The Hollywood Color Nerd Who Shot ‘Knives Out’ Explains His Viral iPhone Camera App
The Hollywood Color Nerd Who Shot ‘Knives Out’ Explains His Viral iPhone Camera App
Steve Yedlin is a certified color nerd. He almost immediately starts explaining “the math” behind his passion for color science. But I didn’t call to chat about psychophysics or color theory. I called to talk to Yedlin about his Chromagraph Camera app, newly released, virally popular, and available only on the iPhone.
史蒂夫·耶德林（Steve Yedlin）是一位公认的色彩极客。他几乎一开口就开始解释他对于色彩科学的热情背后的“数学原理”。但我这次通话并非为了探讨心理物理学或色彩理论，而是为了聊聊他那款新发布、在网上爆火且仅限 iPhone 使用的 Chromagraph Camera 应用程序。
Yedlin is a longtime collaborator with director Rian Johnson, shooting his films like Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The duo teamed up again for this launch. “I write all of my own image processing that we use on the movies,” he says. The Chromagraph Camera app brings a taste of Yedlin’s special sauce to your smartphone camera.
耶德林是导演莱恩·约翰逊（Rian Johnson）的长期合作伙伴，曾掌镜《利刃出鞘》和《星球大战：最后的绝地武士》等电影。此次发布，两人再次联手。他说：“我们在电影中使用的所有图像处理程序都是我自己编写的。”Chromagraph Camera 应用程序将耶德林的“独门秘籍”带到了你的智能手机摄像头上。
Instead of the iPhone’s built-in image processing, this app shoots RAW image data and processes it with a similar formula to what he uses in film production. After Johnson promoted Chromagraph Camera on social media in late October, it quickly became the top paid download in the iOS store. The app costs a one-time fee of $13 and only shoots still photos. (There’s no video support yet.)
这款应用没有使用 iPhone 内置的图像处理功能，而是拍摄 RAW 原始图像数据，并采用与他在电影制作中类似的公式进行处理。在约翰逊于 10 月下旬在社交媒体上推广 Chromagraph Camera 后，它迅速成为 iOS 商店中付费下载量最高的应用。该应用售价 13 美元（一次性买断），目前仅支持拍摄静态照片。（暂不支持视频拍摄。）
I am far from the resident photography nerd on WIRED’s gear team. (That award goes, in part, to my wonderful editor, Julian.) I’m often just whipping out my iPhone and snapping a picture with the default settings. Even so, I really enjoyed capturing some of San Francisco’s fall vibes using the Chromagraph Camera. Although Apple gives iPhone owners plenty of built-in tools for adjusting the color on your own images, I loved this app’s ability to capture highly stylized shots without me needing to fiddle with anything at all.
我绝不是《连线》杂志装备团队里的摄影极客（这个头衔部分属于我出色的编辑朱利安）。我通常只是掏出 iPhone，用默认设置拍张照片。即便如此，我还是很享受用 Chromagraph Camera 捕捉旧金山秋日氛围的过程。虽然苹果为 iPhone 用户提供了大量内置工具来调整图像色彩，但我非常喜欢这款应用的一点是：无需我进行任何繁琐操作，就能拍出极具风格化的照片。
When you open the app, what you see in the viewfinder before snapping the shot is not what the Chromagraph Camera will spit out. The photo is essentially “developed” in the app after you capture the image. This is because the app needs a moment to run its unique processing for the specific tone, color, and grain effects. You can also alter how an image looks in the app after it’s processed, if you want to tweak the overall exposure or texture of an image.
当你打开应用时，在按下快门前取景器里看到的画面，并不是 Chromagraph Camera 最终输出的效果。照片本质上是在你拍摄后于应用内“冲印”出来的。这是因为应用需要一点时间来运行其独特的处理程序，以实现特定的色调、色彩和颗粒效果。如果想要调整图像的整体曝光或质感，你也可以在照片处理完成后，在应用内修改其外观。
Yedlin is adamant that he’s not attempting to replace your iPhone camera app or release a professional tool for editing everything. It’s all about that color, man. “It’s just this curated app that takes the pictures the way we like,” he says. Yedlin and Johnson teamed up with programmer Eric Cameron to build the app centered around their color tastes, experimenting with it for a couple of months before launch.
耶德林坚持认为，他并不是想取代 iPhone 原生的相机应用，也不是要发布一款全能的专业编辑工具。一切的核心都在于色彩。他说：“这只是一款精心打造的应用，能按照我们喜欢的方式拍摄照片。”耶德林和约翰逊与程序员埃里克·卡梅伦（Eric Cameron）合作，围绕他们的色彩品味构建了这款应用，并在发布前进行了几个月的实验。
Even after all of this custom image processing, Yedlin still sees the iPhone as a fundamentally limited device. “This idea that you can actually have the control that a professional camera would have is not really true anyhow,” he says. Software can only do so much to change how hardware works, especially when developing an app within Apple’s parameters that limit how far the software can push the phone’s hardware.
即便经过了所有这些自定义图像处理，耶德林仍然认为 iPhone 在本质上是一款受限的设备。他说：“那种认为你可以真正拥有专业相机般控制力的想法，无论如何都不是真的。”软件在改变硬件工作方式方面能做的非常有限，尤其是在苹果设定的参数范围内开发应用时，这些参数限制了软件对手机硬件的挖掘深度。
As advances in computational photography and generative AI have renewed discussions about what a smartphone photo even is anymore, Yedlin’s approach isn’t an attempt to find a sense of neutrality. He doesn’t see any image as a literal rendering of what exists. It’s always an interpretation, whether that’s a stylized, artful depiction or a more stagnant shot. He says that the look of the Chromagraph Camera app is consciously “opinionated” and specific.
随着计算摄影和生成式人工智能的进步，人们重新开始讨论“智能手机照片究竟是什么”。耶德林的方案并非试图寻求某种中立性。他不认为任何图像是对现实的字面还原。它始终是一种诠释，无论是风格化、艺术化的描绘，还是更平淡的快照。他说，Chromagraph Camera 应用呈现出的视觉效果是有意为之的“主观”且具体的。
“You can describe how the different rendering looks in words, but you just have to look at it,” he says. The color speaks for itself.
“你可以用语言描述不同的渲染效果看起来如何，但你必须亲眼看看，”他说。色彩本身就是最好的说明。