The more I talk to other photographers and people I would call photo enthusiasts IRL the more I see computational photography and machine learning based editing becoming the norm. Yeah, itâs kind of a joke right now (at least from that video) but if life has taught me anything convenience will always win out for most people.
I think weâre kind of speaking toward a niche audience here and thatâs just fine. Iâm glad things like Darktable and RawTherapee exist Iâm just not expecting the philosophy of the users here to be representative of the world in general. Well, itâs not representative of the photographers I really have contact with at any rate. I also wish more photography programs taught the âwhys.â I know it would mean more math but it seems important. From what Iâve gleaned about the photography department at the university I work at (I split my time between Physics and IT) itâs more or less a degree in working Adobe products and doesnât go much into what the knobs and sliders actually do.
I studied for a little while in a program that was all technique, but not math. The math of it is more image processing/computer science, as there is a whole way of artistic thinking about how to convey a message that is more than just working adobe things
IMHO most software has all the function you need. Knowing what you want it the tricky part, seeing the potential in an at first view totally boring image. Itâs difficult to edit an image if you donât have the final result in mind.
I remember the first 3D glasses for games in the late 90ies early 2000s. No head tracking, low framerates, abysmal resolution. Supposedly there were real VR sets found somewhere at the same time, with head tracking. None of those come close to a VR implementation from today.
Whatâs my point?
The Interface, while having many important ingredients, was not at the threshold at which the interface becomes invisible. The interface was prominently in between you and the virtual reality. âdirect contact with the stringsâ only means that there is nothing in between you and whatever creates sounds. Whether these sounds are created in a tangible world or a CPU+GPU doesnât matter. (The discussion about the richness of real world sounds and to what point they can be emulated is a whole other)
If a slider adjustment becomes instant, the line between virtual reality and reality blurs and vanishes. Then virtual life, once the interface becomes invisible, is as tangible as real life. In that case only four strings and a bow will suffice.
I donât understand. If the interface becomes invisible, you just stare at a computer. Or is the point to stuff user with motion sensors everywhere such that playing air-guitar actually makes sound ?
I mean, 3D glasses simulate a virtual world, they donât get you a print or any tangible product at the end.
My point was a lot of variables are handled implicitly by a human hand and the learning process turns technical gestures into reflexes. So you barely think to all the parameters you need to control, your intent + experience/muscle memory is often enough.
If you want an emulation of reality in virtual, you have at least to break the process into a sequence of elementary sub-processes, find all the dependent variables of each subprocess, build a model that ties them, and have some way to pass them to the model.
The interface may be a 2D screen or a 3D virtual reality, you still need to feed inputs/parameters to the models inside.
sadly, thatâs the trurth. Somehow itâs even a scandal. And itâs also ridculous. You get a scientific degree for knowing how to use the software of one company. Well, I guess there is a difference between degreesâŚ
There are all kinds of âhybridâ or âinterdisciplinaryâ schools since quite some time now⌠the person that I thought of has a masterâs degree in science that he got at a technical school (âFachhochschuleâ), or, to be more exact he has the (German/Austrian) degree âDiplomingenieurâ, but really he has studied video editing (and directing), so he is actually some kind of artist. He also had to learn very little programming and math. Itâs kindâ of like studying architecture at a technical university. So in fact I did not think of a Bachelor or Master of Arts.
I hold a Doctor of Computer Science degree (DCS, if one is interested in nomenclature), which I attained with only four math courses scattered through all three degrees. That is, if you donât count the statistics courses, the âevil mathâ⌠Started with a B.S. in business, minimal calculus, and went from there.
That has really not served me well, as Iâve had to home-learn a lot of math Iâve encountered in my career ("Taylor series?? What the hell is that? )
And then, to take respite from all that, I took on the hobby of PhotographyâŚ
I think of the computer (and itâs peripherals) as the Interface to the product. The product may be a virtual-reality, a sound (a synthesizer for example), or a picture which one is editing.
They actually create a striking immersion into the virtual reality. So much so, that you will experience (tangible to your senses) fear of heights, nausea from vertigo and so on. So my point is that an invisible interface can very much facilitate playing the instrument of darktable for you to hold a tangible print at the end of the process. Because the computer gets out of your sight or the interface for manipulation of said image gets out of your way, the creative process becomes more fluid, more like dripping color onto a canvas.
This is what I would describe like this: The instrument is transparent, you focus on the outcome or how you play, not with how many parameters you play.
Maybe like this: A stradivari does not have a better sound because you use more fingers to control it. I imagine it just reacts nicer to the control inputs. It doesnât have more sound parametrs to tweak than other violins. Being a good Organ, Piano or Violin player is not about the parameters you have at your literal fingertips, itâs about how you can get rid of that physical abstraction layer and think the music you want to play.
In short: I see strong support for @CarVac 's statement,
and I use way too many words to express that sorry!
Itâs not so much about how many fingers you have, than how much a single finger can control. Just the vibrato alone : you can vary its depth and modulate it in time by a slight shift in position. You can make the bow slide or jump or a combination of both to make more blended or aggressive sounds. Then you can adjust the velocity and force. There is really a lot going on on these 4 strings (which explains why itâs so difficult).
The complexity lies in the nature of the control you can exert IRL, for which the metaphor of the 4 strings is really incomplete. In appearance, the instrument is simple. Yes. But thatâs completely misleading, there is much to it.
What is it you call interface ? Because even IRL, you donât magically splash pure color onto canvas by the power of your brain, you have some sort of brush and you depend on a support . Same as a music instrument is, to me, an interface between the player and the actual sound, the painting process has an interface between the painter and the final image . I canât imagine a scenario where we are working a pure image or a pure sound with no materiality at all (or a methaphor of materiality, at least).
I was speaking more towards their digital asset management and editing courses. Itâs a four year program and they have classes on physical world technique too. Just the things they teach on the computer side lean towards a degree in Lightroom and Photoshop. Which given most schools are tuned towards getting people employment these days (especially bachelor programs) is probably not terribly unreasonable just somewhat disappointing IMO. Employers look for skills in certain software packages mostly. The rest of it is probably not a lot of use outside of art, science, engineering and academia if getting employed as a social media consultant by a big company is your ultimate end goal.
Sadly they donât even really seem to teach the really needed parts of digital asset management that well. Donât know how many kids Iâve had to help out after theyâve jammed 50-100GB of RAWs on their school accountâs Google drive and filled it up.
I concur but as @ggbutcher said these degrees I think are more a means to an end. BAs in the American system are more about making someone employable than anything else. Individuals or companies recruiting in this field are just looking for someone who can slide switches in Creative Cloud because itâs the âindustry standard.â They really arenât looking for inquisitiveness, vision or a history of producing unique work. Just âcan you do this in this software program and make sure it meats with our brandâs social media guidelinesâ type stuff. The slide towards more academic pursuits donât happen until masters or doctoral programs and even that varies a lot by school.
I know, I played Cello for over twelve years. This is exactly the reason why I say what I say. And the stradivari comparison still holds. Or better the question what differentiates it from other violins. All these Instruments hold in priciple the same amount of control parameters, yet some are easier to play, sound better, or the musician just likes it better on a personal level. I attribute all this to a better access or response to the parameter-volume.
Well, the brush is not the painting. Itâs part of the materialization of the product, sure. But this Interface, very abstractly speaking, is not the product. It informs the process with which it materializes.
Any camera lens can take a picture, a better lens will give a technically better picture, but a good picture is not necessarily taken with a good lens.
A good lens can help with taking the picture, but the creator is making it good.
I know I am jumping from instruments, to painting, to cameralenses, to raw-software, but only because I think they are all tools we use to achieve what we want to express.
I certainly want to find out what raw-development software is the Stradivari of them all. I have the funny feeling that this is more about refining Implementations than about sheer size and volume of feature set. Do a few things excellent, but those truly excellent AND easy to use. I need: responsiveness (vkdt), color accuracy (@ggbutcherâs SSFs for all cameras), gamut and dynamic range control (filmic/tone-eq/filmulator), denoising (dt-nl-means), local contrast (filmulator), local adjustments (ART), stylization (display-referred nik-collection).
Pardon me for the digression, but I have seen a similar dichotomy in PC sound systems, particularly with the Linux application, Pulse Effects.
I have had to get support help with it a couple of times, and the contact listed has always been very helpful. One time, he spent several hours with me on a problem I was having, and the end result was that the problem was a configuration issue on my end. He was still cheerful about the whole thing.
So, I plugged him in several social channels, announcing that the developer had spent so much of his time helping me. But later, as I was digging deeper into the features, I discovered that the actual developer is a Russian who is using a lot of advanced mathematics and applied physics to actually create the application. I myself once studied advanced calculus and physics at a major technical university, and I was blown away by the things the Russian does.
I think its even worse than that. I was participating in a web group that became inundated with newbies who bought entry level DSLRs and wanted to immediately set out as wedding photographers, without any experience whatsoever. One of them even announced that she had her first wedding gig the upcoming weekend and asked how to get a moody look. And people told her to just go out and buy a bunch of Adobe presets. I told her that the most two fearsome forces in nature were a hurt bride and an angry dad with an attorney, and theyâd both be competing for attention. I didnât have anything to do with that group afterwards.
What Aurelien thinks a professional violinist looks like:
What a professional violinist really looks like:
I donât own a stradivari. But when people talk about it it seems they are not really easier to play. You need a certain degree of technique to exploit their full capabilities. Amateurs actually seem to find them more difficult to play.
Or even professionals:
Set up perfectly you might end up with a nasty wolf tone:
(Augustin Hadelich playing on his Guarneri âLeducâ)
)
sorry!
