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At this point I wish we had legislation requiring a "turn off AI bullshit" option for any camera. Every time I've taken a picture of myself using the camera app built-in to WhatsApp, it blurs the shit out of my face in an attempt to hide blemishes or whatever, and (in a weird sort of reverse-vanity) it really annoys me that it gives the impression I care about looking un-blemished, which I do not. AFAICT, there is no way to turn this off.

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Is there any camera that doesn't let you disable advanced image processing algorithms? It'd have to be some sort of locked-down phone, because there are many camera apps for both Android and iPhone. Also the default camera apps do allow you to disable these features. Nobody is forcing anyone to use fancy image processing algorithms. Having the government intervene for something like this seems like overkill.

At least in the past, 1st party cameras apps used private apis to treasure pictures using certain features of the camera, and 3rd party cameras were unable to take advantage of this without system signature. I'm not sure if this still holds true, but I do know that 1st party camera apps are still frequently the best available for specialized cameras. (I don't keep up with this because I'm not into photography--I'm happy with ability to focus on a bar code a few inches away, something my first Android phone and tablet couldn't do)

Most any image filtering will soften faces even if that's not the point (either by accidentally removing noise or because image stacking doesn't work if there's noise.) If you want it to look "natural" you actually have to make an effort to add the noise back later.

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