Digital Imaging: What Is It?

The term "imaging" was "invented" a few years ago in the United States, to better define the evolution of image production and reproduction processes. Its meaning is quite deep, and understanding it in depth will allow you to go deeper into the section that concerns this space, dedicated to digital imaging.

Today many people talk about "imaging," thinking that, with this term, there is unmistakably a process somehow linked to digital technology. In reality, imaging is unencumbered by specific technology and identifies the integration between all the elements, products, technologies, and services that lead to the creation of visual communication.

Ultimately, the term "imaging" was created to compensate for the limitations that had and have the sectoral terms related to the image: "photography," "information technology," "graphics," "development," "printing," etc.

Definition Of Digital Imaging

The section of the large sphere of imaging that uses digital technologies is called "digital imaging" and is also the area that is undergoing the greatest evolution.

By now, every sector of image production offers digital interpretations: photography, graphics, cinema, photo lab, ink printing, even if the process is not always completely digital.

Why Digital Imaging Is So Important

Visual communication, of which photography is a part, becomes more digital every day. While not completely replacing the other more "physical" forms of communication, digital is increasingly preferred. It offers the exceptional advantage of a very low distribution cost, very high flexibility in updating, a clearing of distances. The possibility of optimization (transmitting to the user ONLY the information he wishes to receive), the almost inertia of inertia between when information (or communication in a broader sense) is created, and when it is used.

Digitization is a process that is investing in many economic areas, and its penetration is so much deeper when the conversion between atoms (analog product) and bits (digital information) is facilitated. Information, as a whole, is one of the most easily digitized products, a photograph, a typewritten text, a video; a drawing can also be created "outside" of a computer. But with little "effort," it is possible to transform them into digital data; at the same time.

Everyone now produces texts with a computer, and therefore these data are already in "digital" format; digital cameras and camcorders are increasingly available to everyone's pockets and even for drawing. It is possible to use profitable software that generates illustrations comparable to those we could make on a canvas, directly inside a computer.

It is said that the process of digitalization can be found much more in the field of visual communication than in other areas and, therefore, the markets that progress on this sector. For instance, publishing, advertising, television, cinema, games have made much more substantial steps towards the use of digital communication, preferring it to more traditional tools. All those who work as photographers or image specialists must respond to these market needs by providing customers with the most direct paths to digital.

Digital Imaging In All Professional Activities

Many people who work, even successfully, in the world of photography, often believe that digital technology may not be decisive in the area it belongs to.

Everyone is by now in agreement on the fact that the digital image is beneficial where the minutes "weigh" more. For example photojournalism, sports photography, high production of pictures for catalogs. But that the effectiveness of digital is much more reduced - and therefore greater involvement or investment is not convenient.

In these short notes, we will point out how much digital has become part of the daily work of any activity related to photography. It is not a clumsy attempt to declare digital technology "indispensable" in all sectors, but the awareness of an evolution that is no longer limited to certain areas of experimentation, but which is now diluted everywhere.

• Architectural photography: The use of digital technologies allows direct integration with specific software for the correction of perspectives. Sometimes not even correctable with machine movements for the measurement of areas, distances, perimeters, for the fusion of photographic elements with technical drawings. Even for the immediately send images via the Internet or other telematic networks to receive real-time approvals, comments, evaluations. In the furnishing sector, the integrations between digital photography and 3D remapping programs are increasingly powerful, allowing to show versions of furniture, sofas, and armchairs not yet produced, blending the photographed "forms" and the material of cover (fabric or other).

• Advertising photography: Working in advertising means providing more and more captivating images of the products being advertised. To achieve this, digital images are increasingly used to correct, integrate, embellish, fascinate. This has been a reality for several years, but what we live today, strongly, is a reduction in the time between product conception and marketing, and the horizons of e-commerce will make this time shorter. Furthermore, the use of increasingly digital media will also require an increasing number of digital images in advertising.
• Reproductions for museums, institutes: all these structures are starting to require digital reproductions to create archives. It allows consultation via the Internet, or even to create multimedia products to widen the visibility of the assets.
• Scientific photography: The applications of telemedicine and telepathology progressively the use of digital tools and solutions. It often provides exciting results from collaboration between geographically located structures in distant places, of research, of making experts and specialized structures available even where they do not exist "physically."
• Photography for individuals: The instant capture of the image is an asset that is immediately perceived by anyone, and that becomes a strong point also for the private-public. From the passport photo to the portrait to wedding photography: all the sectors mentioned above can benefit from the immediacy, the possibility of correction, and the "creative games" that can be achieved thanks to digital.
• The photograph, visible just taken, brings together and makes the subject of photography with the one who took it, making this experience engaging and direct. The availability of equipment capable of producing digital photographs of very high quality in digital format allows already today to enjoy and to enjoy all these advantages without limits.
• Documentary photography: all situations involving the use of an image to document an event, to prove a fact, to show a specific effect at a distance, take advantage of the digital. Insurance practices (damage checks, estimates, appraisals), filming by location, casting, already use digital filming with profit, and in the future, such uses will expand further.
• News Photography: This is the area that has most benefited from digital. The shooting of events of journalistic interest, sports documentation, fashion shows, reports from places far from the big centers. By now, it is usual, in all these areas, the direct digital recording, and the transmission via telematic networks (connection to mobile phones, modems, satellite, radio waves).
• Various and possible: it is practically impossible to think of a photographic application that does not draw considerable advantages from the digital. It does not mean that all professional activities will make exclusive use of digital shooting. Instead, there is no longer any sector in its use; it is only a choice and evaluation of the advantages and limitations of opportunities. But that the interest and the deepening towards digital photography will have to involve everyone, it is also taken for granted.

Author: Vicki Lezama