ACM202 what is a digital photograph?

Session 1, 2013 Alison Bennett

The dematerialisation of the photograph

for the first time in history the image is a dynamic system.

- Rush, M 2005, New Media in Art, Thames & Hudson, London, UK, p. 181

The photograph is no longer a physical object but a collection of numbers translated at recall

WHAT IS A DIGITAL IMAGE?

A digital image is a grid of pixels

With the technology back then, you had very limited palette in which you were able to draw a character. If you look at the original Mario face, you had just 7 pixels to draw his face. My goal within that limited palette was to create a character that was as distinct as possible. Because of that, he had some of his nowdistinct features such as his big nose. Read more: Exclusive Interview With Nintendo Gaming Mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto Popular Mechanics 18 December 2009

A digital photograph is a fine grid of pixels giving the illusion of continuous tone
12x16 pixels 800x900 pixels

http://epicrapbattlesofhistory.wikia.com/wiki/File:ERB_Mario_Bros.png

pixel is short of picture element

A picture made of elements is not a new idea: eg Mosaic

Mosaic portrait of a lady, Pompeii Museo di Capodimonte

A fax or a photocopy: black or white

Computers are basically binary switch machines: on or off; 1 or 0

Bits & pieces

BIT is short for Binary Digit: 1 or 0 (On or Off) Bit Depth refers to how much tonal range is available for each pixel. A 1-Bit image is just black and white, like a photocopy no grey.

8 bit RGB vs bitmap

8 bit RGB bitmap

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The challenge of digital photograhy

To create the illusion of continuous tone vs. posterisation

The illusion of continuous tone

Graduated tonal range VS Posterisation

Levels of tone

Levels per bit

Bit Depth Colours Available:
1-bit: black and white / on or off / 1 or 0 2-bit: 4 levels of tone per channel 4-bit: 16 levels of tone per channel 8-bit: 256 levels of tone per channel 16-bit: 32,768 levels of tone per channel 24-bit: 16.7 million levels of tone per channel

Each step in bit depth doubles the number of levels of tone available within that colour channel. Eg. 7-Bit = 128 levels

Remember our challenge: Continuous tone

Human perception requires at least 200 levels, steps in tone, to create the illusion of continuous tone Therefore 8bit is the most efficient bit depth 7bit=128 levels; 8bit=256 levels

8bit: 256 levels of tone

Black: 0

White: 255

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Material to virtual

How do we get from continuous tone, as we perceive it in the world, to digital photographic representation?

What goes on inside the camera?

The sensor
The sensor is either a CCD charged coupled device or a CMOS 'Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor'.

2009: Nobel prize for Physics

In 1969 Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invented the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor, a CCD (ChargeCoupled Device).
The CCD technology makes use of the photoelectric effect, as theorized by Albert Einstein and for which he was awarded the 1921 years Nobel Prize. By this effect, light is transformed into electric signals. The challenge when designing an image sensor was to gather and read out the signals in a large number of image points, pixels, in a short time. The CCD is the digital cameras electronic eye. It revolutionized photography, as light could now be captured electronically instead of on film. The digital form facilitates the processing and distribution of these images. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laure ates/2009/info.pdf http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?s toryId=113527362

Sensor & the Bayer Array

Online video: pixel colour

The difference between what you see and what the camera sees
How you see an image
How your camera sees the image

eye more sensitive to mid tones

What is light?

Mid tones within the green band

Additive RGB colour mixing

White is all colours combined

Colour film was made up of 3 layers recording a tonal image of that colour

Digital colour works much the same way

Photoshop channels of RBG: B&W channels determine the intensity of primary colour for that sub-pixel
Notice that the channels are B&W?

Getting in close: sub pixels

Have you got up close to the big screen in Fed Square?

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RBG Channels:
grey scale of colour intensity: 0-255 a filter of how much of that colour channel to let through

RGB Colour: note B&W filters in Channels

256 levels of Red x 256 levels of Green x 256 Levels of Blue = almost 17 million possible colours
Magent a R: 255 G: 0 B: 255 Cyan R: 0 G: 255 B: 255

Yellow R: 255 B: 0 G: 255

RED R: 255 G: 0 B: 0

BLUE R: 0 G: 0 B: 255

GREEN R: 0 G: 255 B: 0

Channels like B&W filters

FYI: Seth Lambert

RGB Numbers of a 2 DPI Self-Portrait 2005 320 individual sets of numbers indicating the Adobe Photoshop color values of the pixels of a 2 DPI photograph of myself. The number sets are selections from screenshots of the Photoshop file. The original pixel grid that makes up the digital photograph is maintained in my final grid of numbers. 1 pixel number set is equal to 1 inch. http://www.sethlambert.net/failures7. php