How We See Images

How We See
Human eye moves around the object/s of
interest to capture images, and brain
comprehends / assimilates these images
Construction of these images in mind is a
combined effort of what is seen and what is in
our memory. For example: when we read, we
see words and not the alphabets that form the
word. Our memory store has the shape
structure and the meaning of the word.
 How We See

Similarly we can recognize an object or a person

from far away distance without actually seeing
the details of the object. Our memory has
information on structure / shape / posture/ the
way one walks etc. and this makes us recognize
the person or object.
 How We See

Understanding how eye functions will help us to

realize what Digital Camera and Digital display
manufacturers are striving to achieve.
 How We See
The process of seeing starts from eye
 How We See

Cornea, Lens & Iris/aperture, Retina, optic-nerve

and neurons in the brain are the main
component that finds similarity with tools of
digital photography
 How We See

Retina can be compared with a sensor that

receives light from lens, optic-nerves with
various circuitries that transfer signal from
active pixel to neuron in the brain where signal
is processed and image gets meaning.
 How We See

The storage devises – for digital cameras are flash

cards or external hard disk. In human beings
brain stores different aspects of sensations –
vision, touch, smell, taste, sounds - in different
memory cells.

Please note memory cells store information that

each individual has chosen to be stored, the rest
is deleted.
 How We See

To focus an object, thickness of lens is changed.

Muscles pull to flatten the lens to focus objects
at distance. To see objects at close distance,
muscle contract and the lens becomes thick.
Lens of human eye has a focal length of
variation from 17mm to 23mm
 How We See

The light passing through lens is controlled by

Iris. Maximum physical size of the iris/
diaphragm / aperture varies from 12 to14 mm. It
controls about 6.5 stops of light passing through
it.
 How We See
Retina has two types of photoreceptors –rods
and cons. There are about 120 million Rods and
about 6 to 7 million of Cons.

It is Cons that is responsible for reproduction of

colour vision and sharp image.
How We See
 How We See
Sensitivity of eye depends on:
Rods enable us to see objects – colour less – in
light level as low as 0.00087 foot lambert (fL)
Cons enable us to see full colour image in the
light levels varying from 0.87 fL to 47,000,000 fL
In a given attentive view eye can distinguish
brightness range of 1000:1.
 How We See

In perception process brilliance of an image is

indicated in its Brightness and Lightness
Brightness attribute to visual sensation resulting
from the magnitude of light emission from a
source. This could be single tone.
 How we See

Lightness differentiates one brightness from the

other – how bright is one area in the image field
than another under similar illumination.
Lightness does not only depends on the nominal
brightness of image element but also the
surround. Lightness refers to visual tonal
contrast.
 How We See

Visual tone reproduction - is directly related to

contrast transfer. When colours are present, hue
and saturation become an important elements
of image tone reproduction.
The extent of the background, as well as its
lightness and hue, modifies the saturation or the
contrast.
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Perception of brightness difference does not

follow linear pattern. That is, visibility of a
shadow on illuminated background is not
determined by the nominal differential in their
illumination level, but on the ratio between the
two intensities – contrast ratio.
 How We See

What it means is that our eye do not follow a

linear pattern of perception i.e. if we light a
series of candelas 1,2,3,4,5, 6,7, 8, then after
lighting 8th candle we would NOT perceive
increase in brightness by 8 times than what we
got after lighting 1 candle. Our perception
process follow logarithmic pattern
 How We See

A logarithmic change means that the apparent

change in brightness between 1 candle and 2 is
the same to our eyes as between 4 candles and
8 or 256 candles and 512 candles. THE
INBETWEEN VARIATION IN BRIGHTNESS IS NOT
PERCEIVED
One would notice here that
there is smaller change in
tones in lower steps than
higher. What it suggests is:
Our eyes are very good at
detecting small steps in dark
and mid-tones than in high
brightness
 How We See

Resolution refers to the details from a scene

that an imaging system capture and the
reproducing system replicates.

Resolution is a function of contrast and is a

measureable.
 How We See
What is contrast and What is sharpness?

Contrast refers to the ratio between the lowest

and highest luminance within the range of visual
target and immediate surroundings

Sharpness is defined as the change of luminance

within the range of the edge of visual target
 How We See

These definitions suggest that when one is

talking about details in a picture one is talking
about edges not the body of the object.
 How We see
When contrast reduces the picture sharpness
also reduces.

Some experiments have shown if the lines are

drawn in mid tones and its tonal variation is 1%
or lower, our eyes cannot perceive the
separation between the lines
 How We See

Thus one cannot simply define resolution

of by saying that if the gap between lines
or characters in text image is so much then
the resolution is so much. We must give
due consideration to the contrast between
the dark and bright lines.
 How We See
What is important for photographer to realize
that human visual system is more sensitive to
contrast than absolute luminance. This can be
realized while watching movies. Sitting in a dark
cinema hall one does perceive bright day and
dark night scenes without realizing the actual
brightness on the screen and the physical time
at which the movie is being watched.