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Hijacking this comment because of this line that reminded me of something: "There is a crazy amount of image processing going on behind the scenes in each smar

by 101008 2mo ago

Hijacking this comment because of this line that reminded me of something: "There is a crazy amount of image processing going on behind the scenes in each smartphone" I bought the Pixel 10 because it said it had great zooming capabilities. After 5X (that means 10X), it's completely stupid. Basically it takes a very blurred photo and then tries to reconstruct it with AI. The final results are completely awful and really distant from reality. Any advice in how to improve that?

RamblingCTO 2mo ago
Wasn't that the same manufacturer that got caught with the moon AI stuff? Lol
- dgacmu 2mo ago
  The was Samsung, iirc: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/11nzrb0/samsung_space_zoom_moon_shots_are_fake_and_here/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/11nzrb0/samsung_sp...
  - RamblingCTO 2mo ago
    Gotcha, thanks! Funny that they didn't learn from that one
- viciousvoxel 2mo ago
  That was samsung
dgacmu 2mo ago
In photos after you can toggle between the AI modified and original. The original isn't as blurry as the preview shown - there's still a lot of image stacking happening and it's often very decent in my experience. Edited to add: I have a pixel 10 pro which has a better zoom lens, so I could be having a different experience than you...
nemomarx 2mo ago
You can use third party camera apps - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.sourceforge.opencamera/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.sourceforge.opencamera/ is a decent one. I know there's a few professional ish options too with dslr ish focus control.
deepsun 2mo ago
One solution is to buy a more expensive Pro version that has optical 5x zoom (or, rather, a third camera that start at 5x).
cromka 2mo ago
> Basically it takes a very blurred photo and then tries to reconstruct it with AI So the ENHANCE is no longer just some lazy movie writing!
- johnvanommen 2mo ago
  Even funnier: The biggest of the "sharpening with AI" models, if you let 'em go, they'll turn you into a celebrity on accident. If you go to the Topaz AI forums on Facebook, you'll see examples of where the AI sharpening tool went off the rails and turned a blurry photo of someone (typically the user who bought the software, who is trying to clean up their own photos) into whichever celebrity that is in the AI model who resembles them. IE, it might turn a photo of YOU into a photo of Robert Downey Jr.
  - cromka 2mo ago
    That's hilarious! Also wonder how how long until photos are no longer court-admissible evidence because they get overwhelmed with the burden of the amount (and the cost) of the "non-AI" certification?
    - wildzzz 2mo ago
      We've been living in the age of photoshopped photos for decades now. You can't just present a random photo as evidence without being able to back up its provenance.
      - sebmellen 2mo ago
        As long as you know how to edit metadata, you can definitely fool minor “trust systems” like adjusters, police, etc. It’s a big gap. (For any future readers, no I have not done this and would never do it, really.) The only solution I see is some kind of hardware-linked signature showing that the image was produced at a certain time, by a certain device. In theory, you could make this signature somewhat “provable” and anchored to a specific time by combining something like 1) the latest Bitcoin block hash, and 2) a blockchain anchor, thereby proving that the photo was taken within a certain time widow after the hash was known and before the anchor was published. But even that arrangement is highly susceptible to hardware attacks.
som 2mo ago
Also have a 10 pro .. but the AI-enhanced zoom goes up to 100x and is actually pretty handy for working out what tiny things in the distance actually are ... even if it's only a representation of that thing. Often use it for identifying birds, boats, etc.
- spijdar 2mo ago
  I think my p10p's 100x zoom is neat, but I'd strongly caution against using it for ID in any sense, or necessarily even treating it as a photograph. It will "straight up hallucinate" objects into existence, more of a creative interpretation of 100x digital zoom than an oracle into the identity of something far off. Makes for a fine image if "looking good" is the objective (which it often is), but I wouldn't trust it to disambiguate anything uncertain.
gergely 2mo ago
go closer irl
nakedrobot2 2mo ago
No, 10X is fine - there is enough resolution on the sensor to just crop the 5x images to 10x without any weirdness. After 10x it's all over. Which is in itself quite insane. The camera is truly amazing, and complaining that this 10mm thick camera is no good at further than 10x seems utterly spoiled and ridiculous to me.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]

by 101008 2mo ago

RamblingCTO 2mo ago

Wasn't that the same manufacturer that got caught with the moon AI stuff? Lol

dgacmu 2mo ago
The was Samsung, iirc: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/11nzrb0/samsung_space_zoom_moon_shots_are_fake_and_here/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/11nzrb0/samsung_sp...
- RamblingCTO 2mo ago
  Gotcha, thanks! Funny that they didn't learn from that one
viciousvoxel 2mo ago
That was samsung

dgacmu 2mo ago

In photos after you can toggle between the AI modified and original. The original isn't as blurry as the preview shown - there's still a lot of image stacking happening and it's often very decent in my experience. Edited to add: I have a pixel 10 pro which has a better zoom lens, so I could be having a different experience than you...

nemomarx 2mo ago

You can use third party camera apps - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.sourceforge.opencamera/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.sourceforge.opencamera/ is a decent one. I know there's a few professional ish options too with dslr ish focus control.

deepsun 2mo ago

One solution is to buy a more expensive Pro version that has optical 5x zoom (or, rather, a third camera that start at 5x).

cromka 2mo ago

> Basically it takes a very blurred photo and then tries to reconstruct it with AI So the ENHANCE is no longer just some lazy movie writing!

johnvanommen 2mo ago
Even funnier: The biggest of the "sharpening with AI" models, if you let 'em go, they'll turn you into a celebrity on accident. If you go to the Topaz AI forums on Facebook, you'll see examples of where the AI sharpening tool went off the rails and turned a blurry photo of someone (typically the user who bought the software, who is trying to clean up their own photos) into whichever celebrity that is in the AI model who resembles them. IE, it might turn a photo of YOU into a photo of Robert Downey Jr.
- cromka 2mo ago
  That's hilarious! Also wonder how how long until photos are no longer court-admissible evidence because they get overwhelmed with the burden of the amount (and the cost) of the "non-AI" certification?
  - wildzzz 2mo ago
    We've been living in the age of photoshopped photos for decades now. You can't just present a random photo as evidence without being able to back up its provenance.
    - sebmellen 2mo ago
      As long as you know how to edit metadata, you can definitely fool minor “trust systems” like adjusters, police, etc. It’s a big gap. (For any future readers, no I have not done this and would never do it, really.) The only solution I see is some kind of hardware-linked signature showing that the image was produced at a certain time, by a certain device. In theory, you could make this signature somewhat “provable” and anchored to a specific time by combining something like 1) the latest Bitcoin block hash, and 2) a blockchain anchor, thereby proving that the photo was taken within a certain time widow after the hash was known and before the anchor was published. But even that arrangement is highly susceptible to hardware attacks.

som 2mo ago

Also have a 10 pro .. but the AI-enhanced zoom goes up to 100x and is actually pretty handy for working out what tiny things in the distance actually are ... even if it's only a representation of that thing. Often use it for identifying birds, boats, etc.

spijdar 2mo ago
I think my p10p's 100x zoom is neat, but I'd strongly caution against using it for ID in any sense, or necessarily even treating it as a photograph. It will "straight up hallucinate" objects into existence, more of a creative interpretation of 100x digital zoom than an oracle into the identity of something far off. Makes for a fine image if "looking good" is the objective (which it often is), but I wouldn't trust it to disambiguate anything uncertain.

gergely 2mo ago

go closer irl

nakedrobot2 2mo ago

No, 10X is fine - there is enough resolution on the sensor to just crop the 5x images to 10x without any weirdness. After 10x it's all over. Which is in itself quite insane. The camera is truly amazing, and complaining that this 10mm thick camera is no good at further than 10x seems utterly spoiled and ridiculous to me.

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]