[HN Gopher] Apollo Remastered
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Apollo Remastered
Author : bentaber
Score : 69 points
Date : 2023-06-14 20:32 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kottke.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (kottke.org)
| akiselev wrote:
| I believe all of the new scans are available here:
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/albums
| TylerE wrote:
| Those date from 2019, so clearly not. The quality of the few I
| sampled is also nothing special.
| akiselev wrote:
| According to the author's bio [1], he was remastering photos
| of Neil Armstrong in _2019_ for NASA for the 50th anniversary
| of Apollo 11 so clearly the timing lines up. Multiple sources
| on NASA and elsewhere point to that Flikr gallery.
|
| _> The quality of the few I sampled is also nothing
| special._
|
| The ones in the TFA are _remastered_ - color correct among
| other things. The ones in the Flikr are the unprocessed
| versions of Apollo Hasselblad photography scanned by NASA 's
| Johnson Space Center. You can download the original
| 4000x4000+ resolution scans from Flikr.
|
| [1] https://www.apolloremastered.com/bio
| sponaugle wrote:
| From that site: "The raw output from the digital scan of a
| 70mm Hasselblad frame, is a huge 1.3GB, 16-bit TIFF file.
| At approximately 11,000 pixels square, a single image would
| require a 12-foot x 12-foot computer monitor to display the
| whole image at standard resolution. "
|
| The Flikr images must be jpg conversions of the original
| TIFFs, certainly in an attempt to reduce file sizes. I'm
| not sure where the 11,000 comes from. The JPGs are
| 4400x4600. Perhaps the original TIFFs were 11,000x11,000
| pix.
| porphyra wrote:
| And best of all, like other works of the US government, it's
| public domain!
| contrarian1234 wrote:
| Is it? It's definitely not made immediately clear on their
| website: https://www.apolloremastered.com/the-project
|
| Why are they on flickr and not NASA.gov as usual?
| porphyra wrote:
| Not sure, but I checked the licenses of a couple of photos
| on flickr and they were public domain.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| In the US, government organizations are not allowed to
| copyright their work. They can, however, obtain works that
| were copyrighted by someone else. But pretty much
| everything coming out of NASA is public domain, though they
| don't put a lot of effort into publicising that fact.
|
| https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-laws-in-u-s-
| governme...
| netsharc wrote:
| These look like to be the non-enhanced scans. Compare
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/217878648...
| and
| https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/70f4b600092729ee3a719066227d7...
| (from the article
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/aug/26/apollo-space...
| )
| [deleted]
| ConanRus wrote:
| [dead]
| hex4def6 wrote:
| > Inspected, embossed and hand signed by the artist
|
| Wow, they got the Apollo 15 crew to sign these? Awesome! There
| are some technical / logistical issues with that, but I'm sure
| they managed to overcome them...
|
| Snark aside, I'm not really sure how running restoration on
| public domain photographs gives you authorship / copyright
| ownership over them.
| grout58 wrote:
| That's not what I expected to see :)
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| > Inspected, embossed and hand signed by the artist
|
| What? Since when is a film developer an artist?
|
| If he would've taken the photos himself and then did the post-
| processing... fine. But not like this.
|
| I'm reading this page:
| https://www.apolloremastered.com/shop/p/s65-30427 and it doesn't
| even mention the original photographer.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| >Since when is a film developer an artist?
|
| Developing and printing photographs absolutley is an art form.
| Many books on developing and printing are quick to point out
| that Ansel Adams was celebrated more for what he did in the
| dark room than for the subject matter or composition.
| Arainach wrote:
| A number of these shots are composites from multiple source
| images.
|
| Photo editing is an art and a technical skill all on its own. A
| print with a separate photographer and editor has two artists,
| not one.
| contrarian1234 wrote:
| Well it's a thinly veiled ad... and you can't really easily get
| digital copies - which somehow feels weird/wrong for space stuff.
| You typically can get that in full resolution directly from NASA.
|
| Is the web interface representative of the final quality?
|
| Just looking at an example:
| https://www.apolloremastered.com/shop/p/as15-82-11056-to-110...
|
| Even mildly zoomed in the image looks quite crummy and blurry.
| Fine for a postcard, but not to hang on you wall
|
| It's also a bit weird that some dude manages to somehow get semi-
| exclusive access to photos made by the US gov't and can then
| charge hundreds of pounds for them
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| I had written this comment almost verbatim before getting
| distracted at work.
|
| There's gotta be some public-facing way to access these images.
| NASA wouldn't just let any jabroni access these highly guarded
| films to sell them, they have to have gotten something out of
| it for them (and by extension the public)
|
| EDIT: Clarifying since it sounded like I was calling the guy a
| jabroni, didn't intend that
| netsharc wrote:
| This shop where I got my copy from is still selling them for
| 46 Euro a pop: https://www.buecher.de/shop/raumfahrt/apollo-
| remastered/saun...
|
| I bought it after reading The Guardian's excerpt with a lot
| of great pictures:
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/aug/26/apollo-
| space...
|
| > Digital scans of the transparencies are often underexposed
| and difficult to process. The images shown here are derived
| from new, high-resolution scans of the original film,
| painstakingly restored using image-enhancement technology.
|
| I think the "jabroni" was hired to make the best quality
| reproduction out of these films for NASA's own archive, my
| guess was he probably negotiated a deal where he'd be allowed
| to publish these photos.
|
| I do wonder if public domain means they must be accessible
| online too?
|
| Edit: on the Guardian excerpt, the photo credits include ASU,
| I found this site which talks about their work thawing the
| films and doing high-resolution, high bitrate (e.g. 14-bit
| grayscale) scans: http://tothemoon.ser.asu.edu/about, and
| this site also offers about 26000 scans of the films.
|
| But the ASU scans are still not enhanced, e.g. the cover of
| the book, AS09-24-3665 from:
|
| - Flickr, 2015 upload: https://www.flickr.com/photos/projecta
| polloarchive/217878648...
|
| - ASU scan: http://tothemoon.ser.asu.edu/gallery/Apollo/9/Has
| selblad%205...
|
| - Apollo Remastered (Andy Saunder's work): https://i.guim.co.
| uk/img/media/70f4b600092729ee3a719066227d7...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/index.html
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/missions
|
| https://images.nasa.gov/
|
| If you're unable to find something you know should be there,
| a FOIA request should fill the gap.
| [deleted]
| Arainach wrote:
| Hundreds of hours of labor (and the hours developing
| professional skills prior to that labor) are not free. Art-
| grade photo printing is not free.
|
| The book is huge in all 3 dimensions. Nearly every page is a
| full-page photo print. It is a work of art, an artifact, and
| well worth the price. I love my copy.
| arrrg wrote:
| Ads are someone being paid to write/publish about something.
| Are you claiming that's happening here?
|
| Also, I'm pretty sure a lot of the original photos are simply
| blurry (from motion) or slightly out of focus. Some of the
| other previews are much sharper.
|
| Check out the beard:
| https://www.apolloremastered.com/shop/p/as07-04-1596
|
| Luckily photos don't have to tack sharp to be great. In fact,
| many awesome photos (on or off planet) aren't sharp at all. I
| don't care at all about the obvious motion blur in this great
| photo, it even seems fitting:
| https://www.apolloremastered.com/shop/p/as11-36-5390
|
| (Though I would agree, you picked one that would be greatly
| helped by being tack sharp and where it being out of focus
| detracts from it. I still think the composition is great and
| that's probably why it made it in.)
| _caw wrote:
| That must be a web quality pic.
|
| The ones in his book are far higher quality. Too bad I can't
| nail the book to my wall..
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _Well it 's a thinly veiled ad..._
|
| Jason Kottke has been curating links on the inter-tubes for
| twenty-five years (1998). He simply links to stuff he thinks
| other will find cool: the fact that some of those items are
| purchasable does not mean the post is an ad.
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Kottke
|
| His posts on the Apollo program go back to 2005:
|
| * https://kottke.org/tag/Apollo/3
|
| Here's another post on a book you can purchase by Edward Tufte:
|
| * https://kottke.org/01/09/edward-tufte-author-of-three
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte
|
| Was that post an ad?
| jjcm wrote:
| Is there a link to the high res photos?
| evolve2k wrote:
| Ha fully expected to read more about the reddit saga.
| nivekney wrote:
| _oh they are finally replacing the reddit backend with their
| own!?_
|
| _nope it 's the moon._
| joecot wrote:
| I've been very much hoping that Apollo and the rest just
| pivot to being amazing Lemmy/kbin clients, with multiple
| instances pre-configured to use. That would be the biggest
| coup of all. Which is exactly what I thought had happened
| when I saw a title of "Apollo Remastered".
|
| 'Oh, you're going to price us all out? You don't care about
| third party client users? That's fine, I guess you won't care
| if hundreds of thousands of users suddenly have a client for
| a different site installed when they go to open reddit.'
| dramatic-cable wrote:
| [flagged]
| _caw wrote:
| I highly recommend this book, which I received as a birthday
| present (hint, for your friends or loved ones who are into space
| stuff.)
|
| Every page is filled with these georgeous, highly detailed
| pictures, and a running commentary from the astronauts or author.
|
| You won't be disappointed.
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(page generated 2023-06-14 23:01 UTC)