Digital Imagery
Paul Messaris · The International Encyclopedia of Communication · 2008
Two distinct processes can give rise to digital images. On the one hand, they can be created entirely by computer, as → animations or as single computer‐generated images. On the other hand, they can be produced photographically, through digital cameras and camcorders, or through the digital scanning of photographs originally recorded on celluloid (→ Photography). When a real visual scene is photographed digitally, the scene's pattern of light and color is translated into a rectangular grid of pictorial elements, known as pixels. Variations in brightness or color from one pixel to another are recorded in terms of discrete, fixed units – hence, “digitally” – instead of the continuous gradations employed by analog media.