Top all-time · #5397
Aurélien Pierre
Personal blog · eng.aurelienpierre.comsciencedesign
Aurélien Pierre writes Engineering, a personal blog at eng.aurelienpierre.com about science and design. Since 2019, 15 different Hacker News readers have linked it 23 times, most often “WebP is so great except it's not”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-20, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for articles on image processing and colour science, including darktable-related posts and a WebP versus JPEG comparison that drew objections in the comments.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Aurélien Pierre’s research notes: applied mathematics and physics for photography — colour science, tone mapping, image reconstruction, software design.
Most-linked posts?
- WebP is so great except it's not3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-12-08
- /wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/10/Shoot-Antoine-0044-_DSC0085-lossy-dithering.webp2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-12-15
- /wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/10/Shoot-Antoine-0044-_DSC0085-lossy-noise.jpg2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-12-15
What Hacker News says?
Keep in mind that darktable really insists on doing things from the ground up, and pretty much requires you to understand the underlying pipeline and what you want to achieve. If you are just experimenting with random sliders, you aren't likely to get good results. It mostly sticks to standard industrial and scientific definitions instead of marketable names, and contains very little "magic" that is common to commer…
Comment linking /
on “Darktable 4.0”Submitted WebP is so great except it's not as a story · 76 points
HN discussionParent was not talking about highlight reconstruction. DT has a highlight reconstruction module too but RTs was superior every time I tried. They're talking about the Filmic module which is a fancy exposure adjustment curve. I ported it to Rust for use in our internal 2D compositing renderer (not open, unfortunately). That's when I got to appreciate the work done there, really. The gainforge crate has another port,…
Comment linking /2018/11/filmic-darktable-and-the-quest-of-the-hdr-tone-mapping/
on “RapidRAW: A non-destructive and GPU-accelerated RAW image editor”Submitted WebP is so great except it's not (2021) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThat, or the more recent darktable UCS: https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/2022/02/color-saturation-cont...
Comment linking /2022/02/color-saturation-control-for-the-21th-century/
on “Issues with color spaces and perceptual brightness”Submitted Image processing does not kill people and it's a shame as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIs this blog a joke/prank? The images don't link to the correct filetype stated. - "JPEG, lossy, 85 : 184 kiB" → links actually to a WebP file ( https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/20... ) - "JPEG, lossy, 85 : 211 KiB" → links actually to a WebP file ( https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/20... ) etc... So when the blog tells you that JPEG is so much better quality, the "jp…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/10/Shoot-Antoine-0044-_DSC0085-lossy-noise.webp
on “WebP is so great except it's not”Submitted Optimize a van Shelf as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> I opened the first two pictures in separate tabs and switched quickly between them. There is zero difference. Tried it on two different monitors, Chrome and Firefox. Same with the pictures of the guy at the end. One easy difference to spot is the background in this pair is posterized ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterization ) in webp but not in jpg: https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/20…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/10/Shoot-Antoine-0044-_DSC0085-lossy-dithering.webp
on “WebP is so great except it's not”Submitted Photographic grain synthesis from crystallographic structure simulation as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe first link in your Edit 2 section (the JPEG) one is broken, it should be https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/20...
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/10/Shoot-Antoine-0044-_DSC0085-lossy-noise.jpg
on “WebP is so great except it's not”The first picture is very hard to spot imo. I had to zoom in a bit to spot it initially. You'll see the "blockiness" is slightly worse in the webp version. (Left side of the image, head height) For the second image, I opened the jpeg 90 [1] and webp 90 [2] versions. Comparing those two, there are clear banding issues to the right of the neck. Slightly less visible are the darker bands circling around the whole image…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/10/Shoot-Antoine-0044-_DSC0085-lossy-dithering.webp
on “WebP is so great except it's not”I checked those images on Macbook 16 M2 Max (standard P3-1600 nits preset), Chrome 120.0.6099.109. All of the WebP images had pretty bad posterization, while JPEG examples did not. Edit: You have to actually click for a full size image to see the truth. Those inline images had pretty bad compression artefacts, even the supposed lossless versions. So https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/20... (fu…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/10/Shoot-Antoine-0044-_DSC0085-lossy-noise-96.webp
on “WebP is so great except it's not”I opened the first two pictures in separate tabs and switched quickly between them. There is zero difference. Tried it on two different monitors, Chrome and Firefox. Same with the pictures of the guy at the end. EDIT: The last comparison is webp twice, he linked it wrong. Here is the jpg one, still no difference: https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/20...
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/10/Shoot-Antoine-0044-_DSC0085-lossy-noise.jpg
on “WebP is so great except it's not”Any recommendations on a particular syntax highlighter plugin? Also note that you may not be able to run this setup on WordPress.com but there are plenty of hosts at the $10/month level who will be happy to host your wp install. The auto update process is pretty good too. As far as jupyter, this looks useful: https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/2018/05/05/make-jupyter-noteb...
Comment linking /2018/05/05/make-jupyter-notebooks-easy-to-blog-in-wordpress/
on “Ask HN: What's the easiest way to write a blog without dealing with front-end”WebP produces visible artifacts at compression levels comparable to JPEG: https://eng.aurelienpierre.com/2021/10/webp-is-so-great-exce... As Aurélien points out, if you fixate on a bunch of metrics without actually caring about the professional applications, the outcome will look... amateurish.
Comment linking /2021/10/webp-is-so-great-except-its-not/
on “It's the future – you can stop using JPEGs”
