The beginning of the end?

I think both things will happen. Some people - maybe even many people - will use the app to learn and raise their game. Others - and likely the majority - will use it because they're lazy. Kind of like automatic transmissions and visual driving aids in cars.
 
That's the problem. It analyses the image and then uses guidelines such as the rule of thirds to improve the photo, but it doesn't take into account the fact that the "rule" of thirds is just an easy to remember example of a more general theory of balanced composition, just like the other "rules" should be treated more as examples of a larger principle. If it leads people to think that just applying the rule of thirds etc as often as possible is the correct answer to any composition question, it'd be a massive shame I think.

But then perhaps (well, pretty certainly) it's not aimed at dedicated photography enthusiasts like us and more at the kind of person who would normally not put any thought into their composition at all?
 
Bart, I think the problem you are having is that the app is meant to make most individual photos better, not turn people into better photographers.

The end result (the photo) is all that should matter....how one arrived at it shouldn't.
 
Well, if the Explore bot on Flickr can IDENTIFY better photos (theoretically at least), I suppose an app can help with composition. I remember that the first RX100 had some sort of auto-portrait mode that would crop the frame automatically to frame your portraits better. I didn't like it at all, but I can't say it had bad judgement...

-Ray
 
To the degree that certain kinds of photos have their "Looks good" index line up nicely with another quantifiable index (for portraits, the ratio of person-space to non-person space and the position of said person, or for other shots the rule of thirds, or general exposure, or contrasty clouds, or warm color balances, or whatever)... then photos can indeed be bot-i-fied. It's those photos that are compelling without conforming to the quantifiable that still have a chance of remaining in the pink, fleshy realm.
 
Bart, I think the problem you are having is that the app is meant to make most individual photos better, not turn people into better photographers.
I think you're right about that, and my initial reaction was probably too negative.
The end result (the photo) is all that should matter....how one arrived at it shouldn't.
I agree; the thing is, while the photos might be better, they often won't be as good as they could be if the photographer decided to think for him/herself. But as I said in my previous post, the target market probably consists of people who, without the app, probably wouldn't spend a whole lot of time thinking about the composition anyway, so in those cases it can mean an improvement. I do hope that it'll inspire some people to move beyond following the app's advice and really start thinking for themselves.

Ray, I thought Explore simply looked at how often and quickly a photo is being viewed / commented on / faved? Or does it analyze the content of the photo too?
 
Ray, I thought Explore simply looked at how often and quickly a photo is being viewed / commented on / faved? Or does it analyze the content of the photo too?
It's gotta be about something other than popularity because I've had a bunch of photos in expore and NONE of them have had more than a handful of views or faves or comments until AFTER it was "explored", at which point the hits and faves and comments started piling up. Oddly, what the bot bestows it can take away - I didn't realize until recently a photo could be in and then dropped, but when I was culling a bunch of shots recently I thought I'd try to figure out which had been in explore and leave them in. I went to that page that shows you your explore shots and didn't see a few I'd remembered had been in it. And then I saw you could choose to display those that had been dropped. And I'd had a bunch dropped, some I don't have any idea of what they were because I'd already deleted them...

-Ray
 
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