SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc.
, (CS&IT)
Unit – 2
1) Image types, Seeing Color, Color Models
2) Basic Steps for Image Processing, Scanner, Digital Camera, Interface Standands
3) Specification of Digital Images, CMS, Device Independent Color model
4) Image Processing Software, Image File Formats, Image Output on Monitor & Printer.
IMAGE TYPES:
An image consists of a rectangular array of dots called pixels and the value is the
intensity level of the pixel which measures how bright the point is. The size of the image is
specified in width X height, in numbers of the pixels. The physical size of the image, in
inches or centimeters, depends on the resolution of the device on which the image is
displayed. The resolution is usually measured in DPI (Dots Per Inch). An image will appear
smaller on a device with a higher resolution than on one with a lower resolution. For color
images, one needs enough bits per pixel to represent all the colors in the image. The number
of the bits per pixel is called the depth of the image.
An Image is represented as a grid of square blocks, where each block represents one pixel.
Where each pixel P have a specific value v (integer/floating point number) and location L
(pair of coordinates with respect to the origin).
Images are divided into three types. They are
a)Binary Images – Pixels either 0 or 1
b) GrayScale Images – Pixels Range within 0 to 255
c) Color Images – Pixels Range within 0 to 255
with three subunits such as red,green and blue.
a) Binary Images: 1-bit images- An image is a set of pixels. In 1-bit images, each pixel is
stored as a single bit (0 or 1). A bit has only two states either on or off, white or black, true or
false. Therefore, such an image is also referred to as a binary image.
A 1-bit image with resolution 640*480 needs a storage space of 640*480 bits.
640 x 480 bits. = (640 x 480) / 8 bytes = (640 x 480) / (8 x 1024) KB= 37.5KB.
The clarity or quality of 1-bit image is very low.
b) GrayScale Images: 8-bit Gray level images- Each pixel of 8-bit gray level image is
represented by a single byte (8 bits). Therefore each pixel of such image can hold 2 8=256
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
values between 0 and 255. Therefore each pixel has a brightness value on a scale from black
(0 for no brightness or intensity) to white (255 for full brightness or intensity). For example,
a dark pixel might have a value of 15 and a bright one might be [Link] images carry
many shades of gray from black to white. Grayscale images are also called monochromatic,
denoting the presence of only one (mono) color (chrome). An image is represented by
bitmap. A bitmap is a simple matrix of the tiny dots (pixels) that form an image and are
displayed on a computer screen or printed.
A 8-bit image with resolution 640 x 480 needs a storage space of 640 x 480
bytes=(640 x 480)/1024 KB= 300KB. Therefore an 8-bit image needs 8 times more
storage space than 1-bit image.
c) Color Images: 24-bit color images - In 24-bit color image, each pixel is represented by
three bytes, usually representing RGB (Red, Green and Blue). Usually true color is defined
to mean 256 shades of RGB (Red, Green and Blue) for a total of 16777216 color variations.
It provides a method of representing and storing graphical image information an RGB color
space such that a colors, shades and hues in large number of variations can be displayed in an
image such as in high quality photo graphic images or complex graphics.
Many 24-bit color images are stored as 32-bit images, and an extra byte for each
pixel used to store an alpha value representing special effect information.
A 24-bit color image with resolution 640 x 480 needs a storage space of 640 x 480 x
3 bytes = (640 x 480 x 3) / 1024=900KB without any compression. Also 32-bit color
image with resolution 640 x 480 needs a storage space of 640 x 480 x 4 bytes=
1200KB without any compression.
SEEING COLORS:
The phenomenon of seeing color depends on three factors, they are
i) Nature of light
ii) Human Vision
iii) Interaction of light with matter
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
i) Nature of light: Light is a form of energy known as electromagnetic radiation consists of a
large number of waves with varying frequencies and wavelengths. At one extreme are the
radio waves and the other extreme are the gamma rays. On total electromagnatic spectrum
cause a sensations of light in our eyes ranging from around 400 nm to 700 nm. This is called
the visible spectrum of waves.
ii) Human Vision: The retina is the light sensitive part of the eye and its surface is composed
of photoreceptors. There are 3 types of photoreceptors in the retina known as cone cells
which respond to three different colors as red, green and blue. A fourth cell called as rod cell
respond to the brightness of light. These cells receive light and pass the stimulus through the
optic nerve to the brain gives rise to different color sensation in our eyes. Shorter wavelength
rise colors like violet, blue and green, longer wavelength produce yellow,orange and red. All
the colors combined together to produce white light. White light can be split into the
component colors by passing it through an optical splitter like a prism.
iii) Interaction of light with matter: Whenever light waves strike an object, part of the light
energy gets absorbed and/or transmitted, while the remaining part gets reflected back to our
eyes. The wavelengths present in the reflected light imparts a specific color to the object from
which the light is reflected depends on four cases. They are
a) Transparent b) Translucent c) Opaque d) Scattering or Diffusion
a) Transparent- Transmission takes place when light passes through an object without being
essentially changed is said to be transparent.
b) Translucent- Some alteration takes place in the Refractive Index (RI) of the material
through which the light is transmitted. RI is the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum
(Space) to the speed of light in a given transparent material (Air, Glass).
Ex: RI of air is 1.0003. If light travels through space at 186,000 miles/sec, it travels
through air at 185,944 miles/sec- a very slight difference. By comparision, RI of water is
1.333 and RI of glass will vary from 1.5 to 1.96- slowing of light speed. The point where two
substances of differing RI meet is called the boundary surface. At this point, a beam of
transmitted light changes direction according to the difference in refractive index and the
angle at which it strikes the transparent object. This is called refraction. If light is only partly
transmitted by the object and the rest being absorbed then the object is translucent.
c) Opaque- When light strikes an opaque object, (i.e., an object that does not transmit light)
the object’s surface plays an important role in determining whether the light is fully reflected,
fully diffused or some of both. A smooth or glossy surface is one made up of particles of
equal, or nearly equal, refractive index. These surfaces reflect light at an intensity and angle
equal to the incident beam.
d) Scattering or diffusion- It is an aspect of reflection, when a substance contains particles
of a different refractive index, a light beam striking the substance will be scattered. The
amount of light scattered depends on the difference in the two refractive indices and also on
the size of the particles. Most commonly, light striking an opaque object will be both
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
reflected and scattered. This happens when an object is neither wholly glossy nor wholly
rough.
COLOR MODELS:
A color model defines the primary or elementary colors such as red, green and blue,
in turn these colors mixed in varying proportions produce other colors called composite
colors. This provides a way to refer to any arbitary colors. Two primary colors mixed in equal
proportions produce a secondary color. Hence the range of values of such primaries and the
total number of colors in the gamut. An important aspect of color models is device dependent
color models such as RGB and CMYK models.
Color Gamut- The total number of colors supported by each color model is known as color
gamut. It has been found that the RGB model have a larger gamut than the CMYK model.
When the printing system finds no CMYK representation of a specific RGB Value, it
will attempt to substitute it with the nearest or most similar CMYK value, leading to a change
in the color shade. Image processing software display a out-of-gamut warning to the user
under these conditions so that it can be manually changed to an in-gamut color.
Color Space- It defines the exact shades of color within the gamut, expressed in terms of CIE
chromacity values. Thus, multiple color spaces may be derived from a single color model Ex:
RGB model has given rise to color spaces like sRGB Adobe RGB, Apple RGB, etc.
Types of Color models:
1) CIE XYZ 2) CIE LAB 3) RGB 4) CMYK 5) HSV
1) CIE XYZ: (DEVICE INDEPENDENT COLOR MODEL)
CIE proposed a color model based on tri-stimulus values of a color denoted by X,Y
and Z are the amounts of primary colors in an additive system that must be combined to
match that color. CIE defined as a standard observer in 1931 which refers to an average
human vieing through 20 angular field. Later in 1964, the CIE modified by changing the
angular field of view to 100. Here the Y parameter measure the brightness or luminance of the
color. The chromacity of a color was then defined by two derived parameters x and y, x,y,z
are called color matching functions that yield CIE tri-stimulus values x,y,z. The chromacity
values were computed by normalizing against X+Y+Z, as
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
2) CIE LAB: (DEVICE INDEPENDENT COLOR MODEL)
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
3) RGB:
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
4) CMYK:
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
5) HSV
BASIC STEPS FOR IMAGE PROCESSING
It consists of three basic steps in an image processing. They are
1. Input
2. Editing
3. Output
1. Input- Image acquisition is the first stage of working with Images. It deals with conversion
of analog images into digital form is done by two devices. They are
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
1. Scanner - Convert a printed image or document into a digital form.
2. Digital Camera - Digitizes a real world images.
Then it taken an input image to the next stage of image processing is editing an image.
2. Editing: After the images have been digitized and stored as files on the hard disk of a
computer, they are changed or manipulated with the image editing software such as Adobe
Photoshop. The software provides various tools and functionalities for editing an image.
Before actual editing begun a color calibration needs to be performed to ensure that an image
looks consistent on multiple monitors. After editing, the images are compressed using
mathematical algorithms and then saved into a specific file formats.
3. Output: It is the last stage in image processing concerned with displaying the edited image
to the user. The image can be displayed either in stand-alone manner or as a part of some
application like presentation or webpage. In most case images needs to be displayed on-
screen via a monitor screen. However, for some applications like printing a catalog or
brochure, the images need to be printed on using a printer.
IMAGE ACQUISITION:
It is the first stage of working with Images. It deals with conversion of analog images
into digital form is done by two devices. They are
1. Scanner - Convert a printed image or document into a digital form.
2. Digital Camera - Digitizes a real world images.
SCANNER:
It is a device used to convert analog images into digital form with three steps as
sampling,quantization and code word generation. There are three types they are:
a) Flat bed Scanners
b) Drum Scanners
c) Bar Code Scanners
a) Flat bed Scanners
The scan head contains a source of white light as xenon. As the head moves across the
paper, the light illuminates the paper progressively and reflected is made to fall on an array
of electronic sensors with mirrors and lenses. The electronic sensors are called Charge-
Coupled Devices (CCD) converts light energy into voltage pulses. After a complete scan, the
image is converted from a continuous entity into a discrete form by a sequence of volatge
pulses. This process is called sampling. The voltage signals are temporarily stored in a buffer
inside the scanner. Next, quantization representing voltage pulses as binary numbers are
carried out by Anolog to Digital Converter with the software called scanning software. Text
or image on the document is visible to the CCD only because of the light it reflects.
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
For n-bit representation 2n voltage pulses represented by binary numbers. In which
bit range from 8 bits to 24 bits is known as bit depth of the image.
The collection of binary numbers is stored on the hard disk of PC as a digital image
file. Larger bit depth contains more number of brightness values that can be stored. Hence it
gives a better quality of an image.
CCD elements are sensitive to the brightness of the light, the pixels which store only
the brightness information of the original image is known as luminance information. To
include the color or chrominance information, there are three CCD elements such as
red,green and blue for each pixel of the image is formed. When the white light reflected off
the paper is splitted into primary colors by a glass prism and the output signal from each sub-
component can be combined to produce a color scanned image.
b) Drum Scanners: It consists of a cylindrical drum with plastic like material is soaked in a
fluid helps to camouflage the scratches and dust grains over the film and provides clarity. The
fluid is either oil-based or alcohol-based. For sensing the element, Drum Scanner use Photo-
Multiplier Tube (PMT) or Electron Multiplier works on the principle of photoelectric effect
results in an electron emission.
The photon is detected by amplifying the electron referred as photo-electron by
passing through a cascade of acceleration electrodes called dynodes. The multiplier consists
of a sealed glass tube contains an anode and a number of dynodes. Each dynode is charged to
a higher voltage that the previous one. On hitting each dynode, the photo electrons will
invoke emission of additional electrons which accelerate towards the next dynode. This
process continues until the anode is reached and sharp increase in voltage pulse indicating the
detection of the photon.
c) Bar-Code Scanners: It is a machine readable representation of information in a visual
format using a set of parallel vertical lines whose widths and spacings between them is used
to encode information in the form of dots and concentric circles. The encoded information is
directly read by the scanner and varies with the application such as details of products at
retail outlets and other automated environments. In which the index is used to indicate the
details about the product is stored in a database and where the bar code holds the complete
information and does not need external databases.
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
To scan an image, the user needs scanning software to be installed on the computer
with the parameters like bit depth and resolution. The scanning software should allow the
user to do the following as:
Set the bit depth of the image which determines the total number of colors.
Set the output path of the scanned image which is stored as a file in a computer or
directly send to the printer.
Set the file type of the scanned image such as BMP, JPG, TIFF etc.
Adjust the brightness/contrast by dragging sliders.
Change the dimensions of the image by specifying a scale factor. Uniform Scaling
maintains equal relationship between height and width of the image while non-
uniform maintains independent control of it.
Adjust the color of the scanned image with red, green and blue primaries.
Adjust the resolution value determines the overall image quality and sharpness. Also
contains flipping the image and inverting its color.
Preview button allows the user to change the parameter of the image in a separate
view panel and generating the image by loading a preview in the scanner buffer and
manipulate them.
The quality of a scanned image is determined by its resolution and color depth.
Scanner Resolution: It is measured in dots per inch (dpi). High resolution scans contain
large number of dots per inch with good overall clarity. Low resolution scans less pixel
information leads to poor clarity which results in fuzziness and blocky appearance in an
image. There are two types of scanner resolution:
i) Optical Resolution- refers to the actual number of sensor elements per inch on the scan
head with 1600 dpi to 3200 dpi.
ii) Interpolated Resolution- refers to the resolution values higher than the optical resolution
such as 5400,7200,9600 dpi. It Involve an interpolation process for generating new pixel
values. But it seems too smooth and slightly out of focus. Thus for better quality the scanner
chooses optical resolution value.
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
Color depth: It determines how closely the dots are captured which indicate the total number
of colors can be represented in an image. High color depth images means 24 bits or more
(16.7 million colors). Low color depth images represented using 8 bits or lower (0- 256).
DIGITAL CAMERA
It is used to digitize real world images with the help of lens through which the light
from the real world enters the camera. The light falls on a CCD array to that inside scanner
the volate pulses from it travel to ADC in which converted to binary representaion and stored
as a digital image file.
Camera contains limited amount of memory for storage in the form of memory chips.
Hence the images are compressed by a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) to reduce their file
size and stored in a jpeg format. Most of the digital cameras have an LCD Screen at the back
for two purposes,
Used as a viewfinder for composition and adjustment.
After the image has been stored inside the camera it can be used for previewing the
image.
Features of digital Camera:
Auto-focus lenses.
Aperture and shutter speed control with manual adjustments.
Motorized lenses provide zooming facility.
Self-Timer provide a 10 second delay before the picture is taken.
Automatic flash with a manual override option.
Built-in microphones provides for sound annotation in WAV format. After recording
it sent to an external device for playback or on headphones using ear socket.
Software utility resident in a ROM chip inside it which allow the user to toggle
between CAMERA mode and PLAY mode.
In CAMERA Mode the software takes care of the compression process before storing
the images and allow some changing parameters such as color adjustments, special
effects,lighting etc.
In PLAY Mode, the user is presented with a menu structure having displaying all
images, selecting a particular image, deleting selecting images, setting date and time,
displaying how much of storage space is free,etc.
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
Thus the digitally captured photos are inserted into presentations, business letters,
newsletters, personnel ID badges, web and print based product catalogues.
INTERFACE STANDARDS
It determines how data from acquisition devices like scanners and digital cameras
flow to the computer in an effective way. There are two standards. They are
i) TWAIN
ii) ISIS
i) TWAIN: The standard was first released in 1992 and developed by Hewlett-Packard,
Kodak, Aldus, Logitech and Caere which specifies how image acquisition devices such as
scanners, digital cameras and other devices transfer data to software applications. It
overcomes the driver problems dealing with large number of hardware devices and software
applications that are mutually incompatible with each other.
TWAIN is a software protocol regulates the flow of information between software
applications and imaging devices like scanners and digital cameras. It forms an intermediate
layer between them so that it does not directly communicate with each other. Instead, the
application communicates with the TWAIN module and sends a request to the device for
image acquisition and the TWAIN module forwards the request to the proper device. The
device too does not send the acquired data directly back to the application but instead hands it
over to the TWAIN module, which in turn forwards it to the proper application.
The standard is managed by the TWAIN Working group. The hardware interface
element of TWAIN is called the source, which get data from a hardware device and provide it
to the TWAIN compliant application. A Source Manager (SM) establishes and manages
connection between the application and sources. It allows the user to select the desired source
and after selection the user invokes an acquire function to initiate image acquisition process.
This starts a set of negotiations between the application and the source. When the
negotiation is complete the control is passed to the source allows the user to set scanning
options and start the scan. It is possible to attach more than one TWAIN compliant image
acquisition device to a PC at the same time. Each devices have own separate TWAIN module
and user would prompted to select a suitable TWAIN source which would launch the
device’s own driver, all without leaving the main application. After scanning, the driver
automatically closes, leaving the scanned image open in the main application.
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
ii) ISIS – Image and Scanner Interface Specification
It was developed by Pixel Translations and the architecture is based on software
modules like image acquisition, file conversion, data extraction, and file R/W commands.
ISIS modules interact with each other through a system of tags and choices. A combination of
two or more ISIS modules put together to perform a specific function is called a Pipe. ISIS
Pipes are constructed according to unique imaging needs. ISIS Compatible drivers are
available for more than 250 scanner models most of them are certified by Pixel Translations.
SPECIFICATION OF DIGITAL IMAGES
[Link]. BITMAP IMAGES VECTOR IMAGES
1 It is stored internally as a It is stored internally as mathematical
collection of dots called as pixels. entities arranged in a specific shape.
2 It is represented in geometrical It is interpreted by the processor and
shapes like point, line, ellipse, graphic controller of a computer and
polygon, curved lines etc. with a translated into pixel values for displaying
quality images. Ex: Photographic in the screen. Ex: Graphics.
Images
3 It is generated by scanning analog It is created by using specialized software
images using a scanner. like Macromedia Flash.
Advantages of Vector images:
It can be scaled to various sizes without pixelation (means individual pixels become
visible as single colored squares and the image takes on a boxy appearance with
degradation in quality)
Pixels are created dynamically at that instant and the number is adjusted so that the
appearance of the image is smooth at the current size.
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
It is quite compact and small in file size, so easier to animate and manipulate the
images.
Disadvantages of vector images
It is not able to represent accurately a large number of fine color variations.
It becomes complicated with a large number of shapes and curves, so used for simple
pictures only.
COLOR MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CMS - Device Independent Color Model)
It is a collection of software tools designed to reconcile different color capabilities of
scanners, monitors, printers, image-setters, and printing presses to ensure consistent color
throughout the print production process. In 1993, they formed the International Color
Consortium (ICC) to establish color standards help users achieve reliable and reproducible
color throughout the entire reproduction process. An ICC Color Management System has
three major components they are
1) Device profiles – define color characteristics of a particular device.
A color management system works by determining the color space of each device
stored as a set of parameters such as brightness, contrast and mid-tone settings and
characteristics of the phosphor in a file called the device profile or ICC Profiles. Specialized
software (Adobe Gamma supplied along with Adobe Photoshop) are used to obtain the
parameters and compile them into a device profile file is attached with the image file when
the image is created.
2) Color Management Module (CMM) - It interprets the device profiles and carries out the
instruction on what to do with different devices color spaces.
The device profiles represent the unique characteristics of each device. When an
image created on one monitor is displayed on another monitor, the difference between them
would tend to change the observed colors of the image. To minimize that, Color Management
Module (CMM) would read the two device profiles, analyse the difference between them and
adjust the image colors so that it looks the same when displayed in the second monitor.
3) Device Independent Color Space- It is also known as a Reference Color Space
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
IMAGE PROCESSING SOFTWARE
Image Processing Software like Adobe Photoshop provides a tools and graphical
interfaces to perform image processing tasks. Some of the features are as follows:
1) Object Selection: It enables to select a specific portion out of an image and manipulate it
or copy it to another image. The selection may be rectangular, circular, polygonal or irregular
and also able to copy and paste the selected portion of the image, a parameter called
feathering is used to determine whether the boundary of the selected portion has a clear and
crisp border or fuzzy border.
2) Color Selection: It is used to select foreground and background colors from a color palette
by clicking in it. A color swatch is available as a rectangular grid of some frequently used
colors. An out-of-gamut warning is indicated beside a selected RGB color if the color cannot
be mapped to CMYK gamut. An eyedropper tool enables one to select a color from an
existing image.
3) Painting and Drawing Tools: It is used to paint lines, shapes or fill regions with specified
colors. Painting strokes are controlled by paintbrush with parameters as diameter controls
thickness of lines and hardness determines whether the lines are clearly defined and
tolerance controls how much region is filled with color when the mouse is clicked within the
region. An airbrush tool simulate spray painting.
4) Anti-aliasing: Aliasing means false presentation of visual data in which a staircase effect
replaces what should be smooth curves and diagonal lines. Anti-aliasing is a method to
counter this staircase effect and restore the smooth appearances of curves and diagonal lines
to create an optical illusion of a smoothening effect.
5) Dithering: It is a technique to improve the appearance of an image with a limited number
of colors. If particular colors are not available in the palette are simulated by varying the
concentration of the dots of the existing colors with significant improvements to make the
clear border and less apparent in an image quality.
6) Half-toning: It simulates the shades by varying the dot size and spacing used in the
context of printing. Printing press does not support the full tonal variation of 8-bit grayscale
image, thus passing a light from an image through a perforated screen to obtain a subset of
total number of shades. Ex: For continuous variation of white to black in 5 subset of shades
as 0%,25%,50%,75%,100%.
7) Gradients: This tool allows creation of various types of gradients like linear, circular,
diamond shaped etc., A gradient editor allows selection of various colors and their spans
within the gradient.
8) Text: It is used to write text in varying sizes, fonts and orientations along with added
effects like emboss and drop-shadow. The text can be filled either with a single color or
gradients or patterns.
9) Transformation: It is used to transform specific portions of an image in various ways
such as moving, rotating, scaling, skewing, distorting etc. The entire image can be rotated or
its dimensions can also be modified.
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
10) Tonal Adjustments: It allow to improving the brightness and contrast of the image using
histogram equalization. A histogram is a plot of the number of pixels against the intensities
ranging from 0 to 255. Using sliders can able to increase or decrease the brightness/contrast.
11) Color Adjustments: It changes the color content of images. The color balance function
enables increasing and decreasing the amount of primary and secondary colors in an image
using sliders. A replace color function allows selection of specific portions of an image and
change their color content.
12) Retouching: A set of retouching tools are provided to make small changes for finishing
jobs in an image such as color hue, saturation, brightness/contrast, sharpening and smudging.
13) Layers: It allow the user to edit portions of an image independent of other portions by
splitting the image into separate layers. Layers can be made invisible, duplicated, deleted,
transparent and multiple layers are merged to single layer. It can be viewed and manipulated
using a Layers palette.
14) Color Channels: It separate out the pixels of the primary colors of an image and allow
the user to edit each color independently by using a Channels Palette.
15) Cloning: This tool allow duplicating specific portion of an image and help to remove
unwanted objects from images by cloning the background in it.
16) Masks: It allows the user to select areas of an image and protect these from editing
changes applied to the rest of the image. A mask can be saved in the channels palette and can
contain 256 levels of transparencies is referred as an alpha channel.
17) Erase and Move: Erase tool allow removing specific portions of an image. Erasing a
portion exposes contents or lower layers. Move tools enable selecting portions of an image
and moving them to different locations by dragging.
18) Thresholding: It is a technique of converting color or grayscale images to binary images.
By adjusting the threshold value, varying details of image objects can be made visible with
respect to other objects which are made invisible.
19) Filters: Filters are algorithms that accept image data and transform the data in pre-
defined ways to create special effects.
IMAGE FILE FORMATS
Images may be stored in a variety of file formats. Each file format is characterized by
a specific compression type and color depth. Some of the image file formats are:
1) BMP: (Bitmap)
It is a standard windows image format on DOS and windows-compatible computers.
It supports RGB, indexed color, grayscale, bitmap color models and does not support
alpha channels.
For 4-bit & 8-bit images (.bmp) using windows format can specify RLE compression.
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
To exchange bitmap files between devices and applications, Microsoft has defined a
device independent bitmap file format (DIB).
2) JPEG: (Joint Photographers Experts Group)
It is used to display photographs and other continuous-tone images in Hyper Text
Markup Language (HTML) documents over the WWW and other online services.
It supports CMYK, RGB and grayscale color models and does not support alpha
channels.
It uses 24-bit format (.jpeg) and compresses the file size by selectively discarding data
using a method based on discrete cosine transform.
It supports both lossy and lossless mode of compression and automatically
decompressed when opened.
A high level of compression result in low image quality and low level of compression
result in better image quality.
It does not support transparency.
3) GIF: (Graphics Interchange Format)
It is used to display indexed color graphics and images in hypertext markup language
(HTML) documents over the WWW and other online services.
It preserves transparency in indexed color images and not support alpha channels.
It uses 8 bit color and represented upto 256 colors with higher color depth in images
by using Color Look-Up Table (CLUT).
It efficiently compresses solid areas of color while preserving sharp in detail.
It can be used to create animated images by combining multiple images into a single
animated GIF file (.gif).
4) PNG: (Portable Network Graphics)
It is used for lossless compression and for display of images on the WWW.
It supports 24-bit images and produces background transparency without jagged
edges.
PNG format (.png) support RGB, Indexed color, grayscale and bitmap-mode images
without alpha channels.
It preserves transparency in grayscale and RGB images.
5) TIFF (Tagged – Image File Format)
It is a tag based file format (.tiff) designed by Aldus Corporation in 1987, is used to
exchange files between applications and computer platforms.
TIFF specification provides for a Baseline TIFF specification which uses an RLE
based compression called PackBits.
Tags are identifying numbers of a field defining the characteristics of the image such
as imagewidth, imagelength, XResolution, YResolution, etc., is contained in the file.
It is a flexible bitmap image format supported by all paint, image editing and page
layout applications.
Virtually all desktop scanners can produce TIFF images.
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
It supports color depth of 16 bits/channel and stored in a number of different color
models such as CMYK, RGB, LAB, indexed Color and grayscale images with alpha
channels and bitmap mode images without alpha channels.
It uses lossless LZW compression method and size limited to 232 bytes or 4.2 GB.
It is standard format for compressing black and white fax documents which is used
the CCITT Group 4 compression method.
6) PCX (Personal Computer Exchange)
It is a defunct image file format developed by ZSoft Corporation as the native file
format for PC Paintbrush and DOS imaging formats.
PCX is a device-independent raster image format supporting 2 to 256 colors and
extended upto 24 bit colors.
The file format provides 128 byte header and an optional 256 color palette in addition
to the actual image data.
Files are lossless compressed using RLE encoding scheme.
7) TGA (True Graphics Adapter)
It is a raster image file format developed by Truevision Inc.
It is a native format of TARGA (Truevision Advanced Raster Graphics Adapter)
graphics card for IBM-compatible PCs.
The format can store image data with 8, 16, 24 or 32 bits of precision/pixel.
It supports image with 8 bits for transparency.
Images may either be stored in raw format or compressed using RLE compression
scheme.
TGA files are mostly used in games for displaying textures.
IMAGE OUTPUT ON MONITOR
It is the last stage in image processing concerned with storing and displaying the
edited image to the user. The image can either be displayed in a stand-alone manner or part of
some application that is needs to be displayed on-screen via a monitor.
Display Considerations:
Greater the image resolution then better the image quality. The image pixels are
actually strings of binary numbers is referred as logical pixels. When the images are
displayed on the monitor, the logical pixels are directly mapped onto the phosphor dots of the
monitor is referred as physical pixels.
Pixel Dimensions - Number of pixels along the height and width of a bitmap image. The
file size of an image is proportional to its pixel dimensions.
Image Resolution- Number of pixels displayed per unit length of the image and measured in
pixels per inch (ppi).
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
File Size- The digital file size of an image measured in kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB) or
gigabytes (GB) is proportional to the pixel dimensions of the image. Images with more pixels
may produce more detail but they require more storage space and may be slower to edit and
print.
Color Depth- It defines the number of bits required to store the information of each pixel in
the image and in turn determines the total number of possible colors that can be displayed in
the image. Increasing the bit depth increases the capability of displaying a larger number of
colors and also increases the file size of the image.
If w be the width of an image and h be its height, and b be the bit depth then the
storage size of the image S is given by:
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
GAMMA FACTOR AND GAMA CORRECTION
When a picture is displayed on a monitor, its brightness levels can be divided into 3
groups, they are darkest regions, lightest regions and midtone regions.
The monitor is a non-linear device so that
equal increments in pixel values do not result
in equal increments of the screen brightness.
The extreme shades of black and white are
unaffected but the entire range of midtones
are darkened by the monitor.
Thus a pixel brightness of 50% will result in a screen brightness of only 20%. This
can be represented mathematically by a power function called gamma function, whose value
turns out to be approximately 2.5. Thus, 0.5 raised to the power 2.5 results in 0.2. Thus, we
can write the following where P0 is the output pixel value, Pi is the input pixel value and ℽ is
the gamma factor
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
IMAGE OUTPUT ON PRINTER
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SUB: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY Class: III BSc., (CS&IT)
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