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limitations (techresearchonline.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/post/331921

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[–] 23 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

What’s funny is this was all predictable. We had the same problem when we started with photography in general. It worked well on white people but made every black person a featureless black void.

Turns out we test these things mainly on white men then call it a success when it works exclusively for us white men.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 weeks ago

    Over a decade ago I was hired as a third party to a third party to a company that was hired by some confidential customer we would never get the identity of. There was some biometric stuff involved on the project, to which we had to import some devices - but they got stuck on customs for a while simply because it had bio in the name. We tried to make do with what we could and were pretty confident when we tested with the real device on the last day before a supposed presentation we also knew nothing about.

    Next day we get the news: it went terrible. And we got a feedback: "it failed to identify most kids on the school". That's fair, we never even considered testing it with kids.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

    Uh? There has never been a time when it was not practical to photograph black people, since photography first became practical. Some autoexposure algorithms are shit at black people (for the reason you give), but that came long after its inception and doesnt actually prevent taking a good picture.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

    The early days cameras were less sensitive to red light needed for darker skin tones. Some of this could be overcome with lighting that wasn’t readily available.

    It possible to do it sure, you could make a picture that was close to the clarity of lighter skin tone. If you have to put in a lot of extra effort and time (that often wasn’t done at all) to take the same picture you could of a white person, I’d say that means the film doesn’t work well with black people. It clearly wasn’t particle because people rarely put in the effort to properly light them.

    Why argue with something we have facts about? I didn’t make this up in a shower. I read it in articles written by professionals.

    To give an example. I don’t drive a Ferrari . With a new engine and modifications I could make it as fast as a Ferrari . Or I could slash the tires of the Ferrari. However I can’t go around saying “my car is as fast as a Ferrari because if I put the effort in it would be as fast”

    I didn’t, and it isn’t.

    If you have to put a lot of extra work into something to make it equal, then it isn’t equal.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    The early cameras were insensitive to all colours. That's why you had to stand still for a long time to have your picture taken. I don't know what specific process you're talking about that is insensitive to red light specifically, nor why that would be problem for dark skin specifically, when both Caucasian and African skin types tend to reflect more red than other colours of light, making it a matter of exposure, not colour.

    Happy to be shown wrong.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    Here’s a quick picture with a squirming white child (moving) and a still black woman. You can still make out more features in the white child. I’m assuming as well this was done by a professional who did his best to make both people clear.

    Maybe it’s just my eyesight tho.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    I don't think this is a limitation of the photographic process though. A higher exposure would reveal more detail in the woman's face. The child is correctly exposed, but the picture could still be pushed and retain detail in the child's face - so I'd guess that this is a choice by the photographer. If the woman is a slave or servant, the picture could well be of the child and so the photographer would have no reason to prioritise exposing for the woman's face.

    One smaller point - the woman's clothes are over-exposed - at least from the look of this digital reproduction. I don't really think it's likely that was a factor, but it tells you about the dynamic range available.

    Just to be explicit, taking photographs of your children being held by a black nanny and not caring whether the nanny is properly visible in the photo reveals some kind of prejudice in the person deciding on the photo, and it could well be evidence of a racist system in which black people are slaves, servants or other "lesser" positions in society, I am just not convinced that we are seeing any racist impact on the science of photography.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

    It’s racism in the sense I mentioned. It was tested and built around white people. It didn’t work as well on black people (requires more work, gear, and technique to get similar results). No one was in any real hurry to fix that.

    I might have been hyperbolic with features void. But yeah it was a problem. That should have taught us that this problem would come in ai.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

    Silver iodide plates don’t respond to red light. They respond better to blue and violet. That alone doesn’t cause the problem but it’s part of it. I can’t remember where I read that tho

    Without special lighting black people became a dark void. You could photograph them with special lighting and different techniques but that mostly wasn’t done.

    So I think it’s fair to say it didn’t work well for darker skin tones because in order to get a picture with similar quality you had to work a lot harder.

    I do agree in the later days it was more a specific caused by racism but from the beginning it was more difficult to photograph darker skin tones and no one really cared because of racism. I wasn’t caused by the racism tho. It was caused by the technology at that time… that no one cared enough to fix it.

    That mentality carried on until I believe the Kodachrome made all the world a sunny day. I’m not an expert tho.

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