There's an interesting example they use to show the ostensible improvement of Pix over the Apple's Live Photo:<p><a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Live-Photo.mp4" rel="nofollow">https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...</a><p>The Pix-enhanced version:<p><a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Live-Image.mp4" rel="nofollow">https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...</a><p>Sure, the Live Photo version has distracting movement, but it also has much more natural motion in terms of hair flow. And I feel that the camera instability helps give context to the video, that it's some kind of impromptu selfie on a windy day.<p>The Pix version offers a clearer image at what I feel is a large cost to the image's integrity. It looks a bit creepy. That said, there are probably lots of good situations for Pix's stabilization tech, but that example didn't seem optimal as a landing page demo.
This feels sort of redundant... that feature list (multiple face detection with auto exposure/white balance, burst mode with an algorithm to guess which one is "best") is all stuff the built-in camera app on iOS does already.<p>Okay, the color and white balance look a little better for Pix in the example shots, but everyone's RAW processing is better in some situations and worse in others. I'm sure Apple could come back with just as many example shots where their own settings were better than Pix's, and we could go round and round like that forever.<p>There's nothing wrong with this app, but I'm having trouble understanding why it exists. What does this do for users or Microsoft?
Ooh, they mention it includes Hyperlapse! I haven't looked into Pix too much so I don't know if this is a full implementation (someone commented on an unnatural-looking stabilization demo, but I think it was just a poor choice of an example), but Hyperlapse is one of the coolest research projects I've come across:<p><a href="http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/" rel="nofollow">http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hype...</a><p>The video demo there is worth checking out.
My untrained eye can't really notice a difference except that the pix version looks brighter (even washed out), the live photo version looks really uncanny valley (where the faces don't move but the world does around them is an unsettling effect).
I'm amazed how low-quality this MS landing page is.<p>- The "How it works" tab is just a huge image.<p>- The search box ( top right ) has some problems with the border. Both in Chrome & Safari.<p>- It uses `font-family: 'Segoe UI';`, which makes all elements with that font on my Mac "serif"
I'd like one point clarified: is this app entirely local or does it make use of any kind of cloud backend?<p>I've already seen apps that upload photos away for processing without making it obvious (for example <a href="http://prisma-ai.com" rel="nofollow">http://prisma-ai.com</a>, if I'm not mistaken). I really shouldn't have to ask if only iOS had a permission for network access.
I thought that they released new version of DirectX SDK and PIX for debugging :(
<a href="https://tomtech999.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/pix_intro.png" rel="nofollow">https://tomtech999.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/pix_intro.png</a>
> Better mobile photos are just a tap away. Enter your mobile phone number and we'll text you a link to download Microsoft Pix.<p>Stop teaching people to click on links from SMS texts damn it!
The results remind me of older special effects or manual brushing in Photoshop... they are not very natural and not very good. Beeing myself also a photographer: Don't do this to your photos. The best A.I. and filters cannot compensate a well lighted photo. I'm happy that Apple does not include such destructive filtering. IMHO even a flash from your phone is better than this filters.
I have been using Pix for a few weeks now and am very happy with the quality. Too bad you can't use it as the default camera app on iOS. Also it takes significantly longer to start up. But if you are taking multiple shots of, say, your kids, the quality is better.
To anyone on the Pix team reading this:<p>In the section under "Hover Zoom Comparison", the Apple Camera photo is to the left of the Pix photo. In every other comparison, the Pix photo comes first. You should maintain that order because people don't read the title always and could confuse them. Once you've established a pattern, such as Pix on the left and Apple's on the right, don't change it. It's an inconvenience that the user doesn't mention but feels. Also, a consistent pattern takes a less cognitive load.<p>You can call it nitpick or details :)
The Pix images just look mostly like the contrast was reduced and all the dark pixels were made brighter. That's not improving the images in my mind, it's just throwing away color depth and subtlety.
Sorry for my naivety and maybe a little off topic - but where are the raw image files used in the comparison images ?<p>I'm sure someone is going to cry foul if the images have been passed through Photoshop.
@mspix Looking forward to using it (Samsung S5). I hit the Send button and noticed some questionable grammar. It reads "Message has been send successfully on your mobile number." I guess it should be "A message has been sent successfully to your mobile number." or something similar.
This is a bit like the beat "quantization" options in music apps, where you tidy up the raw user input. The best result comes when you choose not 100% quantized.<p>The Pix app needs a slider so you can choose how much stabilisation you want on the target part of the image.
To be honest the only difference that I see is that the Microsoft Pix images seem to be brighter and with less contrast.<p>Maybe this is an amazing app full of amazing technology but the sample images that should advertise this were picked badly.
The still picture faces look better with Pix ...<p>They are using face-tracking and stabilisation around the faces in the videos which look's odd to most people because we definitely are not used to seeing this and probably disturbs our brain neurons which have not evolved in any way to compute this..<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3KvI4yDAwM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3KvI4yDAwM</a>
I know very little about photography. Why do I want such an app. I point and shoot with my S7 Edge and get decent enough pictures. Am I simply not the target audience?
I'm also naively assuming that if I don't particularly like the photo I could do some post processing on it and would rather have the "raw" version.<p>[also there is pretty much no left margin on the website, Firefox latest on OSX latest]
Slightly off-topic, but this reminds me of Google Camera with the Lens Blur (IIRC) feature. I can't find it on the play store now, was it discontinued? I wouldn't be surprised given it's Google, but why don't just leave the old version there with some sort of warning?
Very cool. Just did a few shots to try it out and the results are definetely nice. Love the smart live picture, and I don't know if it's in my head are real but it feels like it is doing a field of depth if the situation call for one, which is really nice
Ah, Microsoft. Will they ever figure out that the Microsoft name is a liability for consumer app adoption? There's a reason it's not called "Facebook Instagram", and Facebook, deservedly or not, still has a much less tarnished image than MS.
Uhmmmm, is Microsoft unaware, that they already have a product call PIX? It's profiler used for DX programming and for X1. So now when you look for some PIX debugging tips on google, you will get results about the photo app.
The camera features are based on technology developed for MS Photosynth (also from Research department, former Live Labs), and originated from research projects from University of Washington.
I understand the branding department wanted to have their say, but I think it will be better as just "Pix" and nor "Microsoft Pix" (meh)
Great demo page.<p>I really love the "People-Centric" feature, especially how the demo shows after shot enhancements for a variety of skin tones.<p>Thank you Microsoft.