Image Basics

Digital Photography can be very creative. It brings new and exciting features to our lives. It also comes with its own learning process.

Knowing basic bits of information about your digital image such as how pixels work from your camera to your output are among photography fundamentals.

Photography Basics

Learn Photography Basics

The angle and the strength of light and good understanding of basic exposure give you total control of your digital camera. If you don’t understand the light for example; it will be difficult to expose the photograph properly and figure out its color balance. The perfect shot that you visualized could be a waste of time.

Understanding other basic concepts like resolution, dimension, color density, and how gray-scale works let you have more fun while taking pictures and getting that better shot.

Digital Image Basics

Pixels
Resolution
Channels
Color Density
Bits vs. Grayscale
ISO
Histogram

PIXEL

Digital cameras capture and rebuild the image as pixel bricks. A single pixel is the basic building block of an image.

The number of PIXELS is the main factor in image quality. The first characteristic of a pixel is its square shape so they can stack together like a brick wall.
The second characteristic is the pixel size.

The more pixels that are present on the image means that the pixels have to be smaller in size. If the pixels are too small this might create unwanted image noise.
Don't get confused and just know that the more pixels squeezed into a given place equals more problems.

RESOLUTION

Resolution defines the pixel size. It states how many pixels will fit in a given area of an image.
It is measured in millions of pixels, known as megapixels.
Resolution controls image dimension and it's quality.

COLOR DENSITY

Digital cameras capture black and white as values 1 and 0 (B & W mode). Digital camera then uses these values to make the grayscale mode providing varying shades of gray. In order to generate all the colors digital cameras use a color device.
A digital Image is made of the RGB spectrum using the 3 channels of Red Green and Blue. Using RGB mode colors are generated from the originally captured grey tones.
Understanding Color Density tells us how much information is in a picture, it is also related to the file size. For example converting an RGB image to a Grayscale image will reduce the size of the image because you have lowered the color density.

image basics

BITS vs. GRAYSCALE

Capturing more shades of gray means better quality images.
How do we get more shades? Many cameras will capture 8 bits that will give 256 shades of gray.
High quality 16 bit cameras give many more shades of gray and therefore produce higher quality images.

ISO

In terms of image quality ISO settings play an important role. ISO (International Organization for Standardization) measures the photograph's sensitivity to light. Sensitivity ranges between ISO 50 up to ISO 3,200 or even higher.
The downside to higher ISO is that it can add "NOISE" (the grainy look) to your images.
For example a picture using ISO 1,600 produces a lot more noise which can be visible in the dark areas of an image.

HISTOGRAM

In digital photography the histogram setting is a tool that displays the tonal values of the image. It is a graph that helps to expose photos properly. With the help of the histogram you can make estimations on whether the image will be flat or have contrast. An overexposed image will lose detail in the highlights and an underexposed image will lose detail in the shadows.