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Comment by Almondsetat | Hacker News Reader

Framing is different because of bad lens choice on the photo part (why always shoot wide angle??) and this skews the results immensely and unfairly (composition is the most important thing in a photo).

Colors are fine on anything that isn't skin tones. But even then, smartphone manufacturers actually focus a lot on skin tones, so if these are the results it's because they have determined this is the look most people like.

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"you will have the average complexion and you will like it" rofl

who are you quoting?

it seems you accept having your skin color changed by the iPhone algorithm... I do not accept that so was making light of it

All cameras imprint their own color signature to photos, so I really don't understand what you're talking about. Some people buy exclusively Canon cameras because their JPEG profiles give "good" skin tones straight out of the camera. Does that mean they are "accepting" Canon's opinion of what skin should look like?

Yes. Everyone does, with every manufacturer, and Apple evidently has determined their visual style. At least they also provide you with an optional semi-raw output you can freely edit if you so desire.

Not really. Look at the sky, it's very different between the two. This is something I've noticed constantly with iPhones in particular. To the point where I don't bother trying to take photos that focus on the sky or sunset as it heavily processes the results (extreme oranges and deep blues).

Those are the colors people like. Go and look at how photographers usually try to make skies more dramatic for clients in all kind of photoshoots (weddings, events, postcard pictures, etc.). That's what the market wants. You can disagree, but it's not like smartphone companies are incompetent and don't know how photography works (not that you have made this claim)

I don’t think we disagree. It’s the broader point of phones now doing the editing for you. If you enjoy photography then this is “worse” as you would prefer to do that yourself in Lightroom. If you don’t enjoy photography this is “better” as your result look great without additional effort (for me it’s the former).

Phones have always been designed for "normal" people, nonetheless manufacturers are actually giving pros more tools than ever. Smartphone photography might have been less processed in the early 2010s, but the outputs were difficult to edit and jpeg only. At least nowadays the big players allow you to shoot also in raw formats. Before smartphones, "normal" people who wanted to take photos without bothering too much would have simply shot in JPEG and blindly trusted the color decisions from the camera manufacturer, or by the chemical engineers at the film/development/printing factory.

Well, you could just as well shoot RAW with the iPhone and fiddle with it in Lightroom. It just so seems that few people, even few amateur photographers, are doing that...?

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