Basics of Photography

Unit 1
 History
of
Photography
ancient times: Camera
obscuras used to form
images on walls in
darkened rooms; image
formation via a pinhole
 16th century: Brightness and clarity of
camera obscuras improved by enlarging the
hole inserting a telescope lens
17th century: Camera obscuras in frequent use
by artists and made portable.
1727: Professor J. Schulze mixes
chalk, nitric acid, and silver in a
flask; notices darkening on side of
flask exposed to sunlight. Accidental
creation of the first photo-sensitive
compound.
1800: Thomas Wedgwood
makes "sun pictures" by
placing opaque objects on
leather treated with silver
nitrate; resulting images
deteriorated rapidly,
however, if displayed
under light stronger than
from candles.
1816: Nicéphore
Niépce combines the
camera obscura with
photosensitive paper
1826: Niépce creates a permanent image
View from Niepce’s Window at Le Gras.
1834: Henry Fox Talbot creates
permanent (negative) images using
paper soaked in silver chloride and fixed
with a salt solution. Talbot created
positive images by contact printing onto
another sheet of paper.
1837: Louis Daguerre creates
images on silver-plated copper,
coated with silver iodide and
"developed" with warmed mercury;
Daguerre is awarded a state pension
by the French government in
exchange for publication of methods
and the rights by other French
citizens to use the Daguerreotype
process.
1841: Talbot
patents his process
under the name
"calotype".

Known also as “Tintypes”

 Difference between film and
digital photography

Digital versus film photography have been debated in

the photography world, and in the film industry since the
late 20th century, when digital cameras became widely
available. Digital photography and digital
cinematography have both advantages and disadvantages
relative to still film and motion picture film photography

In the 21st century photography came to be

predominantly digital, but
traditional photochemical methods continue to serve
many users and applications.
 Film Photography

For over 150 years, photography has been a

chemical process. Images are captured on
photographic film. This is made up of layers of
light-sensitive silver halide emulsion coated on a
flexible base. Film is exposed to light in a camera.
This creates a latent image, which is made visible
by immersion in a solution of chemicals called a
'developer‘
 Film Photography

Prints are made by projecting the image from

the film on sensitised paper and processing
the material in a series of chemical baths.
Much of the processing of both film and
paper must take place in darkened rooms to
avoid extraneous light reaching the sensitised
emulsions.
 Digital photography

Digital photography has changed all this.

There is no need for film, chemicals or
darkrooms. Images are captured with
arrays of photo sensors and are
processed by computer software. Prints
are made by firing tiny jets of coloured
ink or dyes at paper
 Digital photography

Images are captured as digital files and

stored on removable media cards. Unlike
film, the cards are reusable. Once the files
have been transferred elsewhere, you can
erase the images from the card and reuse it
again. This cuts out all the film and film
processing costs.
 Digital photography

A digital file is data, no different to any other

computer file. It can be saved to any
computer storage media. The file can also be
copied and recopied without any loss of
quality. Copies can be kept in more than one
picture library, or in other locations, all giving
high-quality images.
Some Common Image Formats
• JPG – Used for most digital photos but “lossy”
• GIF – Best for line drawings. 256 colors
maximum. No loss
• BMP – Bitmap. Every pixel stored individually
• TIF – Standard in many technical applications. No
loss
• PNG – Lossless image format
• RAW – Data as captured by digital camera
Extension Colour Compression Common Uses

JPG, JPEG 24-bit Lossy Photos, web pics

GIF 8-bit Lossless Web graphics – buttons,

icons, etc

PNG up to 24-bit Lossless Web – replacement for

GIF

TIF, TIFF 24-bit Lossless Professional

Photos etc
 Types of Image Files

• Vector
Images created from geometrical primitives such as points,
lines, curves and other mathematically defined shapes

• Bitmap
Images recorded as an array of pixels – typically used for the
representation of photographic images
 Vector Images

Not really relevant to this talk but we need to define them so

we know what we're not talking about
• Stored as instructions, not pixels
• eg: Draw Line from point A to point B
with thickness T and colour C
• or: Draw Circle with centre at X, radius R,
line thickness T, line color C, inside colour Z
• Essentially "drawings" or cartoons
• Created by specialist tools such as Adobe Illustrator
or Corel Draw
 Vector Images

• Files are typically quite small as they contain just simple

instructions not information about every pixel
• Resolution Independent – nothing in the instructions need
specify absolute measurements – can all be relative to the
picture size
• Vector images can be resized (and enlarged in particular)
without any loss of quality
 Bitmap Images
• Images stored as a rectangular matrix of pixels
• Pixel = picture element = a coloured dot
• Used for photographs, "paint" images, etc
• Can capture more subtlety than vector images
• The colour of every separate pixel is stored,
so typical file sizes much larger
• Pixel dimensions are fixed - cannot easily be enlarged
without loss of quality
 x 20

x5
 File Sizes
• Bitmap files typically larger than vector files
• For photos, need at least 8-bits for each of the three primary
colours (Red, Green, Blue)
• Inkjet printers typically print at 300 or 600 dots per inch (dpi)

Picture Size Resolution Pixel Size Pixels File Size

(dpi)
6" x 4" (postcard) 300 1800 x 1200 2M 6 MB
6" x 4" (postcard) 600 3600 x 2400 8M 24 MB
10" x 8" 300 3000 x 2400 7M 21 MB

10" x 8" 600 6000 x 4800 28M 84 MB

 Compression
• Lossless
Reduce file size without losing image quality
Not as effective as lossy compression
Prioritise image quality over small file size
• Lossy
Take advantage of limitations of human vision
Discard “invisible” information
Allow variable quality levels (compression)

Lowest Compression Highest Compression

Larger file size Smallest file size
Best image quality Worst image quality
Original
1.5 MB

High
Lossy
Compression
92 KB
 Compression
• Lossless
RLE (Run Length Encoding) – Windows bitmap files (bmp, ico)
LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) – GIF & TIFF files
ZIP – TIFF files

• Lossy
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
Best suited to photos and paintings of realistic scenes with
smooth variations of tone and colour
 Colour
• For photos, need 8-bits per primary colour
• 24-bits (3 bytes) per pixel
• 16M different colours

• Can reduce file size if image does not need

so many distinct colours
• Use fewer bits per pixel – eg 8-bits (1 byte)
 GIF Files
• Pictures can contain at most 256 different colours
• File format defines a “palette” of 24-bit colours
• Each pixel stored as an 8-bit index into this palette
• Use 8-bits (1 byte) per pixel
• LZW Compression – lossless
• Good for images with limited set of
colours such as logos, web buttons etc
• Also support animation
• Supported by all web browsers
• Possible copyright problems
Animated GIF
Animated
GIF
 JPEG Files

• Full 24-bit colour – 16 million colours

• Compressed with JPEG algorithm
• Good for pictures with subtle colour variations
eg: photographs
• Typically produced by digital cameras
• Supported by all web browsers
 TIFF Files
• Tagged Image File Format
• Owned by Apple but a published spec
• Originally designed as a common format for scanners but now
a popular professional format for colour images, photos, etc
• Can hold various “tags” as well associated with the image
eg: photographer, copyright, subject details, ...
• Supports several compression formats – mostly lossless
• Commonest is LZW, others include ZIP and JPEG and NONE!!
• Many possible variations
“Thousands of Incompatible File Formats”
 PNG Files

• Portable Network Graphics

• Designed to replace GIF files as there was a patent issue with
LZW compression
• Also eliminates the restriction on number of colours
• Does not support animation
• Lossless compression (DEFLATE related to ZIP)
• Supported by most modern web browsers
Extension Colour Compression Common Uses

JPG, JPEG 24-bit Lossy Photos, web pics

GIF 8-bit Lossless Web graphics – buttons,

icons, etc

PNG up to 24-bit Lossless Web – replacement for

GIF

TIF, TIFF 24-bit Lossless Professional

Photos etc