

The Rest of the Lenna Story - david4096
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/

======
idbfs
Two female image processing researchers recently used a picture of Fabio as a
test image in a paper of theirs:

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.6429](http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.6429)

(Additional discussion at
[http://www.kitware.com/blog/home/post/246](http://www.kitware.com/blog/home/post/246))

Personally, I'm all for the use of amusing (arousing?) test images, as long as
they exhibit features that actually make for a good test image (a mix of flat
and textured regions, sharp boundaries, etc.).

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networked
The original Lenna image is still copyrighted and will remain so for a while
(even if right now Playboy Enterprises, Inc. has decided to not sue people
over its use in research) and people can't seem to agree on a standard
replacement [1].

Since that is the case, how about a Kickstarter campaign to recreate the
512x512 image as close a possible and distribute the imitation under a free
license? I.e., you could hire a professional model (by running a Lenna double
contest online?) and a pro photographer, recreate the environment and the
props, etc. Keep it clean (no remaking the full nude) and you could get free
press and support from the researchers themselves.

[1] Though you can find links to a good number of alternative image sets at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_test_image](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_test_image).

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NelsonMinar
We need a modern Lenna, with a nude man holding a strategically placed Utah
teapot.

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sillysaurus2
I wish he'd post the scan of the original, rather than the JPG of the scan of
the original. Then we might be able to use it for compression research.

It's not about wanting to see nudity. The original is useful _because humans
are hardwired to recognize nudity_. It's not a coincidence that tasteful nude
pictures are considered fine art. There are literally a hundred thousand tiny
features that are lost by cropping the image to her face and shoulders. Those
features are much easier to compare than, say, pictures of nature. Artifacts
introduced into pictures of leaves and grass are far less noticeable than
artifacts introduced in the subtle variation of the colors across her back.

~~~
mynameishere
_Then we might be able to use it for compression research._

Unless they got the negative from playboy, I don't think it's an appropriate
image to use anymore.

~~~
sillysaurus2
Really? That's very interesting. What terms should I search for in order to
find out for more about why negatives are so important?

Or is it just the fact that photography back then was done with negatives, and
anything but the original photo is unsuitable for compression research?

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brazzy
a 512x512 pixel scan of a printed image really isn't ideal source material.
Nowadays you definitely want something larger, and to get that in good quality
you need the negatives.

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jmspring
In the 90s, Lena was pretty much one of the images you spent a lot of time
looking at if you were in compression research. It was part of a standard set
of images we were always comparing agains.

I want to say the last time I ran across mention of Lena was either here on HN
or through a rant of Charles Bloom --
[http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com](http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com)

I do find the story fascinating each time I read it.

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afhof
Why did use Lenna?

"Two reason was stated in "A Note on Lena" by David C. Munson. First, the
Lenna image contains a nice mixture of detail, flat regions, shading, and
texture that do a good job of testing various image processing algorithms. It
is a good test image! Second, the Lena image is a picture of an attractive
woman. It is not surprising that the (mostly male) image processing research
community gravitated toward an image that they found attractive. "

[http://www.ee.cityu.edu.hk/~lmpo/lenna/Lenna97.html](http://www.ee.cityu.edu.hk/~lmpo/lenna/Lenna97.html)

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throwaway_068
It's perfectly reasonable that image processing and television are optimized
for accurate skin tones. But they are optimizing for light skin tones by using
test images such as Lenna, the BBC's test image [A], and the BBC's "Flesh Tone
Reference Card" [C]. I think this harms image quality for dark skin tones.

Television broadcast systems include automatic skin tone correction that
"looks for colors in a specific [colorspace] area and any colors within that
area are made a color that is closer to the skin tone." There's actually a
"correct" skin tone and colors are adjusted to be closer to it. This is
implemented in chips [D] for TV signal processing and even at the LCD panel
controller level.

I've noticed reproduction of dark skin colors is much worse on video
conferencing than light skin colors, so this isn't just a theoretical
complaint.

[A] [http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-
radio/shortcuts/2012/apr/2...](http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-
radio/shortcuts/2012/apr/22/the-test-card-girl-and-clown)

[B]
[http://www.videointerchange.com/color_correction1.htm](http://www.videointerchange.com/color_correction1.htm)

[C]
[http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/-/9780750683951/chapter...](http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/-/9780750683951/chapter-9dot-
ntsc-and-pal-digital-encoding-and-decoding/432)

[D] Examples are the TDA884X PAL/NTSC/SECAM TV processors, SAA7154 video
decoder, and the TW8817 LCD controller.

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cperciva
Where would Computer Science be without pornography?

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afhof
Its not so much that the image is pornographic, the interesting part is that
most computer graphics group is male. If there was a 50/50 male to female
split, I doubt this image would have become the de facto test case.

~~~
sillysaurus2
Eh, as a graphics researcher, I'd say it's not a gender issue. Anyone who
spends a significant amount of time researching the human visual system in a
fair an unbiased way is inexorably pulled to the conclusion that comparing
pictures of nude bodies is one of the major tests of whether you're achieving
acceptable results, whether you're making a painting or developing a
compression algorithm. Humans are hardwired to notice details in naked bodies,
possibly moreso than faces (or at least we notice a different set of details
than faces). They were onto something important when they chose the Lenna
picture, and it's a shame that the original had to be cropped due to technical
limitations. And it shouldn't be taboo to use a male model any more than a
female one -- both are equally important.

~~~
skybrian
Do you want to have more female co-workers or not? Working with nude images
when you don't really need to is a great way to discourage people from working
with you.

~~~
asgard1024
Why? Does it discourage models from working with photographers or artists?
There seems to be plenty of female photographers or artists that have no
problem with nudity, too.

~~~
Steuard
Your comment is hard for me to interpret. I would normally take it as a given
that the culture and male/female dynamic in computer science research is (or
at least ought to be) different than the culture in the modelling industry
(and especially the _nude_ modelling industry).

~~~
asgard1024
Ok, let me try to explain a bit better. The parent poster seems to say that
women are somehow "put off" by nudity. That's a perfectly valid hypothesis.

But then art (and I am talking primarily about art, not modelling) is a
problem, which requires further explanation. Because artists seem to be, at
least to me, totally obsessed with nudity (and I think sex, too, but feel free
to disagree here). So why _that_ attracts women, in droves in fact, if they
are put off by it?

My answer is that the hypothesis is wrong. Females are not put off by computer
scientists, that's not the reason why they don't do computer science. In
particular, I doubt you would find CS people more sexist than other group of
men, I actually believe they are mostly nicer (and also lot more honest about
their views, which can strongly bias it).

The reason why women don't do CS is they lack confidence and positive role
models to do it. You can actually see the differentiation happening in high
school, where no one really knows how it works on the workplace yet. And
that's where, or maybe even earlier, the problem needs to be addressed. It's
probably cultural and frankly, whether the cause is wrong beliefs of men or
wrong beliefs of women is irrelevant for the solution (wrong here in the sense
"differing from reality").

Edit: You could argue (I think you do) that the cultural norms about nudity in
art and computing should be different. I don't disagree (in fact, they are,
which makes it a moot point anyway). But then, isn't this a case of someone
projecting their own cultural norms to somebody else? Is that really a failure
of some culture that it doesn't respect your (rather arbitrary and harmless,
compared to art) norms?

~~~
skybrian
I don't know why things are different in the art world and it's a good
question. But this sort of thing has been A/B tested for computer science [1].
Of course it takes more than one study to get scientific consensus but I'll
take it over armchair reasoning.

[1] [http://phys.org/news180024084.html](http://phys.org/news180024084.html)

~~~
asgard1024
Thanks, that's very interesting and shows that it may not have anything to do
with sex or nudity at all.

~~~
skybrian
Sure, it's just one part of the overall environment. If you wanted to decorate
a room to say "boys club - girls keep out," the first thing you'd do is hang
up some pinup posters. But in the fashion industry they work with lots of
pictures of beautiful women and women outnumber men. And this is probably US
specific too; I imagine they do things differently in France.

In computer science (either academia or industry) we have a recruiting problem
and we're facing an uphill battle. We have to care about how it looks.

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aaron695
Researchers decided to use a picture from a playboy, a magazine that thinks
chicks nude are kinda all they are good for (come off it if you seriously
think they don't)and we all think it's ok and want to continue it in the
comments.

Yes, it's history, like rape and pillaging. Yes things of old are cool cause
they happened ages ago. But get over it.

Nothing against Lenna, cause she was in the industry, but the fact anyone
thinks it's cool to bring a playboy into a place of research offends me to the
point of boredom.

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eCa
"Lenna's issue (November 1972) was Playboy's best selling issue ever and sold
7,161,561 copies."

"Very few people have seen the complete original picture."

Do most people that buy Playboy stop reading before getting to the centerfold?

~~~
frozenport
if you were born in 1952 you would be over 60.

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vr000m
So there is at least one scientific paper (image processing) out there which
references Playboy (I wonder if Google Scholar has a citation index for this?)

