Two female image processing researchers recently used a picture of Fabio as a test image in a paper of theirs:<p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.6429" rel="nofollow">http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.6429</a><p>(Additional discussion at <a href="http://www.kitware.com/blog/home/post/246" rel="nofollow">http://www.kitware.com/blog/home/post/246</a>)<p>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.).
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].<p>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.<p>[1] Though you can find links to a good number of alternative image sets at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_test_image" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_test_image</a>.
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.<p>It's not about wanting to see nudity. The original is useful <i>because humans are hardwired to recognize nudity</i>. 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.
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.<p>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 -- <a href="http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com</a><p>I do find the story fascinating each time I read it.
Why did use Lenna?<p>"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. "<p><a href="http://www.ee.cityu.edu.hk/~lmpo/lenna/Lenna97.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ee.cityu.edu.hk/~lmpo/lenna/Lenna97.html</a>
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>[A] <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2012/apr/22/the-test-card-girl-and-clown" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2012/apr/2...</a><p>[B] <a href="http://www.videointerchange.com/color_correction1.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.videointerchange.com/color_correction1.htm</a><p>[C] <a href="http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/-/9780750683951/chapter-9dot-ntsc-and-pal-digital-encoding-and-decoding/432" rel="nofollow">http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/-/9780750683951/chapter...</a><p>[D] Examples are the TDA884X PAL/NTSC/SECAM TV processors, SAA7154 video decoder, and the TW8817 LCD controller.
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.<p>Yes, it's history, like rape and pillaging. Yes things of old are cool cause they happened ages ago. But get over it.<p>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.
"Lenna's issue (November 1972) was Playboy's best selling issue ever and sold 7,161,561 copies."<p>"Very few people have seen the complete original picture."<p>Do most people that buy Playboy stop reading before getting to the centerfold?
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?)