ABSTRACT
We explored the design of digital sensors including the Bayer pattern color filter array in Chapter 3 and in Chapter 4 we looked at strategies for obtaining perfect photographic exposures. We bring those concepts together here to explore how an image is transformed from sensor signal to a processed image. Getting to the point where our digital image approximates the appearance of the scene as we experienced it takes a considerable number of steps. These steps are often invisible and unknown to photographers since they 158happen behind the scenes in software processing, yet they're critical to the successful formation of a photograph. Furthermore, the digital information in an image file is modified even going into its final outputs as interpolation is used for upscaling or downscaling pixel data. This chapter dives into the details of a raw file's contents and how they're translated into a functional image file as well as strategies for resampling the data for output.
