news

a few days ago, my circle of friends was flooded with live photos.

after wechat supported the release of live photos, my social circle immediately divided into two groups: one group happily shared the touching moments in life, and the other group lamented why they couldn't post it or watch it.

for a time, live photo became a hot topic in the circle of friends.

in fact, weibo has supported the release of live photos for a long time, but it has not caused much response. starting from this year, popular social media platforms such as douyin and xiaohongshu successively allowed the release and viewing of live photos, and this function began to officially enter the public domain. sight, and with the support of national-level applications like wechat, it really exploded.

on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the launch of live photo, let’s talk about why this thing is so popular and what new ways live photo can play during the national day holiday.

why are live photos so popular?

in the "harry potter" movie series, there is a unique "magic photo" that is often found in newspapers, magazines or photo albums.

different from ordinary photos, the characters in these photos not only move and wave, but also make various expressions and even interact with people, giving the images a magical dynamic vitality.

live photo brings this magical dynamic photo into our real life.

if you want to bring "magic photos" to the screen, your phone is always ready - when you turn on the live photo mode, the camera has actually quietly started recording everything you see on the camera and is ready for you to press the shutter at any time. .

at the moment you press the shutter, the iphone will take a high-resolution still photo and merge it with the images 1.5 seconds before the shutter and 1.5 seconds after the shutter to generate a dynamic image file containing photos and short videos, which can be found in the album. you can review the dynamic moments during shooting at any time.

this short-lived dynamic presentation gives each photo a more vivid emotional expression, allowing users to recall the atmosphere and scene at the time through the subtle movements and sounds in the picture, as if recreating that moment.

just like when you blow out the birthday candles, the photo is no longer just a piece of cake with candles, but also a picture of you who just finished making a wish and slowly opened your eyes. the candles flickered slightly and the candlelight reflected on your face. with a gentle blow, the flames the process of slowly extinguishing.

every tiny movement and emotion is completely preserved, as if the memory has been extended into a short story.

in addition, live photo’s popularity is also inseparable from its vitality.

with the continuous advancement of image retouching and color correction software, many people's first reaction after taking a photo is often to "retouch it" first, adjust the light and shadow, and remove flaws, and then share it.

this pursuit of a better and more ideal self is understandable. after all, everyone wants to show the most perfect side. this phenomenon can be explained from the "impression management theory".

impression management theory states that people influence how others view them by carefully adjusting their external image. on social media, users often refine their photos in order to present an idealized self-image and gain approval and positive feedback from others.

but perfection is too far away - after all, the charm of life may come from those small flaws and imperfections.

when the original vitality of photos has been modified for a long time, they inevitably become mechanized and stylized, losing warmth and real details. over time, terms such as "finely decorated moments" and "prefabricated moments" have emerged to describe photos that have been repeatedly beautified and lack realism.

as time goes by, people begin to get tired of such carefully crafted images, and instead crave those small fragments with real emotions and imperfections that can truly touch people's hearts.

unlike static photos, live photos capture a dynamic moment—not just a frame, but the movements, expressions, and sounds of that moment.

this dynamic vitality, even after modification, is difficult to completely disappear. it makes the photos look more real and vivid.

it is this "living" image that satisfies people's desire for nature and pure vitality.

keep it real, but with a lot of twists

as a function that is turned on by default in the iphone's native camera, users rarely notice its existence. they are just pleasantly surprised to find that from some point on, the photo will first play a section of content and then freeze it.

this is a major feature of live photo: the system will automatically select the "best" moment from this video of just a few seconds to improve the filming rate.

however, the system occasionally overturns and selects an inappropriate photo as the cover. faced with this problem, we can enter the album to edit the live photo and select a more suitable picture as the cover.

however, due to the limitations of mobile phone computing power, the iphone is still unable to perform precise calculations on every picture in live photo, which brings another benefit - other frames in live photo are not interfered by the algorithm and present a close the effect of pure optical imaging.

in other words, you can use live photo to get a photo without hdr brightening and over-sharpening at all.

in addition, live photo also has more possibilities in terms of form: in the upper left corner of the album, there is a live photo icon. when you click it, you will see different presentation forms of live photo.

in addition to selecting your favorite frame, you can also loop the picture or play it back and forth, or completely set the photo to a static picture, and the "long exposure" function is a more creative function.

as mentioned above, live photo actually records the time before and after you press the shutter, and stacking all the images during this time together achieves the effect of long exposure through a method similar to "stacking".

under this effect, your photo will no longer be a split second of splashing water, but a continuous silk-like water surface; it will no longer be the thrilling moment of frozen fireworks, but the blooming to the ultimate splendor.

however, there is a prerequisite for making good use of the long exposure function of live photo - your hand must be steady, otherwise, all you will get is a shaky and blurry photo.

in addition to freezing time, live photo can also develop new gameplay with the help of third-party software.

many times, we record multiple moments in a scene, but sending each one out affects the look and feel. we can put multiple live photos together and present them to everyone at the same time.

the specific operations are as follows:

behind live photo, what is condensed is nearly two hundred years of human exploration.

at this year's made by google conference, pixel 9 debuted with gemini. after google's computational photography, it once again led the direction of mobile imaging with ai.

only with a philosophy can we have a firm direction. google's philosophy is very simple:

photos are memories.

that's why functions like reimagine are available. even at the risk of rumors and confusion, google allows you to modify photos at will through ai to generate scenes in your mind, rather than a certain moment that actually happened.

compared with google, apple is quite conservative about imaging. jon mccormack, vice president of camera software engineering, said in an interview:

apple has its own view on the definition of photos - photos are things that really happened. a child's first step in life, or a parent's last breath, are things that actually happened and cannot be changed.

therefore, after pixel quickly supported ai generation, apple only conservatively asked apple intelligence to provide an elimination function, and in the propaganda caliber, it was unified to eliminate things that have nothing to do with the subject, rather than something that once existed in your life in the subject of the picture. of people.

live photo, which is both dynamic and authentic, is another interpretation of apple's view that "photos are real."

in fact, in the ten years since live photo, manufacturers other than apple have also launched system-level live photos. however, due to the inconsistency in formats and methods, they have not been as widely circulated as iphone's live photos.

this year, oppo reno 12 first allowed users to upload live photos to xiaohongshu, and then wechat moments supported iphone publishing of live photos. more and more people began to pay attention to this medium between photos and videos. in this way, we hope to establish a more vivid connection with the world.

this change not only affects users' perception of images, but also triggers the advancement of the entire industry.

recently, vivo's product manager han boxiao responded to netizens' questions on weibo, confirming that android will uniformly support the release of live photos on wechat before the end of the year, further breaking down platform barriers and providing more users with dynamic recording opportunities.

recording a clip may be something people have become accustomed to, but it's actually quite remarkable.

since the birth of imaging technology in the early 19th century, humans have found ways to objectively record static images. after decades of evolution, expensive film has been used to continuously shoot static images to compose dynamic clips. it was not until 1997 that " when harry potter and the philosopher's stone was published, magical photographs that could record fragments of the story still existed only in fantasy.

nearly two decades later, with the popularization of smartphones, we were able to truly pick up the phone and press the shutter button to condense a period of time into a photo, turning the magical world into reality.

it can be said that it took people almost two hundred years to promote imaging to this point.

therefore, during the national day holiday, if your mobile phone supports live photo, don’t waste it. even if you can’t share it temporarily, you can still keep these vivid clips and prepare memories for your future self.