YouTuber Marques Brownlee, additionally know as MKBHD, shared the outcomes of his 2022 Smartphone Awards final month. And though the iPhone 14 Professional gained within the Finest Digital camera System class, the YouTuber identified some flaws relating to the photographs taken with Apple’s newest smartphone. Now MKBHD is again with a video wherein he particulars why some iPhone photographs are getting worse – and the reply is: post-processing.
Earlier than the outcomes of the 2022 Smartphone Awards, MKBHD additionally shared the outcomes of its blind digital camera take a look at. On this one, Google’s Pixel 6A took first place, whereas the Pixel 7 Professional got here in second. This led the YouTuber and many individuals to marvel what’s occurring with the photographs taken with the iPhone.
Picture post-processing is changing into exaggerated
To be able to take image, it’s vital to have sensor able to capturing as a lot mild and element as doable. Nevertheless, since digital camera sensors present in smartphones are very small in comparison with DSLRs, cellphone producers have been introducing new methods yearly to enhance these pictures with post-processing.
Just about any trendy smartphone makes use of a mixture of {hardware} and software program to regulate pictures after they’ve been taken in an try and make them look higher and compensate for the dearth of a big sensor. This contains issues like lowering the noise stage, adjusting the white steadiness, and rising the brightness to indicate extra element in darkish scenes.
However in recent times, Apple and different corporations have been taking this to the subsequent stage. On the iPhone, Sensible HDR combines a number of photographs in several settings into one. This permits the cellphone to decide on the very best points of every of them to end in a greater picture. However when there’s lots of post-processing occurring, these pictures can look unrealistic. And that is what has been occurring with the iPhone digital camera.
As identified by MKBHD, most telephones deal with properly in favorable situations, reminiscent of a transparent sky or a topic in entrance of a transparent background. However when you might have completely different colours and textures in the identical scene, the post-processing have to be good sufficient to grasp what would be the finest setting for all these components.
However the factor is, whereas corporations like Google are doing it the proper method, Apple is certainly not. As proven by the YouTuber, the iPhone 14 Professional at all times tries to lighten the shadows, particularly on individuals’s faces, making the picture look very synthetic. The iPhone additionally exaggerates the sharpness of the photographs in comparison with different smartphones. MKBHD even complains that his pores and skin tone appears fairly completely different on the iPhone digital camera.
Apple is ruining the iPhone digital camera with all these good options
Even when the iPhone has nice digital camera {hardware}, it’s being ruined by all of the good options like Sensible HDR that Apple has been introducing in recent times. Yearly, the corporate provides much more steps to the digital camera post-processing. However as a substitute of creating the photographs higher, they simply make it extra unnatural.
Within the iPhone 14 Professional digital camera overview by Sebastiaan de With, developer of the favored digital camera app Halide, he additionally identified a number of flaws in Sensible HDR. For instance, each time there’s a really vibrant background, the iPhone additionally tries to spice up the brightness of the individuals within the picture, making them look very white. “I’ve truthfully by no means seen it make for a greater picture. The result’s merely jarring,” he mentioned.
In one other instance, the iPhone digital camera applies lots of “weird artifacts” to selfies taken in actually low-light environments to attempt to save the picture, however this finally ends up leading to an “absurd watercolor-like mess” as a substitute of an everyday darkish picture with lots of noise.
Personally, I’ve additionally been noticing how Sensible HDR is ruining a few of my photographs, which additionally get too sharp and with exaggerated colours. On Reddit, many iPhone customers appear to agree with this.
Apple ought to give customers the choice to take pure photographs
For years, iPhone customers made enjoyable of different smartphones as a result of their photographs regarded too synthetic. Now we’ve reached the purpose the place iPhone photographs look very unnatural. Whereas I hope the corporate improves Sensible HDR, I would like an choice to cut back or fully flip off picture post-processing within the iPhone digital camera.
You’ll be able to, after all, take a RAW picture utilizing apps like Halide (it’s price noting that ProRAW photographs are nonetheless post-processed), however then you definitely’ll have a a lot bigger picture file simply to get a extra pure outcome.
What about you? Has the iPhone digital camera’s exaggerated post-processing been ruining your photographs too? Tell us within the feedback part beneath.
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