Skip to main content

Facebook Starts Auto-Enhancing Photos Because Algorithms Are Better At Filters Than You


We’re not ace photographers, but we all take photos. Most could use a little help with light and shadow. So rather than making you manually filter them, Facebook tells me it will now auto-enhance newly uploaded photos starting today on iOS and soon on Android. You’ll be able to adjust a slider to control just how enhanced you want the light, shadow, and clarity, or revert back to your original shot.

The tool could make it much quicker to post well-lit photos so you can share on the go and get back to what you were doing.

Facebook and the other social apps are locked in a battle for photo sharing. To the winner goes tons of engagement. That’s why Twitter just revamped its filtering interface, Snapchat started letting you dual-filter with color filters and its geo-filter titles, and Instagram today added five new filters. Google+ added a similar auto-enhance feature a year ago.
Auto Enhance
Previously when you uploaded a photo to Facebook from mobile, you were shown your unedited image, and could hit a button to add a one-size-fits-all light enhancement, or try adding one of Facebook’s filters. That was slow, could cause filter decision paralysis, and if you didn’t like how the enhancement looked, you had to take it or leave it.

Now photos are automatically enhanced, but you can quickly tone the effect up or down. I found the auto-enhancements to be a touch overzealous in some of my experiments, but it’s typically in the ballpark of how I’d want to edit a photo, plus it requires no work on my part.

That’s especially helpful if you’re more concerned with experiencing the moment with your eyes than staring at your phone. If Facebook can be the way to share photos without interrupting your life, it might be the app we choose most often when we see something special.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Samsung Galaxy S5 Review and Giveaway

Few smartphones are as aggressively marketed as Samsung’s Galaxy S5. The S5 can no longer be considered brand-new — but it  is  Samsung’s flagship, at least for the next few months. With a gorgeous screen, a capable camera, a waterproof build, and a user-replaceable battery, the Galaxy S5 has a lot to offer… at least on paper. Let’s find out how good it really is. What Makes This Review Different There are about a million Galaxy S5 reviews out there. Why should you read this one? Two keys points make our review different: We bought our own device . Unlike many tech blogs, we don’t use a review unit Samsung gave us. We went out to the store and bought one, just like you would. This means everything you read here is truly impartial – we owe Samsung nothing. We used it for more than a month . Some sites rush to be the first to publish a review on a new device. That’s not how we do things. I used the Galaxy S5 as my main (and only) Android phone for nearly two months,...

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 N9000 Review and Giveaway

When it comes to massive phones, nothing is more iconic than the Samsung Galaxy Note. It has gained popularity not only due to its size, but its additional features such as a stylus and a larger battery make it a more useful phone. Samsung released the third generation of the Galaxy Note in October, updating the phablet with a larger screen and improved hardware. Read through our review, then join the giveaway to win the  Samsung Galaxy Note 3 ! Competitors Of course, other Android competitors haven’t let the $640  Galaxy Note 3  be the only player in the phablet market. There are others such as the  Sony Xperia Z Ultra , the Samsung Galaxy Mega , and the other more common phones that are reaching 5″ screens such as the  Samsung Galaxy S4 , the  HTC One , and the  Nexus 5 . Unlike the normal-sized top contenders, the Galaxy Note 3 has a bigger screen and larger battery. It also offers specific features (surrounding the S Pen stylus) th...

Android - How Can I Override Silent Mode With a Text Message?

People set their phones to silent or vibrate mode when in meetings, lectures, theaters, or anywhere else where it would be rude if the phone made noise. But what if there’s an emergency and someone needs to quickly get in touch with you? We’ll show you how to have your Android phone override silent mode and play an alert when a text message containing something like “Emergency” or “SOS” comes through. There are multiple ways to do this and we’ll cover two. You can easily use a free app created just for this purpose or take the geekier route and create a task using Tasker. Tasker is a powerful Android automation solution that allows you to specify custom events that cause actions to happen. Go the Tasker route and you’ll learn how to automate many different things on your Android phone. The Easy Option: TeXTe and Silent Mode Bypass TeXTe is the easiest way to do this. It’s an app built for one thing and one thing only: alerting you when a text message containing a w...