[interested_observer]

I came across this and thought that it may be of interest....

You can buy a Pixel phone if you want AI to enhance your photos every time you press the shutter button, and services like Google Photos use AI for minor fixes and clever effects. But what if you wish your photos looked like they were taken with a much better camera? Scientists might have an answer. They've developed a neural network system that's focused solely on giving your photos a "DSLR-quality" look. It's not flawless, but its novel approach points to a future where your phone knows what photos should look like and tweaks shots to match.

The researchers started out by training a deep learning system using photos taken of the same scene using a phone and a DSLR. It's effective, but it can only improve the quality for the smartphone in question. That led to a more sophisticated system, however: the new network only needs to see two sets of images from different cameras to understand how to apply the image quality from one to the other. In other words, you can feed it any photo and expect results that are more comparable to a target camera. You can try it yourself.

• Neural network gives your phone 'DSLR-quality' photos

• Test out the software on an image - AI Photos
• Website - AI Photos
• IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), 2017 Paper - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.02470.pdf

[AstroDave]

And if I do this to my DSLR pictures, can I make them look like I took them with an 8x10 view camera!?

[boriscleto]

Neural network? Isn't that what Skynet was in the Terminator franchise?

[interested_observer]

Well actually it appears to apply some post processing to make the original image appear to be more similar to an image taken by a dSLR. The software does nothing to "improve" the smartphone's sensor, lens, etc. There is yet another approach that "analyzes" the scene and sets the camera parameters prior to capturing the image to improve the image quality.

• Meet Arsenal, the Smart Camera Assistant

[stevebrot]

And if I do this to my DSLR pictures...

They will look like you took them with a cell phone...


Steve

[gatorguy]

Google is already using AI for image enhancement, originally for Street View but now looking towards Google Photos at some point in the future.
Research Blog: Using Deep Learning to Create Professional-Level Photographs

[photoptimist]

This is great news for snapshots and commercial photographers in some genres but not so applicable for more creative and artistic photographers.

To the extent that one takes photos that are just like all the other photos in the AI's database, the AI will do a great job of removing the noise of the phone's sensor and adding the detail the DSLR would have captured.

But to the extent that one takes photos of unusual objects or under unusual conditions, the AI will likely fail to recognize the components in the image or mis-apply corrections to make the photo look more "normal".

[alpheios]

This is definitely the future. Software and AI will help overcome the physical limitations of smartphone photography. But it’s still a long way before photos from a smartphone will look like they were taken with a DSLR. I mean just look at the sample pictures. Most of them look better before than after the software was applied. The highlights are blown especially in the clouds, some lack contrast and colors are over saturated on some.

[biz-engineer]

The first step would be to use Pentax DSLR to green mode that is using scene analysis , and, in some cases it works really well.

[honey bo bo]

I'll be damned if they get my photons!!!! On with my Tin Foil Helmet !

[macman24054]

Oh well, I guess I will soon be a starving artist. Oh yea, I already am.

[BrianR]

We can expect it will improve in the future.

Neural network? Isn't that what Skynet was in the Terminator franchise?

"I'll be back... with my Hasselblad-quality editor"

[lsimpkins]

They will look like you took them with a cell phone...

Steve

[Rondec]

Taking a look at the examples, it looks like it simply boosts exposure, contrast, and saturation, i.e. things that can be fixed with minor tweaks to a phone's RAW processing algorithms.

And no, the photos don't look any more "DSLR-like," just slightly more processed. It also appears quite adept at blowing out highlights that were originally properly exposed and adding posterization, making the already poor DR in the images even worse.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Exactly. People are posting about this without even looking at the before and after images. They do nothing resembling what the article says (turning cell phone camera into an SLR performance).

To me this is no more then hitting the auto button in Lightroom. It bumps the things you mentioned, but the end result really looks messy in a different sort of way -- more noise, you notice the inaccurate colors and the lack of dynamic range.

Everyone is constantly talking about making cell phones work as well or better than cameras with lenses and sensors many times bigger. And if all you are doing is posting to Facebook, you can probably do a passable job with a cell phone, but for most other things the deficiencies do show up pretty quickly.

[monochrome]

Exactly. People are posting about this without even looking at the before and after images. They do nothing resembling what the article says (turning cell phone camera into an SLR performance).

To me this is no more then hitting the auto button in Lightroom. It bumps the things you mentioned, but the end result really looks messy in a different sort of way -- more noise, you notice the inaccurate colors and the lack of dynamic range.

Everyone is constantly talking about making cell phones work as well or better than cameras with lenses and sensors many times bigger. And if all you are doing is posting to Facebook, you can probably do a passable job with a cell phone, but for most other things the deficiencies do show up pretty quickly.

Count me skeptical. I just traded my old business iPad 4 for and iPad Pro 9.7”. Aside from the impossible ergonomics for photography, I will say the default images for snapshots (faces, head/shoulders) are dramatically sharper and better exposed for large screen viewing.

My experience has been 4x6 Walgreens prints from phone files are soft. K-1 / KP + 28-105, 24-70 and just about any prime is printable at my Lightroom skill level to 8x10 on a Pixma.