6 ms·

Google Pixel camera consistently blurring out The North Face logo

127 points by thecosmicfrog 2y ago

thecosmicfrog 2y ago
Found on Reddit (posted by u/NeillDrake) and thought HN would find it interesting.
cheald 2y ago
It's an interesting observation, but I couldn't replicate this by taking a photo of a Google Images search for "north face logo", or with a photo of the reddit user's photo. Pixel 7, stock Camera app. The photo turns out as expected.
- saurik 2y ago
  I wouldn't expect this to be a very good test as I'd think the camera could easily tell the difference between taking a picture of a screen and taking a picture of a jacket.
- krasin 2y ago
  > It's an interesting observation, but I couldn't replicate this by taking a photo of a Google Images search for "north face logo" Low-level artifacts for screen photos are different, so whatever neural net messes things up here, acts differently.
  - cheald 2y ago
    Well, naturally, but neural nets are pretty good at feature extraction even in the presence of noise. I also just printed out his unblurred example at a scale approximating a real logo and took a photo of it. Came out just fine.
- fullshark 2y ago
  I didn’t think much either until I saw this photo he shared in the comments: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F0o75bbeogrvc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1584%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D4c54425922b392df93c0e3efdda6eb41a05954db https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.... Seems to be more than a one off odd photo and an artifact of something the pixel does re: image processing.
  - mcint 2y ago
    Well, two-off. https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_noticed_my_pixel_is_blurring_brand_namesmy_7/l0jxx3h/ https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_not... https://preview.redd.it/f9d3rqpigrvc1.jpeg?width=1854&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96b2fd75478f88d71ee5c6245f4e8a66f2e1d88b https://preview.redd.it/f9d3rqpigrvc1.jpeg?width=1854&format... https://preview.redd.it/0o75bbeogrvc1.jpeg?width=1584&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c54425922b392df93c0e3efdda6eb41a05954db https://preview.redd.it/0o75bbeogrvc1.jpeg?width=1584&format...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cjk2 2y ago
I had a Pixel 6A and 7A in the last couple of years, mostly as an experiment. The computational photography side of it was a complete mess, mutilating many photos from crazy levels of over-sharpening through to turning things into weird oil paintings. Absolutely hated both of them. I do have photos of myself with a North Face hat taken on them though and they came out fine! Crawled back to an iPhone and paid through the nose in the end. Edit: crop from the 6a: https://imgur.com/a/RO0UYev https://imgur.com/a/RO0UYev
- jraph 2y ago
  Do those phones do this even on alternative photo apps?
  - danpalmer 2y ago
    Much of the "smarts" is in the camera app itself, not in the OS support for the hardware, as far as I understand it, so no it shouldn't. That might be good or bad depending on your perspective.
    - jraph 2y ago
      Ok, so it seems one would not need to switch phones (or ecosystem) because of related issues, one could just switch apps and use OpenCamera or something like this instead.
- Freak_NL 2y ago
  Odd. My Pixel 6 is really quite a good camera. The stock app on GrapheneOS is great when you just want to take a quick photo, and OpenCamera is full featured and very useful when you want to tweak the settings and fiddle around with various options. I never have anything weird.
  - cjk2 2y ago
    Mine was so bad I bought a Nikon mirrorless. That was the Google default app though rather than anything open source backed.
grecy 2y ago
It will be a crazy world when a company has to pay a camera manufacturer if they want their logo to be legible in any photos taken... Surely there's a Black Mirror episode...
- bravetraveler 2y ago
  I recall one where people didn't have enough upvotes or something and were basically outcast, close enough?
  - Intralexical 2y ago
    Community, MeowMeowBeanz?
userbinator 2y ago
Photos that have undergone such processing should not be admissable as evidence in court. ...and from an even more dystopian angle, although this may be a "bug", it shows just how easy it is for them to selectively change how things appear if they wanted to.
- _boffin_ 2y ago
  https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/stlr/blog/view/417 https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/stlr/blog/vi...
- 8organicbits 2y ago
  It could be dismissed under Daubert. You'd need an expert witness to show that the camera in question does not provide evidence in a way that follows well established scientific methods, or doesn't have a known error rate. The judge is then the gate keeper and can choose if it's suitable. For a camera that applies a bunch of random hacks that the engineering team pulled out of thin air, it seems possible.
thih9 2y ago
Another user posts an example of numbers being blurred out[1]. [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_noticed_my_pixel_is_blurring_brand_namesmy_7/l0n72ea/ https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_not...
- ehsankia 2y ago
  On the other hand, another user tried on a black North Face coat and it didn't happen I wonder if the red is the connecting link between the two.
- speedgoose 2y ago
  Could it be a classic LED flicker in this case? Assuming the dashboard backlight is powered by LED lights.
  - thih9 2y ago
    Someone suggested that[1], the commenter replied this wasn’t the case: > I know the effect of shutter speed, and it wasn't present at that moment, you can clearly see every other number segment, and one of the numbers at the clock, if you zoom enough its very visible that those numbers got wiped out by processing [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_noticed_my_pixel_is_blurring_brand_namesmy_7/l0nelwr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_not...
user070223 2y ago
Wasn't able to replicate with a 4a I wonder whether it's realted to the case where North Face "defaced"[0] Wikipedia by changing photos in the site which shows their logo in order to boost brand awareness in google image search results [0] https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/05/29/lets-talk-about-the-north-face-defacing-wikipedia/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/05/29/lets-talk-ab...
Zigurd 2y ago
Clear as day. Taken moments ago: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kB7hnyFh5GymYEnC6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/kB7hnyFh5GymYEnC6 Camera version version 9.3.160.621982096.22
crzyman 2y ago
This reminds me of how Samsung got caught using AI to fake high quality pictures of the moon. Someone proved it by blurring an image of the moon, then taking a picture of the blurred image, and it came out with tons of detail.

127 points by thecosmicfrog 2y ago

Found on Reddit (posted by u/NeillDrake) and thought HN would find it interesting.

It's an interesting observation, but I couldn't replicate this by taking a photo of a Google Images search for "north face logo", or with a photo of the reddit user's photo. Pixel 7, stock Camera app. The photo turns out as expected.

saurik 2y ago
I wouldn't expect this to be a very good test as I'd think the camera could easily tell the difference between taking a picture of a screen and taking a picture of a jacket.
krasin 2y ago
> It's an interesting observation, but I couldn't replicate this by taking a photo of a Google Images search for "north face logo" Low-level artifacts for screen photos are different, so whatever neural net messes things up here, acts differently.
- cheald 2y ago
  Well, naturally, but neural nets are pretty good at feature extraction even in the presence of noise. I also just printed out his unblurred example at a scale approximating a real logo and took a photo of it. Came out just fine.
fullshark 2y ago
I didn’t think much either until I saw this photo he shared in the comments: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F0o75bbeogrvc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1584%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D4c54425922b392df93c0e3efdda6eb41a05954db https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.... Seems to be more than a one off odd photo and an artifact of something the pixel does re: image processing.
- mcint 2y ago
  Well, two-off. https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_noticed_my_pixel_is_blurring_brand_namesmy_7/l0jxx3h/ https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_not... https://preview.redd.it/f9d3rqpigrvc1.jpeg?width=1854&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96b2fd75478f88d71ee5c6245f4e8a66f2e1d88b https://preview.redd.it/f9d3rqpigrvc1.jpeg?width=1854&format... https://preview.redd.it/0o75bbeogrvc1.jpeg?width=1584&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c54425922b392df93c0e3efdda6eb41a05954db https://preview.redd.it/0o75bbeogrvc1.jpeg?width=1584&format...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cjk2 2y ago

I had a Pixel 6A and 7A in the last couple of years, mostly as an experiment. The computational photography side of it was a complete mess, mutilating many photos from crazy levels of over-sharpening through to turning things into weird oil paintings. Absolutely hated both of them. I do have photos of myself with a North Face hat taken on them though and they came out fine! Crawled back to an iPhone and paid through the nose in the end. Edit: crop from the 6a: https://imgur.com/a/RO0UYev https://imgur.com/a/RO0UYev

jraph 2y ago
Do those phones do this even on alternative photo apps?
- danpalmer 2y ago
  Much of the "smarts" is in the camera app itself, not in the OS support for the hardware, as far as I understand it, so no it shouldn't. That might be good or bad depending on your perspective.
  - jraph 2y ago
    Ok, so it seems one would not need to switch phones (or ecosystem) because of related issues, one could just switch apps and use OpenCamera or something like this instead.
Freak_NL 2y ago
Odd. My Pixel 6 is really quite a good camera. The stock app on GrapheneOS is great when you just want to take a quick photo, and OpenCamera is full featured and very useful when you want to tweak the settings and fiddle around with various options. I never have anything weird.
- cjk2 2y ago
  Mine was so bad I bought a Nikon mirrorless. That was the Google default app though rather than anything open source backed.

grecy 2y ago

It will be a crazy world when a company has to pay a camera manufacturer if they want their logo to be legible in any photos taken... Surely there's a Black Mirror episode...

bravetraveler 2y ago
I recall one where people didn't have enough upvotes or something and were basically outcast, close enough?
- Intralexical 2y ago
  Community, MeowMeowBeanz?

userbinator 2y ago

Photos that have undergone such processing should not be admissable as evidence in court. ...and from an even more dystopian angle, although this may be a "bug", it shows just how easy it is for them to selectively change how things appear if they wanted to.

_boffin_ 2y ago
https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/stlr/blog/view/417 https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/stlr/blog/vi...
8organicbits 2y ago
It could be dismissed under Daubert. You'd need an expert witness to show that the camera in question does not provide evidence in a way that follows well established scientific methods, or doesn't have a known error rate. The judge is then the gate keeper and can choose if it's suitable. For a camera that applies a bunch of random hacks that the engineering team pulled out of thin air, it seems possible.

thih9 2y ago

Another user posts an example of numbers being blurred out[1]. [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_noticed_my_pixel_is_blurring_brand_namesmy_7/l0n72ea/ https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_not...

ehsankia 2y ago
On the other hand, another user tried on a black North Face coat and it didn't happen I wonder if the red is the connecting link between the two.
speedgoose 2y ago
Could it be a classic LED flicker in this case? Assuming the dashboard backlight is powered by LED lights.
- thih9 2y ago
  Someone suggested that[1], the commenter replied this wasn’t the case: > I know the effect of shutter speed, and it wasn't present at that moment, you can clearly see every other number segment, and one of the numbers at the clock, if you zoom enough its very visible that those numbers got wiped out by processing [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_noticed_my_pixel_is_blurring_brand_namesmy_7/l0nelwr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/pixel_phones/comments/1c98wpq/i_not...

user070223 2y ago

Wasn't able to replicate with a 4a I wonder whether it's realted to the case where North Face "defaced"[0] Wikipedia by changing photos in the site which shows their logo in order to boost brand awareness in google image search results [0] https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/05/29/lets-talk-about-the-north-face-defacing-wikipedia/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/05/29/lets-talk-ab...

Zigurd 2y ago

Clear as day. Taken moments ago: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kB7hnyFh5GymYEnC6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/kB7hnyFh5GymYEnC6 Camera version version 9.3.160.621982096.22

crzyman 2y ago

This reminds me of how Samsung got caught using AI to fake high quality pictures of the moon. Someone proved it by blurring an image of the moon, then taking a picture of the blurred image, and it came out with tons of detail.