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Pretty sure wedding photographers solved this problem a long time ago, though I hope none of them let the facial recognition vampires in on the mysterious secre

Pretty sure wedding photographers solved this problem a long time ago, though I hope none of them let the facial recognition vampires in on the mysterious secrets of basic lighting and exposure.

quicklime 3y ago
If they paid as much money for each photo in the training data as people do for wedding photos, I’m sure the problem would go away.
Tozen 3y ago
Exactly. This issue is very solvable and people have been using various solutions for many years. The hurdle is not technology, its other factors.
taeric 3y ago
You'd be wrong, of course. The dynamic range of the film was out of their control. And, not shockingly, a lot of lessons film companies learned were lost in the transition to digital. Or rather, they are taking time to spread there. Is annoying, as it is not a conspiracy. It is hard, though, and we see the speed of knowledge spread more now. Or, rather, the relative lack of speed.
- staticautomatic 3y ago
  What a red herring. Whether or not the photographer controls the dynamic range of the film has nothing to do with whether the range is wide enough or whether the film has a density curve suitable for photographing a black person.
  - taeric 3y ago
    But it has a very real impact on the settings you have to use otherwise to get a good shot? That is, I'm mostly inclined to agree with you. But I also trusted a ton of the other discussion I've seen on this. Which seems to be largely in agreement that film itself had to change to get good pictures of darker skinned people. I got the impression that if you go with black and white, you dodge many of these problems, amusingly. But adding color to the mix makes things very difficult.
klodolph 3y ago
Wedding photographers had a hard time with dark-skinned subjects. Color film was fine-tuned for specific matter back in the day, and the two common varieties available were (1) optimized to make light-skinned people look nice, and (2) optimized to make vivid colors. These two approaches were at odds, because anything which made vivid colors would exaggerate skin blemishes. Films in category #2 sometimes worked better with dark-skinned subjects, because these films tended to be more neutral overall, but this was a bit of a crapshoot. Anyone shooting light-skinned subjects had an easier time, because they had films which were purpose-built to make their job easier. Examples of film pairs in category #1/#2: Kodak 160NC / 160VC, Fuji NPS 160 / NPC 160. Maybe Fuji Astia/Provia. Velvia 50 fell solidly in category #2. There are also films that don’t really fit in either category, like Kodak 100UC. Digital cameras contain processing that makes many of the same tradeoffs as film, it’s just that you have a lot more flexibility to make adjustments on the digital side of things. Designing cameras to be “neutral” or “accurate” is not really an option, when it comes to color, due to the sheer complexity of the problem. This is a lot more complicated than just thinking about RGB or XYZ. You get to choose between different inaccurate options, which are each optimized for some specific set of use cases.
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
  Most wedding photographers aren't using film. Film is a very small niche these days. These days you shoot in raw with a digital camera, vary the exposure if needed, and set the white balance as needed when editing. If you know how to use your equipment you shouldn't have any problem taking photos of people of any skin color, not even the lightest person next to the darkest.
  - klodolph 3y ago
    > Most wedding photographers aren't using film. They were using film “a long time ago”. Wedding photographers have only been shooting digital for 20 years or so. Early digital had a somewhat poor dynamic range. It’s gotten better, but it was really rough in the early days. > If you know how to use your equipment you shouldn't have any problem taking photos of people of any skin color, not even the lightest person next to the darkest. This statement seems so obviously and fundamentally wrong that I must be missing something. I meet enough photographers that know how to use their equipment, but have never taken a decent photograph in their life, except one or two exceptions which appear to be accidents. This seems like a very natural and understandable thing to me—there’s a lot to painting besides understanding how to use brushes and paint, and there’s a lot to building a house besides knowing how to use a nailgun and circular saw. There’s a lot more to programming than knowing how to use your compiler. Maybe I’m missing the meaning here, because it doesn’t make any sense to me. > These days you shoot in raw with a digital camera, vary the exposure if needed, and set the white balance as needed when editing. That’s the first week of photography 101. Have you taken more advanced photography courses? Have you ever taken a photograph of a dark-skinned subject, wearing a pure white dress, and then printed it out? My personal experience is, that once you print your photos out (which is normal for wedding photos), and get some people with an experienced eye to look at them and give them a critique, you start to develop an appreciation for how understanding your equipment & process is just the barrier for entry to the field, and it makes you a novice. Let me tell you—it is not trivial to make the picture show a flattering image of both the dark skin, and the white dress, with the delicate details in both. You need to know a lot more than just how to use your equipment. It is especially difficult if you are not in control of the lighting. The raw workflow is nice, but your raw file goes through a lot of processing to turn into a viewable image, and many of the stock presets are modeled after the way film does it. You’re not really escaping the problem, in any sense, by using raw.

Pretty sure wedding photographers solved this problem a long time ago, though I hope none of them let the facial recognition vampires in on the mysterious secrets of basic lighting and exposure.

quicklime 3y ago

If they paid as much money for each photo in the training data as people do for wedding photos, I’m sure the problem would go away.

Tozen 3y ago

Exactly. This issue is very solvable and people have been using various solutions for many years. The hurdle is not technology, its other factors.

taeric 3y ago

You'd be wrong, of course. The dynamic range of the film was out of their control. And, not shockingly, a lot of lessons film companies learned were lost in the transition to digital. Or rather, they are taking time to spread there. Is annoying, as it is not a conspiracy. It is hard, though, and we see the speed of knowledge spread more now. Or, rather, the relative lack of speed.

staticautomatic 3y ago
What a red herring. Whether or not the photographer controls the dynamic range of the film has nothing to do with whether the range is wide enough or whether the film has a density curve suitable for photographing a black person.
- taeric 3y ago
  But it has a very real impact on the settings you have to use otherwise to get a good shot? That is, I'm mostly inclined to agree with you. But I also trusted a ton of the other discussion I've seen on this. Which seems to be largely in agreement that film itself had to change to get good pictures of darker skinned people. I got the impression that if you go with black and white, you dodge many of these problems, amusingly. But adding color to the mix makes things very difficult.

klodolph 3y ago

Wedding photographers had a hard time with dark-skinned subjects. Color film was fine-tuned for specific matter back in the day, and the two common varieties available were (1) optimized to make light-skinned people look nice, and (2) optimized to make vivid colors. These two approaches were at odds, because anything which made vivid colors would exaggerate skin blemishes. Films in category #2 sometimes worked better with dark-skinned subjects, because these films tended to be more neutral overall, but this was a bit of a crapshoot. Anyone shooting light-skinned subjects had an easier time, because they had films which were purpose-built to make their job easier. Examples of film pairs in category #1/#2: Kodak 160NC / 160VC, Fuji NPS 160 / NPC 160. Maybe Fuji Astia/Provia. Velvia 50 fell solidly in category #2. There are also films that don’t really fit in either category, like Kodak 100UC. Digital cameras contain processing that makes many of the same tradeoffs as film, it’s just that you have a lot more flexibility to make adjustments on the digital side of things. Designing cameras to be “neutral” or “accurate” is not really an option, when it comes to color, due to the sheer complexity of the problem. This is a lot more complicated than just thinking about RGB or XYZ. You get to choose between different inaccurate options, which are each optimized for some specific set of use cases.

SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
Most wedding photographers aren't using film. Film is a very small niche these days. These days you shoot in raw with a digital camera, vary the exposure if needed, and set the white balance as needed when editing. If you know how to use your equipment you shouldn't have any problem taking photos of people of any skin color, not even the lightest person next to the darkest.
- klodolph 3y ago
  > Most wedding photographers aren't using film. They were using film “a long time ago”. Wedding photographers have only been shooting digital for 20 years or so. Early digital had a somewhat poor dynamic range. It’s gotten better, but it was really rough in the early days. > If you know how to use your equipment you shouldn't have any problem taking photos of people of any skin color, not even the lightest person next to the darkest. This statement seems so obviously and fundamentally wrong that I must be missing something. I meet enough photographers that know how to use their equipment, but have never taken a decent photograph in their life, except one or two exceptions which appear to be accidents. This seems like a very natural and understandable thing to me—there’s a lot to painting besides understanding how to use brushes and paint, and there’s a lot to building a house besides knowing how to use a nailgun and circular saw. There’s a lot more to programming than knowing how to use your compiler. Maybe I’m missing the meaning here, because it doesn’t make any sense to me. > These days you shoot in raw with a digital camera, vary the exposure if needed, and set the white balance as needed when editing. That’s the first week of photography 101. Have you taken more advanced photography courses? Have you ever taken a photograph of a dark-skinned subject, wearing a pure white dress, and then printed it out? My personal experience is, that once you print your photos out (which is normal for wedding photos), and get some people with an experienced eye to look at them and give them a critique, you start to develop an appreciation for how understanding your equipment & process is just the barrier for entry to the field, and it makes you a novice. Let me tell you—it is not trivial to make the picture show a flattering image of both the dark skin, and the white dress, with the delicate details in both. You need to know a lot more than just how to use your equipment. It is especially difficult if you are not in control of the lighting. The raw workflow is nice, but your raw file goes through a lot of processing to turn into a viewable image, and many of the stock presets are modeled after the way film does it. You’re not really escaping the problem, in any sense, by using raw.