Professional Diploma in

PHOTOGRAPHY

SUMMARY
The Digital Image
NOTES
MODULE 1

HERE WE EXPLORE
FILE FORMAT AND
HOW DIGITAL IMAGES
ARE CONSTRUCTED.
THIS GIVES YOU
AN INSIGHT INTO
8.01 Image Size
THE FILE FORMATS
AVAILABLE ON YOUR
CAMERA WHICH
8.02 The Pixel
EQUIPS YOU WITH
THE KNOWLEDGE TO
SELECT THE HIGHEST
8.03 Resolution
QUALITY FILE
FORMAT AND IMAGE
SIZE THAT BEST SUITS 8.04 File Formats
YOUR PURPOSE. WE
WILL ALSO LOOK AT
SOME IMAGE EDITING 8.05 Image Editing Software
SOFTWARE AND THE
KEY DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN THE MOST
POPULAR ONES ON
THE MARKET.

LESSON 8
8.01
The Digital Image

IMAGE SIZE
Image quality also plays a crucial role in the entire process of
photography. You shoot the most amazing images in terms of
composition, lighting, subject etc but if our image quality is
poor then it lets our photography down. We must optimize the
size of our images to the kind of medium on which you want to
present. Be it for on screen viewing, or posting on a website,
social network, or for print. Image size will determine the quality
of the output. Understanding the capabilities of your images
“You shoot the and what quality file your have to work with is important.
most amazing Image size is really important to understand so that you know
images in the size of the image you are dealing with and whether you
can push it to the next level and make larger images from it. A
terms of good understanding what size image you have will allow you
composition, make informative decisions about sizing images. Knowing that
lighting, you can upscale and create large dramatic high quality prints.
subject etc but
In terms of the Internet, large images can become slow to load
if our image and people trying to view them might lose interest and close
quality is poor the window before even the image loads.
then it lets our
For printing, if your image size is not big enough, it will look
photography blurry or pixelated when you try to enlarge a small image on a
down.” large print. This is where you will want to optimize your image
to the exact print size.
 8.02
The Digital Image

THE PIXEL
Pixels are the building blocks of an image. They are tiny, single coloured squares that
are arranged like mosaic tiles, in horizontal and vertical lines to form a an image. If
you open an image in Photoshop and continue to zoom into it beyond 100%, you
will start seeing the pixels which the image is made of.

A pixel is a single dot of colour, and is always a perfect square. It can only ever
be square and only ever be one colour. Our images are made up of thousands
and thousands of these pixels. Each pixel aligns to the pixel next to it in rows and
columns with no gaps in between.

When we have lots and lots of pixels they seem to visually dissolve into what we
refer to as a “continuous tone image” - photographs are continuous tone images!

All of our photographs are made up of similarly coloured pixels that have merged in
our brains to represent details that don’t look square at all! In fact, having thousands
and millions of these different coloured pixels allow us to have full coloured images!
8.02
The Digital Image
 8.03
The Digital Image

RESOLUTION
Resolution refers to how images are resolves to your eye where you can see it
clearly as an image with smooth lines and lots of detail, or an images that we can
see the individual building blocks. Resolution also refers to the pixel count within
the image and how many pixels are there.

High Resolution
A high resolution image and it has
loads and loads of pixels. All lines seem
smooth and we have lots of detail,
texture, sharpness and tone. If we zoom
right into a high resolution image, we
cannot identify individual pixels and
we still see all the lines and shapes as
smooth. More levels of magnification
are needed to see the pixels.

Low Resolution
Just the opposite of high resolution.
You will not have to zoom in too much
to see the individual pixels. Just a little
bit of zooming and you will start to see
pixelation in the image. If there is a very
small amount of pixels you will be able
to identify the building blocks of the
image by eye, and it will not resolve to
your well to your eye. When we zoom
in here we can see very jagged lines
The jagged lines that you can see are
the edges of individual squares that
are forming the shapes and lines.
8.03
The Digital Image

Checking the Resolution

On the camera, you can set the desired resolution in which you want to capture
your images. There are a lot of ways in which you can check the resolution of your
images.
1. On your camera when selecting file format or image quality.
2. On your computer under file properties or info.
3. Through your image editing software.

5616 Pixels

3744 Pixels

5616 x 3744 = 21,026,304

“21 Mega Pixel Camera”
 8.03
The Digital Image

Resolution is basically the number of pixels that you have in an image. Since they
are all tiny little squares arranged in the form of a grid. The total number of pixels
in an image can be calculated by multiplying the length of the image with its width.

Print Resolution
As a thumb rule, it is best to have the at least 300 pixels per inch in an image if you
want to print it in high quality. That means, you should at least have 300 pixels in
every inch of that particular image. Depending on the resolution of the image that
we have, we can determine the largest size to which you will be able to print an
image. We need at least 300 pixels per inch in an image to get the highest quality.

To determine the largest size to which you can print this image you will need to
divide the length and width by 300.

Screen Resolution
If you want to show your images on a computer, phone, tablet or post it anywhere
on the Internet; website, or your social media accounts, The best resolution is
96 pixels per inch. You do not want large images that will be slow to load at the
viewers end. Like how we used 300 pixels per inch for high quality printing, we
will use 96 pixels per inch for on-screen viewing.

Dividing the length and width by 96 will give the maximum viewing size.
8.04
The Digital Image

FILE FORMATS
There are two primary formats that digital cameras shoot in Raw and JPEG.

JPEG
JPEG is the standard file format for
viewing images across various devices
and platforms. It’s a universally recognized
format and the term “JPEG” is an in acronym
for the Joint Photographic Experts Group,
which created the standard. JPEGs are
preprocessed in the camera and are ready
to use. Things like contrast, saturation or
sharpness, are already taken care of while
the camera is recording the image. JPEGS
are compressed file formats. The size that
the file occupies on memory devices is
very low. Because of this, the quality of
the image is degraded. If the jpeg is edited
further in any editing software, the quality tends to get further degraded.

JPEG Pros & Cons:

• Non propriety, so doesn’t need a specialized software to view file.

• Small File size and takes less space to store allowing more shots per card.

• Images shot in jpeg are processed in camera and are ready for use with colour
saturation, contrast, sharpness, noise reduction allocated.

• Compressed/Lossy format meaning quality is degraded to obtain smaller file

sizes and continues to degrade through editing.

• Reduced Dynamic Range offering poor highlight/shadow recovery.

 8.04
The Digital Image

Raw
A RAW image is raw information of light
recorded in a file. The image is unedited,
uncompressed and the data recorded in
it is available for any kind of editing. Raw
files are uncompressed and unprocessed.
The camera only records the information
of light and does not process it in any way.
Since the data captured from the sensor
in uncompressed, quality of the images is
much higher than JPEGs. It’s a propriety
file format. That means each camera
manufacturer have their own format in
which they record RAW files. It can only
be processed in specialized software and
has to be later converted to JPEG to view
it on any device other than the camera.
Since you work on RAW image data, you have full control over image editing. Even
after having shot the image, you will be able to take control of various parameters
like saturation, white balance, or contrast, to a large extent. Probably, the only
down side to RAW images is the very large file size. A single image can occupy a
lot of storage space in your memory device. RAW files do not seem as vibrant as
JPEG files to begin with. This is because the camera does not process the image in
anyway. Unless you convert the RAW file to a JPEG or any other readable format,
you will not be able to view the image on other devices, or share or print. Editing a
RAW file is a non-destructive process. That means, the original RAW file remains
untouched and you can reset any changes you made to the RAW file back to
default at any point of time and start over.
8.04
The Digital Image

RAW Pros & Cons:

• Greater Dynamic Range

• Larger Colour Space

• Make greater adjustment without losing image quality.

• It is an unprocessed format that directly records the scene without internal

processing by the camera no contrast or sharpness added in camera.

• Uncompressed file format that maintains all information captured by the sensor
allowing higher quality.

• Propriety file format meaning each manufacturer has their own raw file and it
has to be processed in specialized software.

• Full control over your image settings after you have shot the image.

• Very large file sizes increases storage space needed.

• May look flatter and less vibrant than the JPEG initially .

• Not suitable for sharing/printing without first been edited and converted to
another file format.

• Processing raw file is a non destructive editing process which never overwrites
the original file.
 8.05
The Digital Image

IMAGE EDITING SOFTWARE

Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom is a family of image organization and image manipulation
software developed by Adobe Systems. It allows viewing, organizing and editing
large numbers of digital images. Lightroom’s edits are non-destructive. Initially,
Adobe Lightroom was one product only. But as of 2017, it has become a family of
products consisting of Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC.
8.05
The Digital Image

Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe
Systems. Despite Adobe Lightroom sharing its name with Adobe Photoshop, it
cannot perform many Photoshop functions such as adding, removing or altering
the appearance of individual image items, rendering text or 3D objects on images,
or modifying individual video frames.
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