[tomc1985]

There's something off about the brightness sensitivity curves, if I can dial shadow controls way way up and salvage an otherwise botched, underexposed photo, why is it that I have to do so manually?

The dynamic range is clearly there. And we're not talking about such ridiculous values that the sensor noise becomes prominent.

[unfocussed_mike]

> why is it that I have to do so manually?

You can do that correction in that situation because you've looked at the image, you know what it is meant to be, and you can decide on a set of adjustments that produce something that approximates what you want, perceptually.

But without truly extensive scene knowledge, cameras can't do that automatically, and they also can't know what information that is important to the photographer that they'd be affecting if they did.

Cameras have to try to ascertain what would be middle grey in a scene and then apply a general purpose tone curve to an image, but they do not know what is in the scene.

They can't even know for sure if the photo they are being asked to take is properly exposed by any absolute definition, in fact.

[I cut out a lot of this because I don't think it's going to be easy to complete the explanation here]

[ElephantsMyAnus]

No, the problem is VERY OBVIOUSLY more severe than that. It's really as if the images were treated as linear, which they are not. (they use gamma correction)

[dagmx]

This is also incorrect and trivializing of the color science. Images may use gamma correction, they may not. Trying to describe it in terms of gamma is like trying to describe food in terms of saltiness alone. You're ignoring tons of other factors.

[mark-r]

Any image being displayed, or encoded in a standard such as sRGB, is using gamma. It is not optional.

[lmm]

Sure, and any meal you eat will have a salt content (possibly zero). Doesn't mean that that tells you all the things that could be wrong or right about the meal.

[ElephantsMyAnus]

No. It isn't there so that you can use it when you choose to. All devices expect it to be used. When you skip it the colors will be wrong.

[dagmx]

I meant using gamma as a conversion function. There's a whole world of color transformations outside of just gamma. Gamma is just one of many transformations, and you can have two color spaces with identical gamma transforms, but different gamuts, white points etc...

[mark-r]

I think a lot of people were misunderstanding my comment. I never meant to imply that gamma is the only important consideration in color perception, I was only reacting to the statement that it was optional. Even color spaces that don't use gamma (i.e. are linear) must have a gamma applied before you can view them.

https://xkcd.com/386/

[unfocussed_mike]

Honestly, whatever your understanding is here, you should probably build a demonstration to get it across to people.

Have you ever shot photographs with a colour transparency film?

[wonnage]

gamma correction is compression, sacrificing data in regions where the eye is less sensitive for more precision in the sensitive ranges. images would look the same without it, you'd just be wasting bits encoding differences that the eye can't see