Over the last week I’ve explored Halide app’s new Process Zero (PZ) feature.

For the first couple of days I misunderstood what the PZ image was and how to get it. I even tooted a comparison of a RAW image processed by me along with an “Apple Processed” image, both captured in Halide. Apparently I wasn’t the only one confused, as per the discussions in the official subreddit.

I thought that the PZ adjustments were in the RAW file but they are actually only in the HEIC / JPG file, that is “developed”, and essentially redeveloped every time one makes adjustments in the app’s Image Lab interface.

Once I had this clarity I tried it in various scenarios, and finally appreciated the result instead of just the theory and examples presented in the announcement.

So far my favorite PZ images have been a couple of black and white photos I shared in this post a few days ago.

A black-and-white photograph of a room with a tufted ottoman in the foreground. A cat is lying and sleeping on top of the ottoman, partially illuminated by sunlight. Behind the ottoman is a wooden bookshelf filled with books and board games.

I also shared the one above on Glass and had a small conversation with Tom that started to crystallize my thoughts on it:

It’s a nice option to have in the toolkit but of limited use for someone like me. If I was a phone-only photographer I might be more excited. Also, I like the lack of computational photography but I have no nostalgia for older digital cameras.

Grain, in film, was a limitation that became an aesthetic, and in the digital age, an emulation. It appears that digital noise is going down the same road for some photographers and is part of their nostalgia for older digital cameras. The interest in that aesthetic is also a rejection of computational photography (with its artificial look) as the sole creative path forward for photographers on the iPhone.

While a photographer’s admonishment of computational photography is usually commentary, Halide’s admonishment comes in the form of Process Zero. It is a breath of fresh air in the current environment of computational photography. It embraces constraints, which is a powerful force for creativity.