Photosynthesis

Creative

photo editing

SHOW HN2026

329points
305comments
#117of 4,366 in 2026
Top 3%of 2026 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

10 positive, 43 neutral or asking, 6 mixed, 48 critical, out of 107 comments about the project. Thread score -0.29.

Idea: 4 for, 13 againstPricing: 1 for, 14 againstExecution: 0 for, 13 againstDesign: 3 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 4 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Website demo and design are well done

    From 2 comments
    • Not just the app idea … but the WEBSITE — is VERY WELL DONE. I immediately signed up. (And offered to help bring users to this thing.)
      EGreg on HN
    • Impressive! And I love the comparison tool on the website. One more thing should be added as an overlay on each photo are the EXIF data, I want to see that comparison as well.
      dan_man on HN
  • Interesting idea that could improve phone photos

    From 2 comments
    • Very cool stuff, I've long thought there must be some fancy ways to get extra information for better image resolution by taking advantage of the other cameras. That said, I must…
      eigenspace on HN
    • This is interesting. I'm just curious to know how long will it survive until Apple adds something like that to their software. Do you have a fallback plan for this? But I must…
      libertas_quae_s on HN
  • Name is good

    From 1 comment

Objections

  • Subscription pricing is not wanted for a camera app

    From 4 comments
    • subscription camera app seems like peak comedy to me
      trashcan2137 on HN
    • How can you in good conscience charge a subscription for this? It would be one thing if the app relied on infrastructure, but it's a one and done algorithm that's entirely local…
      copper-float on HN
    • That demo looks like Minority Report level enhancement. Amazing if it really works, but I'll be damned if I'm paying for a SaaS camera app.
      bigwheels on HN
    • This whole thing feels wrong. OP should be working for a phone manufacturer, not trying to sell this as a subscription. How much is it worth to be able to squeeze a little more…
      teaearlgraycold on HN
  • Results look no better or worse than the standard photo

    From 3 comments
    • I cannot see a meaningful difference at all in any of the example photos, so not really seeing what the point of this is.
      EDEdDNEdDYFaN on HN
    • Is it just me or do the original photos look better overall?
      Noaidi on HN
    • I am co fused, 50% of photos look better in standard zoom and 50% of them look better woth photosynthesis. This is like an anti campaign for the app hinting "in the end it…
      cantalopes on HN
  • Visible seam or blur edge around detailed area

    From 2 comments
    • I'm confused. So this is just producing a single photo that is clearer in a middle rectangle and blurrier outside that rectangle? Of course the extra detail in the middle is…
      crazygringo on HN
    • This appears to use a naïve masking approach (using ML to find the edges of the mask) which seems to suffer from slight uncorrected differences in lens distortion. There's a…
      LoganDark on HN
  • Possible Apple copying or built-in phone features already do this

    From 3 comments
    • If it works, Apple copies it soon enough...
      swah on HN
    • To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple isn't already doing this and just doesn't say so explicitly. There is a crazy amount of image processing going on behind the scenes…
      jrflo on HN
    • I'm so confused. Does the dev not know that this is what iPhones do by default?
      dmd on HN

Requests

  • Free tier with more photos per month

    From 2 comments
    • I like the idea of this app and the website is well done. Subscription isn't for me, but for folks who take a lot of photos and need this sort of thing, I can see it. Free tier…
      joe-dakroub on HN
    • Neat work, but the free tier lets you export 3 images a month and the alternative is a subscription? No thanks.
      anigbrowl on HN
  • Android or Pixel version

    From 1 comment
  • Show EXIF data in comparison

    From 1 comment
    • Impressive! And I love the comparison tool on the website. One more thing should be added as an overlay on each photo are the EXIF data, I want to see that comparison as well.
      dan_man on HN
  • Lifetime price instead of subscription

    From 1 comment
    • you don't need subscription model, just one price for lifetime - that will be fair and convert better. don't do trials - do refund within 28 days
      levanlevi on HN

Questions

  • How parallax is handled between lenses

    From 1 comment
    • How is parallax error solved? The two cameras don't share the same optics center.
      xiaoyu2006 on HN
  • Whether sensor fusion or native resolution is used for the zoomed part

    From 1 comment
    • Anyone know if they’re using the native camera resolution for the zoomed part or doing sensor fusion to get better quality than either alone?
      zellyn on HN
  • Why colour temperature and contrast change from the native camera

    From 1 comment
    • very cool app, a few questions: why does the color "temp" of the image change between traditional iphone photography vs your app? it appears to both warm and cool the images.…
      hnthrowawayacct on HN

Alternatives named

  • Deep Fusion and night mode on iPhone

    From 2 comments
    • I believe that's true for most/all night capture, but they take sequential frames from the same lens rather than combining multiple lenses.
      sajomes on HN
    • I believe that's a similar idea to Apple's Deep Fusion which also takes multiple frames from the same lens then intelligently combines them for higher detail. As ipsum2 said…
      sajomes on HN
  • Adobe Project Indigo

    From 1 comment
    • Project Indigo from Adobe does that too https://apps.apple.com/us/app/project-indigo/id6742591546
      b__d on HN
  • Light L16 camera

    From 1 comment
    • Similar idea to the discontinued Light L16 camera https://petapixel.com/2017/12/08/review-light-l16-brilliant-braindead/
      lattalayta on HN
  • Lytro light-field camera

    From 1 comment
    • I believe this is something similar to what Lytro aimed to bring to market. Lytro, Inc. was an American company founded in 2006 by Ren Ng which developed some of the first…
      gurjeet on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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