Is Flickr Editing Your Content?
One blogger seems to think so.
The ‘Colors…Pretty‘ blog recently featured an article in which the author claims to have proof that upon upload, Flickr saturates your photos’ colors a bit more and sharpens them a tad, thus making your photos appear ‘better’.
According to the author:
This is a capture of the exact same photo. On the top is a thumbnail of my photo rendered on Zoto (3.0 beta) . It’s blurry and the detail is lost. On the bottom is the same photo thumbnail rendered on Flickr. Notice how sharp the detail and color appear. Unlike Flickr, Zoto is rendering an ‘accurate’ thumbnail of my photo.
Here’s a link to the image. (opens in a new window or tab)
I’m wondering if the sharpening only applies to the creation of the thumbnail version of the image or the entire image. I’m guessing the thumbnail, although the author does not give the original link to their flickr page to allow us to judge on our own.
Ultimately, I wonder if this is a fair practice. The author seems to think it’s ok:
I’m for passing a filter on photos to make them look better. I think it improves the user’s experience. On some level, even if they aren’t aware of it, they are enjoying their photos more because of this little white lie. Some of our “purists” in the office disagree. In the end the best solution may be to make this an option in the upload settings that users can control for themselves. And user control is what it’s all about, right?
I tend to agree with the author. While I’m not sure I think that photo manipulation should happen without the user’s control, part of creating a compelling service is finding the right attractors that will bring an audience in. So long as they are not manipulating the original image, and only creating more eye-catching thumbnails (essentially, a derivative work and probably something you agree to in the ToS) I don’t think that users should be upset. I would call this a cost of using the service, and other options are available out there which clearly do not employ the same practices if it really were an issue.
And since we’re in the business of coining new terms, the author has come up with this:
New word: flickrality
Definition: The version of reality where you rock at taking photos.
For some reason this just brings up memories of Mortal Kombat, where they had fatalities, babalities, animalities… what is wrong with my brain?
January 31st, 2007 at 10:22 pm
as far as i know, the flickr folks are pretty adamant about not touching the originals. however, i do agree that their resized images are oversharpened — more than just the illusion of “sharpening” in a smaller resized imaged — by what looks like an actual sharpening algorithm. but, of course, it’s the medium “resized” photo that you see on each page, not the full size original, so….
January 31st, 2007 at 10:36 pm
I’ve never noticed it, but I usually pump the saturation and contrast a bit on my photos anyway, so few of them are as “real” as they were when photons met charged coupled device. If they do it, it’s not that bad, but they should definitely notify people, and maybe even provide opt-out. What’s the worst subtle photo modification you can think of? Steganography, maybe? You can’t exactly paste in McCain ‘08 posters and goatses over pics of kittens and expect people not to notice.
February 1st, 2007 at 11:38 am
I really enjoyed reading this. You’re right, and I really should have posted a link to the larger images on both sites.
I have learned that flickr does not alter the original (which makes sense).
But they do alter all of the other sizes.
You can compare both larger size here and still see the difference.
http://www.zoto.net/kbarrett/img/45/3c465b2aad35cdbad6ff28b01ada114c.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/kerfuffle/357285622/
I think the general consensus is that most user would prefer to have the option to turn of this ‘auto-enhancing’ if they choose to do so. I have also learned that, although it’s not a widely known issue, it has been addressed (acknowledged) before on the flickr forums. I’m just suprised more people don’t know about it. I have also found it funny how many poeple *insist* that flickr is not altering their photos.
February 1st, 2007 at 11:40 am
Oh, and sorry for the typos.
February 1st, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Ok, you figured us out! I’ve revealed the dark truth behind this at:
http://mroth.info/blog/2007/02/01/flickrs-dirty-secret-revealed/