4 ms·

They are better for taking photographs simply because they're smaller, but for every other aspect of photo viewing, management, and editing, they are worse. The

by mrob 3y ago

They are better for taking photographs simply because they're smaller, but for every other aspect of photo viewing, management, and editing, they are worse. They have a tiny screen, insufficient local storage and compute, and no keyboard or mouse. They're not better music players. Sound quality can be identical because phones support USB DACs, but again, everything else is worse. On a real computer I can easily search my library just by typing. There's no way to find specific tracks that fast on mobile.

Pxtl 3y ago
> insufficient local storage My phone has 128gb. How is that not enough for photo editing?
- mrob 3y ago
  Raw photographs are tens of megabytes each, and it's not unusual to take hundreds per session.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Agreeing and amplifying: Taking a random search result, the Canon EOS R5 has a 45 MP sensor: <https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/eos-r5?color=Black&type=New https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/eos-r5?color=Black&type=New> Assuming 24 bits per pixel, that's 1 Gigabit (128 MB) per image, or ~1,000 images on 128 GB storage. Dedicated cameras have removable storage and professional photographers will carry multiple 500 GB -- 1 TB+ storage cards, swapping them out through a shoot. I'll note that the iPhone 15 Pro specs list a 48 MP sensor, which is similar, though storage tends to be as jpeg rather than raw. Compression varies but sizes of 1/2 to 1/15 RAW at high quality are common. Edit: Corrected GB -> Gb. Bytes are 8 bits.
    - mrob 3y ago
      >Assuming 24 bits per pixel, that's 1 GB per image 1Gb, not GB. And in practice it's not that high. Most digital cameras use a Bayer filter, with the pixel count specified as the number of grayscale pixels behind the individual filter elements. Raws are most often 12 or 14 bits per pixel, so about 68MB or 79MB for a 45MP sensor. This can be further reduced with lossless compression. Still a lot for a 128GiB phone, though.
      - dredmorbius 3y ago
        Gah! Thanks, corrected above. Thanks for the additional detail, I'd wondered about the bpp and individual colour-sensing elements. Point remains that RAW images are large.
alanbernstein 3y ago
I generally agree with you and the parent post. But touch screen is the best UI for photo cropping. This is awkward because it makes me want to split editing tasks between devices.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Better than a Wacom tablet?
  - alanbernstein 3y ago
    I've never used one. I know they're popular with artists but I have very little concept of how they're used. I would not have guessed that anyone uses them to crop images.
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Given that what many touchscreen tablets (particularly e-ink) offer is a Wacom layer, the advantage is that you're getting far more precise indication of location. The difference between Wacom-in-display and Wacom-as-peripheral is much as with a mouse, in that you have to get accustomed to indicating actions off-screen which translate to on-screen movements, though in practice that seems to be a fast learn for most people. This can actually be better as depending on screen registration and depth of the display elements themselves, "direct registration" often isn't with offsets and parallax. The precision of using a stylus and pen/pencil grip rather than a mouse, trackball, or trackpad is the primary win. And yes, cropping is in fact a major function for graphic artists, though painting directly with the stylus + tablet is another option.
tomjen3 3y ago
I think they are also great for photo viewing, because they are easy to show to others. As the saying goes the best camera you have is the one you have with you. Same reason I listed them as the best music players - I don't want to carry around a laptop to hear tunes. And while some audiphiles claim that they can hear a difference, I have never seen evidence that this is the case.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  >Same reason I listed them as the best music players - I don't want to carry around a laptop to hear tunes. And while some audiphiles claim that they can hear a difference, I have never seen evidence that this is the case. For playing music when I'm at work, etc., my phone sounds MUCH better than my laptop that's sitting at home. Also, even if we really did compare apples to apples, I'm not sure how the sound hardware on a laptop is going to be any better than that on a phone.
- mrob 3y ago
  If you EQ your headphones, e.g. to match the Harman curve[0] to better replicate the sound of loudspeakers in a moderately treated room, you'll probably find they need a lot of bass boost. This means you have to turn everything down to avoid clipping, which hurts the signal to noise ratio. If you only listen to low dynamic range music you still might not notice it, but for high dynamic range music, like orchestral music with natural sounding mastering, you will probably be able to hear noise from low quality DACs in the quiet parts. Fortunately, good DACs are cheap now, e.g. the Apple USB to 3.5mm adapter [1]. [0] https://headphonesaddict.com/harman-curve/ https://headphonesaddict.com/harman-curve/ [1] https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-apple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...

by mrob 3y ago

Pxtl 3y ago

> insufficient local storage My phone has 128gb. How is that not enough for photo editing?

mrob 3y ago
Raw photographs are tens of megabytes each, and it's not unusual to take hundreds per session.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Agreeing and amplifying: Taking a random search result, the Canon EOS R5 has a 45 MP sensor: <https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/eos-r5?color=Black&type=New https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/eos-r5?color=Black&type=New> Assuming 24 bits per pixel, that's 1 Gigabit (128 MB) per image, or ~1,000 images on 128 GB storage. Dedicated cameras have removable storage and professional photographers will carry multiple 500 GB -- 1 TB+ storage cards, swapping them out through a shoot. I'll note that the iPhone 15 Pro specs list a 48 MP sensor, which is similar, though storage tends to be as jpeg rather than raw. Compression varies but sizes of 1/2 to 1/15 RAW at high quality are common. Edit: Corrected GB -> Gb. Bytes are 8 bits.
  - mrob 3y ago
    >Assuming 24 bits per pixel, that's 1 GB per image 1Gb, not GB. And in practice it's not that high. Most digital cameras use a Bayer filter, with the pixel count specified as the number of grayscale pixels behind the individual filter elements. Raws are most often 12 or 14 bits per pixel, so about 68MB or 79MB for a 45MP sensor. This can be further reduced with lossless compression. Still a lot for a 128GiB phone, though.
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Gah! Thanks, corrected above. Thanks for the additional detail, I'd wondered about the bpp and individual colour-sensing elements. Point remains that RAW images are large.

alanbernstein 3y ago

I generally agree with you and the parent post. But touch screen is the best UI for photo cropping. This is awkward because it makes me want to split editing tasks between devices.

dredmorbius 3y ago
Better than a Wacom tablet?
- alanbernstein 3y ago
  I've never used one. I know they're popular with artists but I have very little concept of how they're used. I would not have guessed that anyone uses them to crop images.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Given that what many touchscreen tablets (particularly e-ink) offer is a Wacom layer, the advantage is that you're getting far more precise indication of location. The difference between Wacom-in-display and Wacom-as-peripheral is much as with a mouse, in that you have to get accustomed to indicating actions off-screen which translate to on-screen movements, though in practice that seems to be a fast learn for most people. This can actually be better as depending on screen registration and depth of the display elements themselves, "direct registration" often isn't with offsets and parallax. The precision of using a stylus and pen/pencil grip rather than a mouse, trackball, or trackpad is the primary win. And yes, cropping is in fact a major function for graphic artists, though painting directly with the stylus + tablet is another option.

tomjen3 3y ago

I think they are also great for photo viewing, because they are easy to show to others. As the saying goes the best camera you have is the one you have with you. Same reason I listed them as the best music players - I don't want to carry around a laptop to hear tunes. And while some audiphiles claim that they can hear a difference, I have never seen evidence that this is the case.

midoridensha 3y ago
>Same reason I listed them as the best music players - I don't want to carry around a laptop to hear tunes. And while some audiphiles claim that they can hear a difference, I have never seen evidence that this is the case. For playing music when I'm at work, etc., my phone sounds MUCH better than my laptop that's sitting at home. Also, even if we really did compare apples to apples, I'm not sure how the sound hardware on a laptop is going to be any better than that on a phone.
mrob 3y ago
If you EQ your headphones, e.g. to match the Harman curve[0] to better replicate the sound of loudspeakers in a moderately treated room, you'll probably find they need a lot of bass boost. This means you have to turn everything down to avoid clipping, which hurts the signal to noise ratio. If you only listen to low dynamic range music you still might not notice it, but for high dynamic range music, like orchestral music with natural sounding mastering, you will probably be able to hear noise from low quality DACs in the quiet parts. Fortunately, good DACs are cheap now, e.g. the Apple USB to 3.5mm adapter [1]. [0] https://headphonesaddict.com/harman-curve/ https://headphonesaddict.com/harman-curve/ [1] https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-apple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...