This is not a hill I’d want to die on, but I do understand thinking this photo is fine. If I hadn’t been told it was from Playboy, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. It’s a conventionally-attractive woman in a hat showing a little shoulder. I wouldn’t be upset over Michaelangelo’s David either. It is less sexual than like 90% of modern TV or mass-market advertising. I suspect a similar image of “cleaner” provenance would not garner much attention at all, honestly.
But it is weird that an image from such a source was chosen in the first place. It is understandable that it makes people uncomfortable, and it seems like there should be no shortage of suitable imagery that wouldn’t, so…easy sell, I’d think.
On a related note, boy oh boy am I tired of every imagegen AI paper and project using the same type of vaguely fetishized portraits as examples.
Apparently the team making the first scanner needed a good test photo and that was the best they had on hand at that moment in terms of color variation and intensity.
Which is still weird.
Alexander Sawchuk, then an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California … along with a graduate student and the SIPI lab manager, was hurriedly searching the lab for a good image to scan for a colleague’s conference paper. … Just then, somebody happened to walk in with a recent issue of Playboy. The engineers tore away the top third of the centerfold so they could wrap it around the drum of their Muirhead wirephoto scanner…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna
Everything about the story sounds like it was a rush job, a decision made on a whim, after exhausting their existing catalog of test images. And who bring a Playboy mag to their university’s computer lab, and advertises their possession? They don’t even say who it was, probably to protect them from any embarrassing professional consequences. To me, that’s probably the strongest reason to retire it: it’s unprofessional.
And who bring a Playboy mag to their university’s computer lab, and advertises their possession?
Probably a random grad student. They were just coming out of the “sexual revolution” of the 60s at that point. It’d be a lot weirder ten years earlier or ten years later.
That a similar thing did happen ten years earlier is the weird part, I think.
Keep in mind that Playboy had a reputation as more than just porn. A lot of really respected authors had work published in Playboy.
I not sure of its culture status when the event in question happened, but it would have been different then say, Penthouse.
There’s a bit more to the scan. You usually see the cropped version, but the full version has naughty bits. Not sure if it’s ever been published that way in journals.
No there’s not, the scan thats been used has cropped out the nudity, it’s in like the second paragraph,
Usage of the Lenna image in image processing began in June or July 1973 when an assistant professor named Alexander Sawchuck and a graduate student at the University of Southern California Signal and Image Processing Institute scanned a square portion of the centerfold image with a primitive drum scanner, omitting nudity present in the original image. They scanned it for a colleague’s conference paper, and after that, others began to use the image as well.
I really don’t think the image itself is the issue. It’s the culture that would lead to brazenly sharing a porn magazine aroundnthe office, and subsequently using the image for a test photo. Then that same culture decided it should be standard because they liked looking at it. It indicates a culture of objectification of women. If an industry feels like sharing porn around is perfectly acceptable, you have to consider what else they think is acceptable. That’s what makes people uncomfortable (I assume, though I’m a straight man so not personal experience, just empathy).
What’s wrong with sharing porn around?
Absolutely nothing. But imagine you’re working with some people and everyone’s constantly posting porn in the group chat. You’re just trying to kind of exist and get your work done. You might start to feel pretty uncomfortable with that culture.
There’s definitely a line between sex positivity, and including other people without their clear consent.
Here is an uncropped version of the image: [NSFW] https://mypmates.club/1972/Miss-November/Lena-Soderberg
Considering this it’s more understandable that it’s controversial.
Some people are triggered by nudity. On another timeline the conclusion of this “scandal” would be to include a retro photo of a naked dude in the test image data set (and maybe also switch Lena’s photo if she doesn’t want it in there anymore).
I don’t think the reason this is an issue is because it’s pornographic. It’s because it indicates a certain opinion that some people in the field had/have. Even in professional academic papers they were using a pornographic image of a woman, which shows their opinion of women is just as object to lust after.
Yes and I’m saying in a more sexually open society we’d just admit that people lust after people of all genders, and include some others in the data set.
I disagree. I think in a more sexually open society people wouldn’t be treated like pieces of meat. They’d be treated like people. Their opinions about sexual content would be considered.
I think in a more sexually open society …their opinions about sexual content would be considered.
Like how I said in my original comment “switch Lena’s photo if she doesn’t want it in there anymore”…
So as you can see, I was already saying a sexually open world would be considerate, even though you’re phrasing it as if we’re disagreeing. Perhaps this is because you wish the conversation to go to an oppositional and hence repressive/aggressive place.
I think that would be a reasonable response if one felt subjugated and traumatized, injured and trapped by the current patriarchal systems of sex and power imbalance, and it might be difficult to see how sexuality, nudity, and pornography could be sociologically dealt with, understood, or theorised about outside of that framework.
Thus a dream of a better world can be stolen and held back be the pre-existing and persisting traumas of how we treat sex, bodies, nudity, and self-image in this one.
But there can be sex positive and body positive form of sex, sexuality and pornography that include being comfortable with nudity, and even taboo. I was proposing such a parallel world…
But you continue to cast it as the same as this world. That is your choice, but to continue to make that same choice is an act of killing communication and hence progress on the issues of this world.
The nature of fiction even in a passing comment, like the one I made, is to explore the possible and impossible. So beware what you make impossible.
It’s not just her opinion on the picture that matters though. Other women (and probably other people) don’t want it to be used as a standard test image.
I like that you’re making it out like I’m saying anything is impossible. I’m not. I’m stating that if people say they’re uncomfortable with something then they’re uncomfortable with it. It doesn’t matter how sexually open anything it. People’s opinions and consent are important, both that of the subject of the photo as well as other people in the field using this photo.
Yes, I’m saying in a more sexually liberated society, one that’s more comfortable with nudity and the human body, people might go: “Oh of course we can include nudes in the data set, here’s a bunch more!”.
You’re saying in a sexually liberated society one more comfortable with nudity, people would still be viewing this in a state of discomfort.
You came here to say this, regardless of anything I said, and so are yourself not interested in the consent of all parties in this very conversation (which is with a person by the way).
I am just a prop, and you simply don’t need to listen to me. Because you will say what you have to say and will mutilate whatever was being said in order to return to the status quo regardless of the comment you were replying to.
This isn’t about me, it’s about what you have to say. So I hope you feel better about having a one sided and belittling conversation.
I find you inadequate as an intelligent chat partner, so will block you now. I suspect that you will gain satisfaction from this, as a repressive. So enjoy.
I wouldn’t say that it necessarily expresses a certain opinion towards women. I think a lot of people used it just because that’s how it’s done. It’s a piece history, a “fun” tradition. A lot of people didn’t even knew that this was taken from a pornographic magazine.
However, thinking critically about it and considering a lot of good points, it’s surely not “fun” anymore and I also think it’s better to stop this.
I don’t see anything weird here…
The weird part is in the mirror.
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Streisand effect in motion. Me and a million other people get to see this for the first time today.
But the idea isn’t to keep anyone from seeing it. The idea is simply for a lusty image not to be used in academic papers (probably also better that it’s not used in college classes too).
I love pictures of scantily clad women more than almost anyone. But even I can agree that the Lena image sends the wrong message to women joining the field.
That’s fair and you are right, but I’m also pointing out a side effect this is causing. I find it interesting is all.
It’s not a lusty image if nobody knows what the full picture looks like. Hence the reference to the Streisand effect.
What I’m not seeing in this thread is the reason why this picture is so over used.
One reason is that it’s the perfect image to test graphics manipulation algorithms like compression for example. It has all the characteristics you want to check for: various textures, gradients, lightening… It’s like the benchy (3d printing) of image compression.
The other reason is that once it established itself as the reference image, it was easier for researchers to compare algorithms and make sure the author doesn’t cheat by cherry picking a picture where his algorithm is clearly better.
Researchers were used to see the common pitfalls of compressions algorithms on this image (the fur for example).
A lot of people in this thread have a lot of really strong opinions without actually reading the article. The model was cool with it, but she herself also thinks it’s time to retire the photo from how it’s being used in image processing, where it likely isn’t even necessary in the first place. Respect her on that. I seriously doubt she cares if it remains accessible on the web for the pervs worrying about censorship. It’ll still be there if you desperately don’t want to lose your opportunity to take a gander.
There’s a value to having a standard image or images that are used to assess compression algorithms’ performance. It could just as easily be a picture of a bouquet of flowers, or a bunch of puppies.
There’s also value in not basing your image compression algorithm on a low resolution scan of a magazine from the 1970s.
Seems like this is a much more important than any of the other discussions going on. How many results were tainted by the fact that they were compressing a dithered print image.
Considering it was defined as the benchmark, none.
Yeah, there is, so do not do that and let others do that if they want.
Everybody can use whichever pictures they like as far as I am concerned.
FFS, it’s as if there could be only one way for everyone
Everybody can use whichever pictures they like as far as I am concerned.
Not really, it’s a shared data set to make sure colours appear at uniform levels across different media and types of software in order to maintain stable image formats that can be sent over internet protocols…
…the whole point is to have a catalogue of standard test images to compare transfer and compression results to globally.
Yeah. I was originally thinking this is just more of typical American prudishness, but if the impetus came from her, that’s a good enough reason to retire the pic.
This is kinda interesting. I work in this field and have seen that image show up all the time in papers but never knew the origins.
I think it’s the right move to ban it and I’m surprised there’s so many people defending it. This isn’t about censorship or being a prude or anything like that. It’s just a bit weird that it’s from a playboy and if you can’t understand how that would make some people uncomfortable then you might be a bit lacking in empathy.
The 3d world has Utah teapots and Stanford bunnies and dragons which are all very neutral and don’t hurt anyone. Perhaps we can move on and use some less alienating pictures for image processing papers, too.
I think it’s nice to have traditions inside areas of research, and if somebody said “let’s retire the Utah teapot. It’s too simple a construct and has no bearing anymore” I’d be opposed.
Similar with “Lenna”. Is it a good test image? Not anymore, but if somebody wants to include it as tradition then let them. It hurts no one. Nobody is making money off it. Most people just know it as an image that’s been in many seminal graphics papers they want to emulate, but even if they do know it as being from an issue of Playboy, why is that a problem?
I’m not angry about it. I’m not going to die on any hill about it. I just see it as pointless and infantile for the IEEE to refuse papers over something so trivial.
I’m wary of the argument for any practice continuing being just because it’s always happened and is “tradition”. Similarly though I’m wary of the argument that a valid practice should cease just because it makes a few people uncomfortable. If the only thing going for the Lena image is “tradition” then there really is no argument for keeping it.
Just about anything can make a few people uncomfortable
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The issue was that it did make some people uncomfortable, so it was harmful. You can’t just ignore the reasons stated and then say it’s pointless. The ban didn’t come out of nowhere.
That logic makes me uncomfortable, let’s ban you
Well said. I feel like so many people here are missing one of the biggest issues with the photo as far as I understand it, which is encouraging women into STEM. For many women I think this photo felt a bit like walking into a professor’s office to see they have bikini photos on their walls. It just cements the feeling that these sciences are boys’ clubs.
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Banning something harmless is censorship. It’s a test image of a beautiful woman, not glorifying violence or terrorism.
It’s not censorship. They can choose to publish or not publish anything they want. Anyone is still free to publish the image in other journals that don’t ban it.
Utah teapots
Offensive to people who react bad to caffeine or whose relatives had been killed by a falling teapot.
Stanford bunnies
Offensive to people who think there’s a furry connection.
and if you can’t understand how that would make some people uncomfortable then you might be a bit lacking in empathy.
I can understand that and those people can use another image when making their own examples.
It’s not a bad thing to have more empathy, but there’s common sense.
Down the bottom there are some statistics about how many women experience sexual harassment and gender based discrimination in STEM positions. They also tend to have worse outcomes in general and fewer will go on to work in their field.
While this might seem like a small thing, ignoring these kinds of outdated and unnecessary boys club attitudes is exactly the kind of thing perpetuating these sorts of outcomes.
If you can’t see how using a cropped image from a playboy for no reason in an image processing paper is different from your made up examples and could make some people feel uncomfortable then maybe you’re lacking common sense and empathy.
It wasn’t chosen for no reason. It was chosen because it presents good test cases for image processing. Not great ones, just the best they had at that particular moment.
You’re right, I wasn’t particularly clear. That was certainly the case originally, I just don’t think there is a good reason for it going forward.
Historical reasons. I personally used it in a project around 2015 because of its history. And you’d need to use it if you’re comparing against anything else that used it, though given its age, that seems unlikely.
But like I said elsewhere, I’m ambivalent about its future use.
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Sounds fair. If you can produce it as a more suitable test image than the others available, I’ll use it.
The thing is that those reasons are made up just like my examples.
While this might seem like a small thing, ignoring these kinds of outdated and unnecessary boys club attitudes is exactly the kind of thing perpetuating these sorts of outcomes.
I don’t think this is correct.
then maybe you’re lacking common sense and empathy.
Maybe I just don’t confuse empathy with doing what idiots want me to do.
People were surveyed about the image, there are articles about it, an entire documentary has been made about it with the support of Lenna. How you can just come along and say that’s all made up is honestly beyond me. And I’m pretty sure that the collective IEEE and the ethics researchers who have written about this aren’t idiots. I really think you are confused about what empathy is, but I don’t see myself convincing you of that. So uh, have a nice day.
Yeah, there’s a reason experiments are not being replaced by voting.
You may consider this comment of yours valuable if you want.
I would be very surprised if the population of “people upset by the use of a teapot/bunny as a test render” was even within a couple orders of magnitude of “people upset by the use of a porn photo as a test image”
It’s a woman looking over their shoulder
It’s a cropped image of a naked woman looking over her shoulder out of a playboy magazine. I think it’s reasonable to stop using it for academic papers. You can still look at it all you want though.
It’s an unlicensed picture of a woman who was previously fine with it being used like this, but who recently changed her mind and thinks it’s time to stop.
That isn’t the issue
Issue is she’s female
I remember seeing an interview with the model, who at the time of the interview was in her 70s or 80s, she apparently wasn’t enthusiastic about having become a common test image. But since she had technically consented to be in Playboy (which was only a magazine at the time), there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. I think in this case it’s probably best to stop using her image specifically, as it does kinda get into a weird messy situation of consent, and how her consent to be in a magazine morphed through technology into something more “permanent” than she originally realized. There are plenty of other models who would absolutely be down for that, and given enough time, knowing how nerds are, there will be other test images of women. But I think it’s probably for the best that this one gets retired from this use.
And yes, there are people who have tried to use this instance as a “there shouldn’t be images of attractive/implied nude women a standard test images, because it can cause body image issues for women who go into that field.” Which on one hand, I can see where they’re coming from, but also people take pictures of people, and some people do look better than most of us, having more diverse test images would be a good thing, because we don’t all look like that. But some do, and they’re probably going to get more pictures taken of them than the rest if us.
For those, interested in an overview about more criticism, just head to the according section on Wikipedia.
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“Her” or “their” are both perfectly correct English grammar. “Their” has been gender neutral since before Shakespeare. It can be used to refer to someone or something gendered or not. Learn English before you correct them for something inappropriately.
The shoulder belongs to them, and they are a woman, so it really doesn’t matter in this informal setting.
Language is about being able to communicate, not whatever trip you’re on.
For the curious, you can find the uncropped photo by searching Lemmy posts for “Lenna”. It was posted to !retro@lemmynsfw.com a few months ago.
Here’s a comment on said NSFW post
I won’t link the post directly as it’s NSFW
Huh, I am sorry, I feel too dumb but I don’t want to live with the doubt, I read the article and the Wikipedia links and I still don’t know how this is a thing, this is the first time I know about it.
What exactly was the meaning of this image in the tech fields? “What image processing tests”?
I understand the model is tired of it already, but this won’t disappear from the Internet, how is this article gonna benefit her?
Computers are dumb and need to be told how to take the data of an image (stored as a long series of 1s and 0s in memory) and draw it on the screen so you can see it. The people writing the software to do that needed an image to test with, just to make sure everything was working right.
Either because they were a bunch of lonely geeks in the 70s or they didn’t have any other good photos to scan in, they used a headshot of a PlayBoy model. They couldn’t have known that it would effectively become one of the first digital memes, meaning it’s still semi-frequently used by graphics programmers (professionals and enthusiasts).
I can’t claim to speak on the model’s motives, but it’s not hard to imagine that having their headshot used in perpetuity without consent would make someone uncomfortable.
Just to add a bit of clarification, the image wasn’t just a headshot, yes that’s the part that was originally scanned and used, but it’s a cropped in section of the centerfold, a 3-page fold-out image in the magazine. If I remember the story correctly, they needed a large image to scan, and several people brought in images to scan in, and one guy brought a Playboy.
Here you go. A full explanation of everything.
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Basically, people working on graphics-related algorithms needed to build a library of standard test images, so that when people published their work in an academic journal, they could easily demonstrate what that algorithm does, in a manner that is fairly obvious to anyone who is familiar with the image.
So someone, when they needed to pick an image that represents a person, scanned this photograph. And it could be argued that at the time, it was probably an interesting test image for a lot of reasons: person vs background, different textures, areas with soft and sharp focus, etc etc. If you developed, say, an image compression algorithm, those things are going to be headache in all photo portraits.
It’s probably not the best image by modern standards (being a low resolution scan of a photograph off of a printed magazine - not a photo print scan, not a direct film scan, and not comparable to digital photography). Also, it’s gotten overused to the point of absurdity. (Oh your hot new face detection algorithm works on this image? Well whoop-de-do.)
i think i’ve seen it used to demo different image compression algorithms, things like that. it was used as an easy example test image, but this journal has now banned papers from using it because it is weird and creepy to be using cropped porn for that. this won’t benefit the model, but she was only pushing to ban it because she wants more women in IT fields.
If a sample image is “making some women feel unwelcome in the field” you may be too sensitive for life.
It’s the sample image and dozens of other things. For example: people telling them they’re too sensitive for life because they’re feeling uncomfortable looking at softcore porn while doing their work or research.
The full picture is never used in academia, let me assure you of that. If it weren’t for articles like these, most people would not know where it even came from or that the model was nude in the first place. Not defending the use of the picture, strange choice of a test picture for sure, if you know where it comes from but wanted to give you some context.
You wouldn’t know unless someone told you though
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If you thought that making this comment was a good idea, you may be too misogynistic for life.
If you thought making this comment was a good idea you might need to get a grip on life.
This is not porn; it’s an art. There is nothing creepy about it. Moreover, if this picture is the reason why women aren’t in this field, then there is definitely a more serious problem, but it’s not where you are looking.
Full picture (NSFW) https://mypmates.club/1972/Miss-November/Lena-Soderberg
It’s art, but it’s also porn. Those aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s from Playboy, which is a porn magazine. Look at it all you want, but it isn’t appropriate for research papers. There are plenty of alternatives.
Edit: Part of the reason more women aren’t in the field is because they’re often seen as pieces of meat. They’re objectified. They don’t use any cropped male nude photos for test images, because the men weren’t lusting over them. It’s used because it was a field ruled by men, and women were often treated as objects.
The thing is, there is no universal definition of pornography. It varies from country to country. In my country, it doesn’t fulfill some of the criteria, in particular because:
- It does not depict human genital organs in their sexual functions
- It does not solely focus on the technical aspects of sexuality and sexual life, completely detached from the intellectual and personal layers
The more important thing is that the cropped version of the picture (which was used in the research papers) does not fulfill any criteria to be classified as pornography or even as nude art. Some don’t even know that this is only part of a nude photo. I saw this cropped picture in the 90s and was surprised later in the early 2000s by the full version.
I would say more. This is an example where some random nude photo became something more because it became part of science. So it’s rather an example of “deobjectification” because this picture is focused on her face in the hat, and not her reproductive organs.
Regarding objectification, the picture of any kind has nothing to do with women being objectified. Any person may be objectified only by being treated by another person or group of people as an object. For example, a cleaning lady may be objectified by one employer who does not treat her like a living, feeling person, but not by another employer. The same applies to sex workers and any other profession. It is our attitude that determines whether we objectify someone, not the picture of a woman in a hat.
Pretend for a moment that you’re a woman. You go to the office and the men are openly sharing around a porn magazine with no concern. Does that seem like a safe professional workplace? That’s essentially what this represents. It isn’t what’s happening anymore, but it is the origin.
People also used to smoke in offices. Safe and professional is a relatively new thing.
Decorum changes over time, but it isn’t new. There’s always a set of rules people follow no matter where or when you are.
It’s both. It’s artsy softcore pornography.
I certainly don’t think the full version would be appropriate, but I’m ambivalent about the cropped version.
I don’t think people should get their knickers in a twist about sex in the first place.
Everything about Playboy is creepy
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I’ve seen more skin in a Sears catalogue in the 90s. Yeah I was a teenager shut up. People need to get over themselves.
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How do you think you were born?
people who are offended by images of other people are narcissists
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it’s almost like you’re trying to be insulting
Huh I had no idea!
I’m pretty sure I compressed that image in our computer vision class with some alogrithm we implemented for exercise. I though that was just some artsy over the shoulder picture, but seeing the full version the shoulder does seems supicious in hindsight.
In art class it’s not uncommon to hire nude models to pose like Lena. Nothing suspicious except fuckin Christians imposing their prudishm
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On Wednesday, the IEEE Computer Society announced to members that, after April 1, it would no longer accept papers that include a frequently used image of a 1972 Playboy model named Lena Forsén.
An uncropped version of the 512×512-pixel test image originally appeared as the centerfold picture for the December 1972 issue of Playboy Magazine.
In 1997, Playboy helped track down Forsén, who appeared at the 50th Annual Conference of the Society for Imaging Science in Technology, signing autographs for fans.
It is also a sexually suggestive photo of an attractive woman, and its use by men in the computer field has garnered criticism over the decades, especially from female scientists and engineers who felt that the image (especially related to its association with the Playboy brand) objectified women and created an academic climate where they did not feel entirely welcome.
The comp.compression Usenet newsgroup FAQ document claims that in 1988, a Swedish publication asked Forsén if she minded her image being used in computer science, and she was reportedly pleasantly amused.
In a 2019 Wired article, Linda Kinstler wrote that Forsén did not harbor resentment about the image, but she regretted that she wasn’t paid better for it originally.
The original article contains 732 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Are they published by Elsevier? Just tell them it’s AI-generated and they’ll be happy to publish it.
First learned about that image on this video https://youtu.be/yCdwm2vo09I
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Good. Sick and tired of seeing Lena.
I mean, since she wants the usage retired, I’m all for it. But even she is proud of the picture, and I’m definitely not sick of seeing it, few times though I have.
The Lena image is (was?) featured quite prominently in the OpenCV docs and tutorials. Kinda weird it only now goes noticed.
In a 1999 essay on reasons for the male predominance in computer science, applied mathematician Dianne P. O’Leary wrote: .
Suggestive pictures used in lectures on image processing … convey the message that the lecturer caters to the males only. For example, it is amazing that the “Lena” pin-up image is still used as an example in courses and published as a test image in journals today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna#Criticism
That’s 25 years ago…
It’s been noticed for ages. This is not the first time the issue has been discussed
It’s been banned from Nature for a while now
