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I disagree, I thought the article highlighted the differences beautifully. I'm on a professionally color calibrated 27" monitor that came with one of those colo

by neya 1y ago

I disagree, I thought the article highlighted the differences beautifully. I'm on a professionally color calibrated 27" monitor that came with one of those color calibration "certificates" at the time of purchase. The second I loaded the article, the differences were just stark. The skin tones alone were a dead giveaway. It is no secret that Apple does a lot of post processing on their mediocre photos to make them look good - more so than most other Androids - because, it's all software. But, from the article, it is understood that the author is trying to point out that Apple could've done a better job to represent skin tones more accurately atleast. The fish-eye defense for Apple is totally understandeable, but, why are we defending the weak skin tones? Every year, they keep launching and claiming grandoise statements "This is the best smartphone camera out there is". And no, this is not a limitation of smartphone sensors. In fact, if you look at the latest Xperia series from Sony, they have the same software from their DSLRs translated into the smartphones that addresses the skintones perfectly well. I hope we can skip past the biases and personal preferences we have towards Apple and treat them neutrally like any other manufacturer. This "Apple can do no wrong" narrative and attacking anyone who points out their flaws is just tired and boring at this point.

dagmx 1y ago
You’re somehow both reading far too in to my comment (none of my comment is specific to Apple) and not reading my comment enough (because you m missed the point about color profiles) I’m not defending the default color choices, I’m saying that they’re comparing apples to oranges because they’re comparing an output designed to be opinionated with one that’s designed to be processed after the fact. The iPhone is perfectly capable of outputting neutral images and raw files.
- ubercow13 1y ago
  The non-iPhone pictures are probably also in-camera jpegs so they are also 'opinionated', not RAWs.
  - Ancapistani 1y ago
    I would go so far as to say: if you're using in-camera JPEGs, you would probably be better off with a cellphone.
    - shakow 1y ago
      That's a very contemptuous thing to say. Even if one is using in-camera JPEG and does not want to spend 1hr/picture in Darktable, they can still play with many more objectives, exposure, shutter time, physical zoom, aperture, etc. I'd even go the other way around: if you just bought a camera, just use in-camera JPEGs for the first months and familiarize yourself with all the rest (positioning, framing, understanding your camera settings, etc.) before jumping into digital development.
      - Ancapistani 1y ago
        > That's a very contemptuous thing to say. I really don't think it is. When I pick up a camera, my intent is one of two things: the experience of photography itself, or the best quality I can reasonably obtain. Neither of those goals are attained with a smartphone. Every other time I take a photo, it's with a smartphone. It's easily good enough for the vast majority of use cases. > Even if one is using in-camera JPEG and does not want to spend 1hr/picture in Darktable, That's... absurd. Granted I lean toward a more "street photography" style, but it's exceptionally rare that I spend more then ~30s on a photo in Lightroom. Most of that time is spent cropping. White balance, exposure correction, etc. are all done in bulk. > they can still play with many more objectives, exposure, shutter time, physical zoom, aperture, etc. Sure - and why wouldn't you want to play with RAW as well? It's not like the profile the camera would have used isn't embedded in the RAW anyhow. > I'd even go the other way around: if you just bought a camera, just use in-camera JPEGs for the first months and familiarize yourself with all the rest (positioning, framing, understanding your camera settings, etc.) before jumping into digital development. I don't disagree with this at all. Of course there are edge cases; that's why I said "probably". To put it another way: if you're shooting JPEGs regularly, you're almost certainly not doing it for the craft. There are very few reasons I can think of to choose a traditional camera if you're not going to take advantage of the improvements in ISO and dynamic range that it offers - and those are two things you give up[0] shooting JPEG. 0: You give up ISO in that you are discarding much of the information that you could use to push/pull process, which is very often preferable to very high ISO. ETA: I just looked it up. In 2024, I kept 767 photos from my iPhone and 1,900 from my cameras. That includes multiple performances of my wife's dance studio, so the latter is heavily skewed by that. Excluding those, I kept 376. In other words, I appear to be taking my own advice here.
ksec 1y ago
>more so than most other Androids It the old days Apple used to somewhat pride themselves with taking more "realistic" photos. While Android had it the other way around and basically post processes a lot of things as well as colouring. Mostly used for Social Media like Instagram. And then came iPhone X. They started changing the colour of Sky and sharpening a lot of things. To the point of a lot of Photos taken by my camera looks great but also looked fake.
- petre 1y ago
  > And then came iPhone X. They started changing the colour of Sky and sharpening a lot of things. To the point of a lot of Photos taken by my camera looks great but also looked fake. The phone processing is lagely shaped by social media culture. Camera makers also started to incorporate in-camera editing features on vlogger targeted models.
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    > Camera makers also started to incorporate in-camera editing features on vlogger targeted models. DSLRs had in camera lighting correction during shooting and post-processing since 2016 or so [0]. [0]: https://www.nikonimgsupport.com/eu/BV_article?articleNo=000046825&configured=1&lang=en_GB https://www.nikonimgsupport.com/eu/BV_article?articleNo=0000...
    - petre 1y ago
      This is about skin smoothing anf other stuff. See under filter and self shot: https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-camcorders/lumix-mirrorless-cameras/lumix-g-cameras/dc-g100.specs.html https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-camcorders/lum... Star filter is especially funny since it's used in k-drama opening/closing sequences.
      - bayindirh 1y ago
        G100 is introduced in 2020, and is a mirrorless camera with significantly higher processing power. D-Lighting and other similar post processing stuff came at least half a decade before. Modern cameras like Nikon Z6/III can also do similar processing on camera during shoots to reduce post-processing load after the shoots to accelerate the production pipeline.
dkga 1y ago
I get the point… but I would counterargue, perhaps facetiously, that if one needs a professionally color calibrated screen to notice the difference, then it is really not something that would matter for mere mortals.
- prox 1y ago
  Without hyperbole I could give people a badly calibrated CRT from the 90s and it doesn’t matter to some. Some people just don’t see anything wrong with pictures, and don’t even know what to look for or what it’s called. The inverse are the professional photographers who work with pictures day in and out, they see everything.
  - Quarrel 1y ago
    I am amazed at the eye professional photographers have. A shot of a building that is suddenly really interesting, versus my shot of that building. Colour. Angle. etc. I just don't have the eye for it, despite having a decent amateur setup. BUT, yes, lots of people might look at a random photo on their phone and not notice skintones, or the fisheye etc. If you then give them a pile of 10 photos from a pro, versus 10 from an amateurs phone, they'll notice. Particularly if they're blown up a bit on a print or a decent screen. It might not matter if you are just flicking through 20 shots on your phone, but as the article implies, we have perception of these things, even when it is the subconscious.
    - amelius 1y ago
      Perhaps the amateurs have an internal network in their brain that corrects for badly shot photos. The professionals have learned to shut off that network.
    - throw0101c 1y ago
      > I just don't have the eye for it, despite having a decent amateur setup. Checkout this book by the late† Bryan Peterson, where he shows photos taken by his students as well as his own of the same location, and explains the differences in techniques/settings: * https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54228164-bryan-peterson-photography-school https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54228164-bryan-peters... His Understanding series of books are also good (Exposure is worth checking out if you know nothing about camera settings): * https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/82078.Bryan_Peterson https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/82078.Bryan_Peterson † April 2025: https://www.crottyfh.com/obituaries/bryan-peterson https://www.crottyfh.com/obituaries/bryan-peterson
hopelite 1y ago
You and most Apple obsessed curmudgeons are not really any better by ignoring what all this comes down to, choices and trade-offs. Apple’s primary objective is clearly related to taking photos that provide a positive impact on the user while being as easy to do so, not accuracy. They want the most number of users to be satisfied, not accurate reproduction of an image. I would not be surprised if they don’t actually want accuracy in imaging, they want a positive impact on the user, and if that means causing “hotdog skin” under some conditions or with some skin tones, while having an overall positive photo outcome for most other users, they will always choose to make you have “hotdog skin”. They are in serving a far greater audience than most understand. It is the narrow minded perspective of DSLR purist types that this stuff bothers, largely because they cannot look beyond the rim of their plate. You may want to stop saying “this Apple is a horrible, awful, no good orange.”
- sheiyei 1y ago
  Could say, the goal is an OK photo every time, even if it means you only get really good photos by accident.
hopelite 1y ago
You and most Apple neggers are not really any better by ignoring what all this comes down to, choices and trade-offs. Apple’s primary objective is clearly related to taking photos that provide a positive impact on the user while being as easy to do so as feasible, not accuracy of the image. They likely care more about the most number of users being satisfied, not accurate reproduction of an image. I would not be surprised if they don’t actually want accuracy in imaging at all, they want a positive impact on the user, and most people don’t want reality. If that means causing “hotdog skin” under some conditions or with some skin tones, or maybe even if most users prefer “hotdog skin”, while having an overall positive photo outcome for most other users; they will likely always choose to produce “hotdog skin”. They are also serving a far greater and, frankly an increasingly less light skinned audience than most understand. Maybe it’s just an effect of “whites” having given away their control over things as ever more “non-whites” become revert increasingly important and an ever increasing number and percentage of Apple’s users. Do Asians and Africans get “hotdog skin”? I don’t know the answer to that. It is the narrow minded perspective of DSLR purist types that this stuff bothers, largely because they cannot look beyond the rim of their plate. Some platforms are for accuracy, others for impact and user experience. People should maybe consider stop saying things like “this Apple is an absolutely horrible, awful, no good orange!”
sharpshadow 1y ago
If anyone working on skin color representation try to emulate Agfa Precisa it has with the best skin colors in natural light.
- nikhizzle 1y ago
  Thanks for this, this is very useful for a related ai project I’m working on.
- dotancohen 1y ago
  What about other colours? Isn't that film famously under saturated for sky, water, vegetation, etc?
  - sharpshadow 1y ago
    It very might be and it shouldn’t be easy to find good training pictures in the sea of amateur shoots online with different development techniques and light conditions, the last batch was also produced in 2005. Some previous generation of that film line might have similar skin tones. I would think that with modern techniques it isn’t necessary to apply the emulation to the whole image but to just the parts desired?
Karrot_Kream 1y ago
My hunch is that you'll find more fans of Apple's color profile than detractors. This particular shot may have done it badly (to your eyes, some people prefer the more saturated look) but as a whole I have my doubts. Color profiles vary per body at the least and are variable based on what post processing you do. I can load up Adobe Vivid and it'll look completely different than Adobe Portrait. Shoot a Canon, Sony, and Fuji in JPG on the same scene (so same focal length and DOF) and auto white balance. Each body will output a different image.

by neya 1y ago

dagmx 1y ago

You’re somehow both reading far too in to my comment (none of my comment is specific to Apple) and not reading my comment enough (because you m missed the point about color profiles) I’m not defending the default color choices, I’m saying that they’re comparing apples to oranges because they’re comparing an output designed to be opinionated with one that’s designed to be processed after the fact. The iPhone is perfectly capable of outputting neutral images and raw files.

ubercow13 1y ago
The non-iPhone pictures are probably also in-camera jpegs so they are also 'opinionated', not RAWs.
- Ancapistani 1y ago
  I would go so far as to say: if you're using in-camera JPEGs, you would probably be better off with a cellphone.
  - shakow 1y ago
    That's a very contemptuous thing to say. Even if one is using in-camera JPEG and does not want to spend 1hr/picture in Darktable, they can still play with many more objectives, exposure, shutter time, physical zoom, aperture, etc. I'd even go the other way around: if you just bought a camera, just use in-camera JPEGs for the first months and familiarize yourself with all the rest (positioning, framing, understanding your camera settings, etc.) before jumping into digital development.
    - Ancapistani 1y ago
      > That's a very contemptuous thing to say. I really don't think it is. When I pick up a camera, my intent is one of two things: the experience of photography itself, or the best quality I can reasonably obtain. Neither of those goals are attained with a smartphone. Every other time I take a photo, it's with a smartphone. It's easily good enough for the vast majority of use cases. > Even if one is using in-camera JPEG and does not want to spend 1hr/picture in Darktable, That's... absurd. Granted I lean toward a more "street photography" style, but it's exceptionally rare that I spend more then ~30s on a photo in Lightroom. Most of that time is spent cropping. White balance, exposure correction, etc. are all done in bulk. > they can still play with many more objectives, exposure, shutter time, physical zoom, aperture, etc. Sure - and why wouldn't you want to play with RAW as well? It's not like the profile the camera would have used isn't embedded in the RAW anyhow. > I'd even go the other way around: if you just bought a camera, just use in-camera JPEGs for the first months and familiarize yourself with all the rest (positioning, framing, understanding your camera settings, etc.) before jumping into digital development. I don't disagree with this at all. Of course there are edge cases; that's why I said "probably". To put it another way: if you're shooting JPEGs regularly, you're almost certainly not doing it for the craft. There are very few reasons I can think of to choose a traditional camera if you're not going to take advantage of the improvements in ISO and dynamic range that it offers - and those are two things you give up[0] shooting JPEG. 0: You give up ISO in that you are discarding much of the information that you could use to push/pull process, which is very often preferable to very high ISO. ETA: I just looked it up. In 2024, I kept 767 photos from my iPhone and 1,900 from my cameras. That includes multiple performances of my wife's dance studio, so the latter is heavily skewed by that. Excluding those, I kept 376. In other words, I appear to be taking my own advice here.

ksec 1y ago

>more so than most other Androids It the old days Apple used to somewhat pride themselves with taking more "realistic" photos. While Android had it the other way around and basically post processes a lot of things as well as colouring. Mostly used for Social Media like Instagram. And then came iPhone X. They started changing the colour of Sky and sharpening a lot of things. To the point of a lot of Photos taken by my camera looks great but also looked fake.

petre 1y ago
> And then came iPhone X. They started changing the colour of Sky and sharpening a lot of things. To the point of a lot of Photos taken by my camera looks great but also looked fake. The phone processing is lagely shaped by social media culture. Camera makers also started to incorporate in-camera editing features on vlogger targeted models.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  > Camera makers also started to incorporate in-camera editing features on vlogger targeted models. DSLRs had in camera lighting correction during shooting and post-processing since 2016 or so [0]. [0]: https://www.nikonimgsupport.com/eu/BV_article?articleNo=000046825&configured=1&lang=en_GB https://www.nikonimgsupport.com/eu/BV_article?articleNo=0000...
  - petre 1y ago
    This is about skin smoothing anf other stuff. See under filter and self shot: https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-camcorders/lumix-mirrorless-cameras/lumix-g-cameras/dc-g100.specs.html https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-camcorders/lum... Star filter is especially funny since it's used in k-drama opening/closing sequences.
    - bayindirh 1y ago
      G100 is introduced in 2020, and is a mirrorless camera with significantly higher processing power. D-Lighting and other similar post processing stuff came at least half a decade before. Modern cameras like Nikon Z6/III can also do similar processing on camera during shoots to reduce post-processing load after the shoots to accelerate the production pipeline.

dkga 1y ago

I get the point… but I would counterargue, perhaps facetiously, that if one needs a professionally color calibrated screen to notice the difference, then it is really not something that would matter for mere mortals.

prox 1y ago
Without hyperbole I could give people a badly calibrated CRT from the 90s and it doesn’t matter to some. Some people just don’t see anything wrong with pictures, and don’t even know what to look for or what it’s called. The inverse are the professional photographers who work with pictures day in and out, they see everything.
- Quarrel 1y ago
  I am amazed at the eye professional photographers have. A shot of a building that is suddenly really interesting, versus my shot of that building. Colour. Angle. etc. I just don't have the eye for it, despite having a decent amateur setup. BUT, yes, lots of people might look at a random photo on their phone and not notice skintones, or the fisheye etc. If you then give them a pile of 10 photos from a pro, versus 10 from an amateurs phone, they'll notice. Particularly if they're blown up a bit on a print or a decent screen. It might not matter if you are just flicking through 20 shots on your phone, but as the article implies, we have perception of these things, even when it is the subconscious.
  - amelius 1y ago
    Perhaps the amateurs have an internal network in their brain that corrects for badly shot photos. The professionals have learned to shut off that network.
  - throw0101c 1y ago
    > I just don't have the eye for it, despite having a decent amateur setup. Checkout this book by the late† Bryan Peterson, where he shows photos taken by his students as well as his own of the same location, and explains the differences in techniques/settings: * https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54228164-bryan-peterson-photography-school https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54228164-bryan-peters... His Understanding series of books are also good (Exposure is worth checking out if you know nothing about camera settings): * https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/82078.Bryan_Peterson https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/82078.Bryan_Peterson † April 2025: https://www.crottyfh.com/obituaries/bryan-peterson https://www.crottyfh.com/obituaries/bryan-peterson

hopelite 1y ago

You and most Apple obsessed curmudgeons are not really any better by ignoring what all this comes down to, choices and trade-offs. Apple’s primary objective is clearly related to taking photos that provide a positive impact on the user while being as easy to do so, not accuracy. They want the most number of users to be satisfied, not accurate reproduction of an image. I would not be surprised if they don’t actually want accuracy in imaging, they want a positive impact on the user, and if that means causing “hotdog skin” under some conditions or with some skin tones, while having an overall positive photo outcome for most other users, they will always choose to make you have “hotdog skin”. They are in serving a far greater audience than most understand. It is the narrow minded perspective of DSLR purist types that this stuff bothers, largely because they cannot look beyond the rim of their plate. You may want to stop saying “this Apple is a horrible, awful, no good orange.”

sheiyei 1y ago
Could say, the goal is an OK photo every time, even if it means you only get really good photos by accident.

hopelite 1y ago

You and most Apple neggers are not really any better by ignoring what all this comes down to, choices and trade-offs. Apple’s primary objective is clearly related to taking photos that provide a positive impact on the user while being as easy to do so as feasible, not accuracy of the image. They likely care more about the most number of users being satisfied, not accurate reproduction of an image. I would not be surprised if they don’t actually want accuracy in imaging at all, they want a positive impact on the user, and most people don’t want reality. If that means causing “hotdog skin” under some conditions or with some skin tones, or maybe even if most users prefer “hotdog skin”, while having an overall positive photo outcome for most other users; they will likely always choose to produce “hotdog skin”. They are also serving a far greater and, frankly an increasingly less light skinned audience than most understand. Maybe it’s just an effect of “whites” having given away their control over things as ever more “non-whites” become revert increasingly important and an ever increasing number and percentage of Apple’s users. Do Asians and Africans get “hotdog skin”? I don’t know the answer to that. It is the narrow minded perspective of DSLR purist types that this stuff bothers, largely because they cannot look beyond the rim of their plate. Some platforms are for accuracy, others for impact and user experience. People should maybe consider stop saying things like “this Apple is an absolutely horrible, awful, no good orange!”

sharpshadow 1y ago

If anyone working on skin color representation try to emulate Agfa Precisa it has with the best skin colors in natural light.

nikhizzle 1y ago
Thanks for this, this is very useful for a related ai project I’m working on.
dotancohen 1y ago
What about other colours? Isn't that film famously under saturated for sky, water, vegetation, etc?
- sharpshadow 1y ago
  It very might be and it shouldn’t be easy to find good training pictures in the sea of amateur shoots online with different development techniques and light conditions, the last batch was also produced in 2005. Some previous generation of that film line might have similar skin tones. I would think that with modern techniques it isn’t necessary to apply the emulation to the whole image but to just the parts desired?

Karrot_Kream 1y ago

My hunch is that you'll find more fans of Apple's color profile than detractors. This particular shot may have done it badly (to your eyes, some people prefer the more saturated look) but as a whole I have my doubts. Color profiles vary per body at the least and are variable based on what post processing you do. I can load up Adobe Vivid and it'll look completely different than Adobe Portrait. Shoot a Canon, Sony, and Fuji in JPG on the same scene (so same focal length and DOF) and auto white balance. Each body will output a different image.