enhance" filters. They often do make a photo nicer, but they never make great photos.

dheera 9y ago

The other huge thing that is lacking is content. Image processing is only 10% of good photography. The rest is about conveying an idea to your audience. It can be humor, documenting an event, making people aware about societal problems, taking people to somewhere they would normally not be able to access, or seeing the world in a way that most people don't see. Truly good photographers don't just produce beautiful photos; they produce meaningful photos. The tech is great but I'm not a fan of the title of the article ;)

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
That depends on what kind of photography it is. Photojournalism is almost always about the story and what the picture evokes. It could be a simple pic of a boy covered in dust, but made evocative because the dust is from a bomb explosion that killed his father and not from playing in the park. But in case of a lot of landscape photography, the content is intrinsic to the picture itself—the photo does not get its value from anything external to it. Likewise for portraits.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dheera 9y ago
  Not sure I agree with that. There's good landscape/portrait photography, and there's really great landscape/portrait photography. Great landscape photography takes you to an interesting location or interesting angle. A post-processing algorithm cannot take you somewhere interesting. Good landscape photography makes you say, "Wow, that's beautiful!" Great landscape photography makes you say, "Holy crap, what is that? Where is that?" https://500px.com/photo/4505244/rainbow-glass-by-junya-hasegawa https://500px.com/photo/4505244/rainbow-glass-by-junya-haseg... https://1x.com/photo/41156/portfolio/60972 https://1x.com/photo/41156/portfolio/60972 https://500px.com/photo/103746295/the-white-silence-by-daniel-kordan https://500px.com/photo/103746295/the-white-silence-by-danie... http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/photo-contest/steinmetz-text http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/photo-contest/stei... http://hongwrong.com/verical-horizon-hk/ http://hongwrong.com/verical-horizon-hk/ https://500px.com/photo/103960697/one-thousand-and-one-nights-by-%C4%B0lhan-eroglu https://500px.com/photo/103960697/one-thousand-and-one-night... https://500px.com/photo/5211062/harvest-by-rob-kruyt https://500px.com/photo/5211062/harvest-by-rob-kruyt
  - gervase 9y ago
    Thank you for taking the time to find some examples supporting your argument; I found them quite persuasive.
  - Retric 9y ago
    I significantly prefer the article's photos to those. Buildings are boring as is snow, photo of person or animal / shadows not landscape, and over edited. Now, I suspect as someone that's looking at a lot of photos those pinged some novelty feeling in you, but that does not mean they are objectively good. By comparison the article's photos (and those linked: http://google.github.io/creatism http://google.github.io/creatism) generally evoked that I wish I was there feeling.
    - eru 9y ago
      I see what you mean, though I do like buildings. (But I always had a soft spot for Hong Kong.) I predict a similar divide will crop up in computer generated music: very soon normal people will prefer their pleasant sounds, even while more discerning (semi-) pros will deride their lack of artistic merit for a lot longer. Computer generated art will shine as Gebrauchskunst first---eg get a 'professional level' soundtrack and video editing for your youtube video shot on a phone.
- e12e 9y ago
  > But in case of a lot of landscape photography, the content is intrinsic to the picture itself—the photo does not get its value from anything external to it. Likewise for portraits. Any photo is a tiny square cut out of an infinite number of 360 degree spheres taken at a single point in time. For every photograph there will always be much more outside of the frame than in it. That doesn't even begin to touch on things like lighting for portraits - but to think that even a landscape photo is anything but subjective expression is naive at best, dangerously so at worst.
  - tormeh 9y ago
    The algorithm does do cropping from panoramas, though.
    - e12e 9y ago
      I'm not arguing that machine learning can't take great photographs, just that there are great photographs (and so, also many not-so-great photographs). I suppose one could get into deep philosophical discussions about if a machine intelligence can make art, if it does so, does it have to be regarded as a higher level of intelligence, or does the art have to be regarded as inferior art, etc. Interesting stuff, but not my point at this time.
wst_ 9y ago
Exactly this. I don't want to say getting good mountain shots and applying some filters doesn't require experience and esthetic touch. Yet, for me as a consumer, the showcase looks just boring. Photography is about capturing the moment, not about applying some filters.
soylentcola 9y ago
Agreed completely. I'm an on-again/off-again hobbyist photographer, but my personality tends to focus on the technical and processing stuff most easily. As such, I completely recognize the limitations of this aspect of photography. I personally enjoy learning how to use tools so I like messing with processing techniques. Since I'm very much an amateur, it's an effective way to improve the objective quality of an image. Still, it has made me very aware of the limitations when it comes to improving the subjective quality of my photos. Essentially, I can save an underexposed RAW photo or use levels, curves, and masks to improve the quality and balance of lighting and color...but it will never fix a poorly composed shot or help me to better understand how to get a point across.

deegles 9y ago

Yeah I was hoping this would take a larger image and crop it to make it more appealing.

forgot-my-pw 9y ago
It already crops quite a lot from the images in the middle of the article. I think it's pretty good at selecting the subject to crop.
halflings 9y ago
It is picking the crop! (from a panoramic image)

croon 9y ago

> I've found that opening up the Windows photo editing programs and clicking 'enchance' or Gimp and clicking some equivalent already gets you most of the way there in terms editing for aesthetic effect. As someone who's also spent a fair amount on gear, the post-processing part is the thing I've had most issues (read: spent least time with) to get right, and while I haven't tried all software, I haven't found a one-click solution of sufficient quality. I've been hoping for a while that ML might lead to something like this. I would like if I could spend all that time taking photos, and no time fiddling with them afterwards. Could you recommend any "enhance" feature that you've encountered that you think is okay?

averagewall 9y ago

If you're right, that's still a fantastic world which might open up. In my simple view, to make a good picture before the invention of photography, you had to be able to: * Choose good scenes AND make them pretty AND paint well. With photography, to make a good picture, you have to be able to: * Choose good scenes AND make them pretty. With this technology, to make a good picture, you might have to be able to: * Choose good scenes. Reducing the number of skills required massively increases the number of people who can do them all.

BeetleB 9y ago

>Talking as a semi-pro (I've put in some money into cameras and lenses and spent a good bit of time on photo editing), this is a bit underwhelming. For landscapes (which this seemed to focus on), I've found that opening up the Windows photo editing programs and clicking 'enchance' or Gimp and clicking some equivalent already gets you most of the way there in terms editing for aesthetic effect. First, semi-pro means you've made money through photographs - not spent money. Second, I heavily dispute the utility of those "Enhance" filters. They often do make a photo nicer, but they never make great photos.