Image Formats

Image Formats & File Types

TIFF 

These types of image formats are a very flexible format that can be lossless or lossy. The details of the image storage algorithm are included as part of the file. In practice, TIFF is used exclusively as a lossless image storage format that uses no compression. Most graphics programs that use TIFF do not use compression. Consequently, file sizes are quite big. (Sometimes a lossless compression algorithm called LZW is used, but it is not universally supported.)

PNG 

These types of image formats are also a lossless storage format. However, in contrast with common TIFF usage, it looks for patterns in the image that it can use to compress file size. The compression is exactly reversible, so the image is recovered exactly.

GIF 

These types of image formats create a table of up to 256 colours from a pool of 16 million. If the image has fewer than 256 colours, GIF can render the image exactly. When the image contains many colours, software that creates the GIF uses any of several algorithms to approximate the colours in the image with the limited palette of 256 colours available. Better algorithms search the image to find an optimum set of 256 colours. Sometimes GIF uses the nearest colour to represent each pixel, and sometimes it uses "error diffusion" to adjust the colour of nearby pixels to correct for the error in each pixel.

GIF achieves compression in two ways. First, it reduces the number of colours of colour-rich images, thereby reducing the number of bits needed per pixel, as just described. Second, it replaces commonly occurring patterns (especially large areas of uniform colour) with a short abbreviation: instead of storing "white, white, white, white, white," it stores "5 white."

Thus, GIF is "lossless" only for images with 256 colours or less. For a rich, true colour image, GIF may "lose" 99.998% of the colours.

JPG 

These types of image formats are optimised for photographs and similar continuous tone images that contain many, many colours. It can achieve astounding compression ratios even while maintaining very high image quality. GIF compression is unkind to such images. JPG works by analysing images and discarding kinds of information that the eye is least likely to notice. It stores information as 24 bit colour. Important: the degree of compression of JPG is adjustable. At moderate compression levels of photographic images, it is very difficult for the eye to discern any difference from the original, even at extreme magnification. Compression factors of more than 20 are often quite acceptable. Better graphics programs, such as Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop, allow you to view the image quality and file size as a function of compression level, so that you can conveniently choose the balance between quality and file size.

RAW 

These types of image formats give an image output option available on some digital cameras. Though lossless, it is a factor of three of four smaller than TIFF files of the same image. The disadvantage is that there is a different RAW format for each manufacturer, and so you may have to use the manufacturer's software to view the images. (Some graphics applications can read some manufacturer's RAW formats.)

BMP

These types of image formats are an uncompressed proprietary format invented by Microsoft. There is really no reason to ever use this format.

PSD, PSP, etc. 

These types of image formats are proprietary formats used by graphics programs. Photoshop's files have the PSD extension, while Paint Shop Pro files use PSP. These are the preferred working formats as you edit images in the software, because only the proprietary formats retain all the editing power of the programs. These packages use layers, for example, to build complex images, and layer information may be lost in the nonproprietary formats such as TIFF and JPG. However, be sure to save your end result as a standard TIFF or JPG, or you may not be able to view it in a few years when your software has changed.

Currently, GIF and JPG are the formats used for nearly all web images. PNG is supported by most of the latest generation browsers. TIFF is not widely supported by web browsers, and should be avoided for web use. PNG does everything GIF does, and better, so expect to see PNG replace GIF in the future. PNG will not replace JPG, since JPG is capable of much greater compression of photographic images, even when set for quite minimal loss of quality.

Inspirational Photographers

Inspirational Photographers

Melanie Willhide

Melanie Willhide is a fine art photographer who teaches photography in California at Pasadena City College. For her recent project To Adrian Rodriguez, with love it displays the images found in her corrupted hard drive which was in her stolen laptop. It was retrieved from the back of stopped car by the California P.D. and she was so pleased with the way the images had been glitched, she decided to dedicate her photo gallery to the laptop thief himself. The images below are the results of her images being corrupted, similar to the photographic editing technique of data bending. In addition to refining the photos that were “glitched by the thief,” Willhide also taught herself how to artificially glitch photos with the same aesthetic using Photoshop.

http://melaniewillhide.com/portfolio/to-adrian-rodriguez-with-love/

Sarah Lee

From Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, Sarah Lee is incessantly glued to camera viewfinders, DaFiNs, and the sea. Her passion for photography, particularly underwater and surf photography was shaped by a childhood where she was constantly playing in and around the ocean. As a long-distance swimmer and surfer, her strength as an athlete in the ocean and tide allows her to capture swimmers and surfers in the special way she does beneath the sea. "My aim in making photos is to capture and accentuate the beauty in what surrounds me. Photography to me is a mode of visual problem solving and a way to perpetuate the stoke, whether it be above the surface or below." I particularly like Lee's GoPro photography. These cameras bend the light in her images, so when she alters her shutter speed or takes photos underwater, it bends the light within the frame even more, resulting into some fantastic photos. See below

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was born on February 20, 1902, in San Francisco, California. Adams rose to prominence as a photographer of the American West, particularly Yosemite National Park, using his work to promote conservation of wilderness areas. His iconic black-and-white images helped to establish photography among the fine arts. Adams was often criticised for not including humans in his photographs and for representing an idealised wilderness that no longer exists. However, it is in large part thanks to Adams that these pristine areas have been protected for years to come. He died in Monterey, California, on April 22, 1984. Here are a few of his black-and-white landscapes.

Mowgli Omari

Mowgli Omari is a 21 year-old South London art student with an alternative approach to photography. Each of Omari’s collage series starts with related images, sometimes from a single book, which he then manipulates in precise, geometrically sophisticated, and minimally ironic ways, forming unique photographs. His most recent work deviates further from collage, replacing found images with bold coloured paper and a single, identity-defining depth effect (a fold, bend, ripple, etc.). It’s hugely promising work and a pleasure to follow as it evolves even further.

Mike Perry (Landscapes)

Mike Perry is 55 year-old a British contemporary photographer. After a post graduate degree in economics and 13 years in industry, Perry left the world of commerce to focus on his art and environmental projects. He now lives between London and West Wales where he is converting a coastal sheep farm into a site for sustainable architecture and art. His work is increasingly influenced by the surrounding landscape and environmental concerns. Perry's early large scale highly detailed colour photographs, often taken whilst driving around Britain's marginal coastal and upland regions, combine powerful painterly aesthetics with seemingly mundane locations or areas of environmental degradation.
In 2002, Perry went on the Astral America project, which was a commission by Huntergather, along with artists Tom Hunter and Norbert Schoerner. The three artists were asked to revisit Jean Braudillard's road trip through America. Here are some of the images they've taken. Similar construction to the photos I've taken on my shoot, especially the cactus and my Tenerife photoshoot.

Images taken from: http://www.m-perry.com/projects.htm

Bibliography

Bibliography

• David Prakel (2013) Basics Photography 02: Lighting, : Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Rockwell, K. (September 2011) Nikon D7000 Controls, Available at: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d7000/users-guide/controls.htm (Accessed: 14th February).
• Dzenko, C. (September 2009) Analog to Digital: The Indexical Function of Photographic Images, Available at: http://www.skarbakka.com/media/pdf/Dzenko_AnalogToDigital1.pdf (Accessed: 4th March).
• England, J. (New Rising Media) (31st January 2013) The Art of Databending, Available at: http://newrisingmedia.com/all/2013/1/31/the-art-of-databending.html (Accessed: 25th March).

Critical Introduction

Critical Introduction: Photography

George Whale's gallery Displaced Cultures exhibits the dislocation and displacement of the cultures embedded in the Canary Islands. His images aim to convey the message that the Canary Islands native heritage is fading behind the bombardment of other international cultures due to fact that the Canaries have become a notorious tourist destination over the past few decades. 

After the fall of Franco and the establishment of the democratic constitutional monarchy, the Canary Islands were granted an autonomous community of Spain status. They are islands located just off the North West of Africa, which have experienced prosperity, in contrast with extreme poverty, piracy, mass emigration. It's now one of Spain’s main tourist destinations, with over 1.5 million tourists visiting from the UK alone in 2013. 

The Islands once acted as a bridge between Europe and the United States of America and which made an important contribution to the history and culture of the Islands, exposing them to many different influences, especially European influences and African ones. The diverse mixture of different cultures in the Canary Islands has forged a unique and peculiar history for the Canary Islands, one which has dislodged it from it's native identity.

Whilst in Tenerife, Whale explored the town of Los Cristianos to capture his images, obeying professional photographic procedures such as the rule of thirds and golden ratio to gain an aesthetically pleasing image base before altering the image files .jpg script coding. Inspired by Melanie Willhide's to Adrian Rodriguez, with love, a project dedicated to the man thief who stole her laptop and corrupt her hard drive in 2010. The images she managed to recover were from the corrupted hard drive had transformed, giving them a glitch like aesthetic, which construct new meanings to the photographs. Displaced Cultures aims to reinforce the meaning dislocation by distorting his images with a similar process. 

On a basic level, Whale's exhibition asks what are we seeing when we look at an image - greyscale, pixels, stripes, dot, vintage photography, his work plays with perception. Through the editing method of data bending, Whale tampers with the bytes of the digital image file through corrupting the script coding via TextEdit. Through his manipulation of the coding, the process results with a new visual construction of the photo which appears distorted and 'glitched'. This transfiguration of the image doesn't withdraw it from it's meaning, however it requires the viewer to look deeper into what is being shown in the photographs.

Whale's exhibition displays the new possibilities in an increasing digital medium with his project on Displaced Cultures. American photographer, Ansel Adams once said "you don't take a photograph, you make it!" Whale's exhibition portrays this ideology with his photographs - technically and aesthetically.

Photo Shoot: Isle of Wight

Photo Shoot: Isle of Wight

Last weekend, I went to the Isle of Wight with my family to our by to let house just outside of Yarmouth. Using my sister's Nikon D40X, I wanted to capture sunsets, alternating the amount of exposure I'd let into the camera and well as getting more familiar with aperture and ISO in natural light. Here are the best results below from the sunset shots I managed to take that weekend.

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Photo Shoot: Brighton

Photo Shoot: Brighton

For one of my photo shoots, I chose to go into town with the Nikon D7000 and to take photos of architecture, graffiti and local attractions such as the pier, the lanes and pavilion. I spent a few hours wandering around town taking photos of anything that appealed to me. I found this to be a successful shoot as I got more confident with my framing, taking more time to fully examine what image I would capture before triggering the shutter. I also got to grips with using the focus on the camera, however from the images I captured, I didn't play around with depths of field but more with my white balance, f-numbers and focal points. Below are the results of the shoot.