(embiggenable) • iPhone
Not to long ago I wrote about the idea of sharpness. To be accurate, I wrote about what I cinsder to be excessive or overwrought sharpness as persued by picture makers who seem to be obsessed with it. Not to mention camera makers who seem to share the same obsession, re: making ever bigger sensors with mind boggling resolution.
iMo, unless one is in the regular practice of making really big prints-4x6ft or bigger-what's the point?
Very recently, Mike Johnston wrote:
"The fact is, strange as it may seem lately, visual impressions can still be made perfectly effectively in the absence of microdetail."
Since I am in the practice of making "visual impressions" rather than pictures which are about detail(s), Johnston's point is, to my eye and sensibilities, well taken. Case in point, the picture in this entry.
That picture was made with my iPhone and that scene is one that the iPhone and its attendant AI can have a spot of trouble with. That is, subjects which are dominated by very low light or an abundance of dark colors/tones. Often the result is dark color and tones are not rendered smoothly. FYI, it does not seem to be a matter of noise.
In any event, in such a case I use a tool in Snapseed, Structure, which is intented to emphasize detail in a picture. However, if I move slider into the "negative" zone, it tends to reduce detail and in the process smooth out the colors and tones-it also darkens the selected areas which I then correct with a touch of the Brightness tool.
The result in this entry's picture works really well for my eye and sensibilities because the picture is not about detail but rather a visual impression of what I saw.