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Comment by Lu2025 | Hacker News Reader

Lu2025

This made me thinking about broader optical corrections. I got an iPhone 16, and the photos look overprocessed. There is a cartoonish HD-like feel to them. I understand where developers are coming from: our eyes have higher dynamic range than cameras so HDR is closer to what we see but still... it doesn't sit right with me. I still remember when my family switched from black and white TV to a color one. It was an instant improvement and no adjustment period was needed. But HDR as a default looks strange.

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The problem is that there are two things going on.

1. “HDR” is often referring to a tone mapping to convert the 10-14 bits of dynamic range in a camera’s raw file into the 8bits that fit into a jpeg (and often the screen).

2. HDR also refers to actually showing more than those 8bits of information. Saving more than 8bits in the image and having a screen that can show more than 8 bits of color.

#1 is real easy to make look unnatural, and most phones go over the top with it. #2 is a straightforward improvement and basically always makes the photo better.

The huge screens and insanely high resolution HD ends up looking hyperreal. Not sure if anyone else has noticed the same, but its mildly uncomfortable and makes me want to watch less. Its sort of exhausting and overstimulatimg

I have to wonder to what extent the strangeness is just unfamiliarity.

I think that's why they explicitly added the story about the color TV being an instant improvement.

FWIW, I've felt over the years that if you have to get used to it, it probably wasn't that good to begin with: so so many things that are totally different I've upgraded to and thought "omg this is amazing! how did I ever live before?" and, if I have to go back, it takes a long time to get used to the bad thing again.

The one example I have off the top of my head: higher resolution monitors. I was totally happy with my lower resolution monitors; but, the second I tried a higher resolution monitor, it ruined me for lower resolution monitors. I can totally get used to it again, but it takes a long time, and I really don't want to; upgrading, though, is instantaneously better.

I think these questions that all of you have brought up here are really interesting and definitely a part of the psychology of perception. Optical corrections, however, are really a different thing though. They have quite a strict demarcation in that they specifically deal with how we perceive the geometry/measurements/space of things.

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