Digital camera interpolation explained
In a device such as a digital camera
it is very important to understand the very basic
aspects of the device so as to properly operate it
and give it the due respect it deserves. Such a topic
is interpolation! These are accessories that help
the digital camera to perform the technologically
advanced features that it is capable of. In extreme
explanatory and simple terms it can be summed up as
that interpolation refers to software programs that
can effectively enlarge image resolution beyond the
actual resolution by adding extra pixels using complex
mathematic calculations. Now, this is a feature that
can be absolutely useful in providing a good success
to a user.
Looking into the technical aspects it
can be stated that interpolation is a technique where
the spatial resolution of an image is increased from
its original size to a higher or larger resolution.
The spatial resolution of an image is simply its horizontal
x vertical pixel count. For example 1600 x 1200. Again
getting into further intricate details it can be stated
that there are two techniques of interpolation commonly
used, they are software and hardware. Again software
interpolation can be performed on a digital image
using a one of a number of image editing programs
such as PhotoShop. This is often termed as resizing
and is done with a computer, performed on an image
file from a digital camera that already exists in
a file format such as JPG. Hardware interpolation
involves the resizing of an image, but it differs
from software interpolation in that the image is resized
algorithmically inside the camera during the image
processing sequence and before the image has been
saved as a JPG image file.
Also, it can be noted here that JPG
is a compressed image file format. Whenever a file
is saved as a JPG file, image data is lost in the
compression process. Image data is thrown away in
exchange for file-size efficiency. Software interpolation
is a process performed after the JPG losses have been
applied. Hardware interpolation occurs inside the
camera prior to JPG compression and before JPG losses
have been applied. The resulting hardware interpolated
images are of superior quality to a comparable image
interpolated in software.
These are basically the important points
as discussed in the above lines regarding the digital
camera interpolation. The explanation is worth for
every user who can be a novice as well as an expert
and thus uncovers another great feature of a digital
camera, the process of interpolation.
Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.com.
Visit his digital camera guide and learn how to take
better pictures with your digicam.
