Image processing - photo realism
Lew
like to ask for opinions based on the comment made on 60 Minutes last
Sunday, June 1. The segment was a rebroadcast of "Hailing the Hubble."
NASA imaging specialist Zoltan Levay "uses scientific data to apply
color to Hubble's black and white images." On the face of it, I've got
no problem with that. Then Levay says, "We do adjust the color a
little bit, partly just so it looks better, and partly so it also
imparts the information that we'd like to get across. It's a
representation of reality, just as any photograph is not a literal
reality, but a representation of reality."
Perhaps Levay was not accurately describing the intent of the image
processing, but he as put it, "just so it looks better," I feel it
suggests far too much subjectivity. Put another way, does National
Geographic "enhance" astrophotos (and other photos?) just to be
attractive to readers?
I am an amateur visual astronomer, no photography involved, but in my
work, I use Photoshop regularly, and I know the capabilities of such
software. I am concerned that image processing is going way beyond the
goal of scientific valid presentations and seriously distorting
reality. Is the public being given the wrong impression of what
celestial objects would look like to human spacefarers of the future?
Am I making much ado about nothing, or is this a valid ethical
concern? Does anyone care?
Bart Declercq
> processing, but he as put it, "just so it looks better," I feel it
> suggests far too much subjectivity. Put another way, does National
> Geographic "enhance" astrophotos (and other photos?) just to be
> attractive to readers?
Yes they do, and NASA's been doing it since forever (at least since the
Voyager missions, and probably Moonwalker piccies have been enhanced)
> I am an amateur visual astronomer, no photography involved, but in my
> work, I use Photoshop regularly, and I know the capabilities of such
> software. I am concerned that image processing is going way beyond the
> goal of scientific valid presentations and seriously distorting
> reality. Is the public being given the wrong impression of what
> celestial objects would look like to human spacefarers of the future?
You say you're a visual amateur astronomer, then you must know the greatly
different appearance of celestial objects in pictures compared to what you
see through a telescope. Does this make the pictures "less valid", I
wouldn't think so...
> Am I making much ado about nothing, or is this a valid ethical
> concern? Does anyone care?
It IS a valid concern, and sometimes NASA walks a tight line in their
efforts to keep space "interesting". One example of where I think they went
overboard is the Magellan project, where all the Venus-images are a kind of
yellow-orange, even though they are radar-pictures which do not contain any
color-information whatsoever. Their "justification" for this was that the
color was determined based on information from the Russian landers, but it
seemed just a far-fetched excuse to put a little "faux" color on the
information.
In the case of the Hubble telescope, you must remember that most
observations are made at specific wavelengths, to maximise the scientific
information. This unfortunately means that the resulting pictures cannot
truly be made "photorealistic", and that some "reprocessing" is required to
make sure the images don't look just plain terrible. If you go so far as to
make the image "less terrible", you might as well go as far as making them
look good ;-)
This doesn't cause any scientific distortions, because the scientists using
the observation results work on the raw data (which typically becomes
available publicly after one year).
Like I said, a fine line sometimes, but image manipulation is essential in
astronomy.
Bart
BenignVanilla
news:3edf8d6a$0$6524$afc3...@sisyphus.news.be.easynet.net...
<snip>
> In the case of the Hubble telescope, you must remember that most
> observations are made at specific wavelengths, to maximise the scientific
> information. This unfortunately means that the resulting pictures cannot
> truly be made "photorealistic", and that some "reprocessing" is required
to
> make sure the images don't look just plain terrible. If you go so far as
to
> make the image "less terrible", you might as well go as far as making them
> look good ;-)
>
> This doesn't cause any scientific distortions, because the scientists
using
> the observation results work on the raw data (which typically becomes
> available publicly after one year).
>
> Like I said, a fine line sometimes, but image manipulation is essential in
> astronomy.
Buzz Lightyear is "not a flying toy" and my boys love him, even though the
commercial is different. Sometimes you gotta market, and in this political
environment, NASA has too as well. I think it is cool what they do and don't
see a problem with it. Although, most pictures og the moon from NASA really
don't look like cheese anymore, which is misleading.
BV.
Jonathan Silverlight
Declercq <nos...@ple.ase> writes
>> Perhaps Levay was not accurately describing the intent of the image
>> processing, but he as put it, "just so it looks better," I feel it
>> suggests far too much subjectivity. Put another way, does National
>> Geographic "enhance" astrophotos (and other photos?) just to be
>> attractive to readers?
>
>Yes they do, and NASA's been doing it since forever (at least since the
>Voyager missions, and probably Moonwalker piccies have been enhanced)
Corrections welcomed, but I can't think of any. There are a few
well-known composite images but most of the pictures are printed
straight. In fact, some of them could use enhancement and colour
correction because the Moon is a fairly colourless world and a lot of
pictures show colour casts. Of course a lot of images are enhanced to
bring out detail that isn't apparent - that goes back to the first Mars
images at least.
>
> > I am an amateur visual astronomer, no photography involved, but in my
>> work, I use Photoshop regularly, and I know the capabilities of such
>> software. I am concerned that image processing is going way beyond the
>> goal of scientific valid presentations and seriously distorting
>> reality. Is the public being given the wrong impression of what
>> celestial objects would look like to human spacefarers of the future?
>
>You say you're a visual amateur astronomer, then you must know the greatly
>different appearance of celestial objects in pictures compared to what you
>see through a telescope. Does this make the pictures "less valid", I
>wouldn't think so...
True for deep sky objects, which the eye isn't capable of seeing in
colour, but ideally pictures of the planets should look the way the
object appears in the eyepiece.
>
>> Am I making much ado about nothing, or is this a valid ethical
>> concern? Does anyone care?
>
>It IS a valid concern, and sometimes NASA walks a tight line in their
>efforts to keep space "interesting". One example of where I think they went
>overboard is the Magellan project, where all the Venus-images are a kind of
>yellow-orange, even though they are radar-pictures which do not contain any
>color-information whatsoever. Their "justification" for this was that the
>color was determined based on information from the Russian landers, but it
>seemed just a far-fetched excuse to put a little "faux" color on the
>information.
That never worried me, but what I did notice was that the 3d
reconstructions of mountains on Mars and Venus normally have a vertical
scale exaggerated by 5 or 10 times. That is highly misleading.
--
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