04/04/2026
I've seen some posts going around comparing photos of the earth from the 1970s to the ones from the Artemis mission (purpose being to call the quality of recent photos into question).
While I don't have information about the equipment used for these photos I can make a pretty strong educated guess about the difference. The 1970s photos are almost certainly edited, whereas the one making the rounds now does not appear to be. At least not heavily.
Most cameras, especially nicer ones, play their color profiling pretty safe (often even dull or desaturared) , so the photos can come out looking "flat". When you hear photographers talk about different photo formats this is the primary difference. JPG images are essentially print-ready, or at least that's the idea. The camera applies a color profile that it thinks makes the most sense, but it's applied very broadly. RAW format doesn't make that assumption and basically gives you the exact data that it recorded so that you have greater control of the final product in post-production.
Anyway, thanks for attending my TedTalk. Here's the recent photo with some before and after basic editing and color correction that I did just using my phone.
Editing matters, folks.
