research

The State of News Photography in 2016

We now know which cameras top photojournalists around the world are using these days, but what are they saying about the state of their industry? A newly published study uses responses from nearly 2,000 photographers to reveal the current condition of the photojournalism landscape.

This Map Plots the Location of 140,000 Accidentally Geotagged Photos

A quick peek at the EXIF data of most photos you find online these days will reveal not only what (mostly) smartphone they were taken with, it will also reveal the exact GPS coordinates where that photo was taken. That's how one researcher built the "Accidental Geography" map.

Camera ‘Fingerprint’ Database Could Help Crack Down on Photo Theft

Examining fingerprints is one of the key techniques in forensics, allowing investigators to identify suspects and build a case against them. In the same way, checking "camera fingerprints" could soon be a major tool in helping photographers fight copyright infringement, and a project called ToothPic is working to make that happen.

Photoshop of the Future May Be Able to Auto-Colorize a B&W Photo

Colorizing old black-and-white photos with Photoshop has been a popular subject on the Internet over the past few years, as skilled retouchers use their time and skills to offer a new view of vintage images. In the future, though, software may be able colorize B&W photos with the click of a button.

Face Swap Technology is Getting Creepy

Face swap camera apps are all the rage these days, and Facebook even acquired one this month to get into the game. But the technology is getting more and more creepy: you can now hijack someone else's face in real-time video.

The Darkest Material on Earth is Now Even Darker

When the darkest material on Earth was announced back in 2014, photographers suggested that it could be used for everything from the ultimate non-reflective black backdrop to an art gallery in which the photos "pop." Well, that darkest material just got even darker.

This Glass Disc Can Store 360 TB of Your Photos for 13.8 Billion Years

If you back up your photos on optical disks or storage drives, there's a good chance your data won't last as long as you do due to things known as "disc rot" and "data rot". But what if you want to ensure that your precious photos live longer than you? Good news: a new "eternal" storage technology may be on the horizon.

Scientists have created nanostructured glass discs that can storage digital data for billions of years.

New Injket Printing Can Hide a Photo Within a Photo

Lenticular prints use an array of lenses to cause an image to change before your eyes as you view them from different angles. Scientists have now figured out how to do a "changing photo" trick without lenses using an inkjet printer and metallic sheets.

This Algorithm Can Tell How Memorable a Photo Is

Some photographs have the power to burn themselves into our memories for a long time, while others are easily forgettable after they're seen. Scientists are MIT have been researching the science behind memorable images, and now they've created a web app called LaMem that can analyze any photo and assign it a memorability score.

There Are Now 8x More People Taking Pictures than 10 Years Ago

Camera sales haven't been doing too well in recent years, but that hasn't kept picture taking from exploding. While the dedicated camera industry has seen year-on-year declines, smartphone photography has turned everyone into a casual photographer: there are now 8 times as many picture takers worldwide than there were 10 years ago.