Playboy image from 1972 gets ban from IEEE computer journals

[Eugene]

Source: Ars Technica

Playboy image from 1972 gets ban from IEEE computer journals

Use of "Lenna" image in computer image processing research stretches back to the 1970s.

BENJ EDWARDS - 3/29/2024, 5:16 PM

On Wednesday, the IEEE Computer Society announced to members that, after April 1, it would no longer accept papers that include a frequently used image of a 1972 Playboy model named Lena Forsén. The so-called "Lenna image," (Forsén added an extra "n" to her name in her Playboy appearance to aid pronunciation) has been used in image processing research since 1973 and has attracted criticism for making some women feel unwelcome in the field.

In an email from the IEEE Computer Society sent to members on Wednesday, Technical & Conference Activities Vice President Terry Benzel wrote, "IEEE's diversity statement and supporting policies such as the IEEE Code of Ethics speak to IEEE's commitment to promoting an including and equitable culture that welcomes all. In alignment with this culture and with respect to the wishes of the subject of the image, Lena Forsén, IEEE will no longer accept submitted papers which include the 'Lena image.'"

An uncropped version of the 512×512-pixel test image originally appeared as the centerfold picture for the December 1972 issue of Playboy Magazine. Usage of the Lenna image in image processing began in June or July 1973 when an assistant professor named Alexander Sawchuck and a graduate student at the University of Southern California Signal and Image Processing Institute scanned a square portion of the centerfold image with a primitive drum scanner, omitting nudity present in the original image. They scanned it for a colleague's conference paper, and after that, others began to use the image as well.

The image's use spread in other papers throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, and it caught Playboy's attention, but the company decided to overlook the copyright violations. In 1997, Playboy helped track down Forsén, who appeared at the 50th Annual Conference of the Society for Imaging Science in Technology, signing autographs for fans. "They must be so tired of me ... looking at the same picture for all these years!" she said at the time. VP of new media at Playboy Eileen Kent told Wired, "We decided we should exploit this, because it is a phenomenon."

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Read more: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/03/playboy-image-from-1972-gets-ban-from-ieee-computer-journals/

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Source: The Guardian

Trade body urges removal of Playboy centrefold test image from members’ journals

Lena Forsén’s picture has been used as reference photo since the 1970s, but Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers says it now breaches code of ethics

Alex Hern UK technology editor
Sun 31 Mar 2024 17.55 BST
First published on Sun 31 Mar 2024 17.30 BST

Cropped from the shoulders up, the Playboy centrefold of Swedish model Lena Forsén looking back at the photographer is an unlikely candidate for one of the most reproduced images ever.

Shortly after it was printed in the November 1972 issue of the magazine, the photograph was digitised by Alexander Sawchuk, an assistant professor at the University of California, using a scanner designed for press agencies. Sawchuk and his engineering colleagues needed new images to test their processing algorithms. Bored with TV test images, they turned to the centrefold, defending its choice by noting that it featured a face and a mixture of light and dark colours. Fortunately, the limits of the scanner meant that only the top five inches were scanned, with just Forsén’s bare shoulder hinting at the nature of the original picture.

From that beginning, the photo became a standard reference image, used countless times over the 50-plus years since to demonstrate advances in image compression technology, test new hardware and software, and to explain image editing techniques.

Now, though, Lena’s days may be numbered. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a large global trade body, has issued a notice to its members warning against the continued use of the photo in academic articles.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/31/tech-publisher-bans-playboy-centrefold-test-image-from-its-journals

[hunter]

1. I'll confess. I've used that image in my own work.

Long ago my partner in crime (once or twice literally...) decided it was only fair that we used pictures of men in our research too. She started with me, yep, naked except for a hat. I used to be able to find a few of those pictures on the internet, usually converted to dithered 16-color gifs, but now they've been lost in the flood of much higher resolution pictures of naked people. (I can still find slash she wrote, authorship frequently claimed by other people, which I find highly amusing because I saw her writing it. It was first passed around as Xerox copies years before most people had even heard of the internet.)

In those days we'd sometimes check out magazines from the university library for our image scanning experiments. A library clerk found out what we were doing and the next magazine she handed us had the library's "Received" stamp covering all the naughty bits.

When I was in school there were only a few women engineering majors and they were not treated well. That's one of the reasons I changed my major to biology. I didn't want to be one of those guys.

There's been some progress since, not nearly enough.