The 'unreal' images change the 'real' world

There have been a few decades since computer graphics made great impacts on our life. Computer generated imagery (CGI) is now being used widely in different areas such as the movie and the design industry. As we all know, these images are unrealistic – they are just polygons, vectors and programs. But who cares about the factuality of the graphics? CGI can really help us in many aspects so we ought to make good use of this tool. In this essay, I will investigate how the CGI technology aids us and reveal its limitations and anticipation.

Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the application of the field of computer graphics, or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media [1].

Indeed, there are a myriad of examples of CGI technology used in our daily life. Computer aided design (CAD) is one of the applications of CGI [2]. In the field of design, designers wish to visualize the thoughts in their mind so they traditionally need paper and pen to draw what they want. Nowadays, CAD software packages enable them to make a detailed 3D objects which is all-angle visible. It makes the process of engineering and manufacturing of the products become easier and more convenient because 3D models are easier to be understood by manufacturer than hand-drawn 3D-pretending picture.

 Figure 1 3D designs by using CAD software [3]

Moreover, the CGI technology typically benefits the movie industry. As an example, the movie, ‘Toy Story’ is an animation generated purely by the CGI technology. The characters and all the background in the animation are all 3D models which can be treated as some virtual objects. All the motions and movements of the objects are manipulated based on computer programs.

Figure 2 A scene from the movie Toy Story [4]

The above ‘Toy Story’ example is an animation that people can intuitively figure out the graphics involved are not real. But what if some ‘realistic elements’ are added in the movie so that people would intuitively think that ‘the movie is so real’? Let’s see the movie Avatar as a further example.

Avatar is a 2009 American epic science fiction film which mainly consists of the CGI technology to visualize and simulate the imaginary amazing world in the movie [5]. Owing to the state-of-the-art CGI technology, not only images are generated, but also a tremendous income is also generated. Until May 4 2010, worldwide revenue of $2,777,490,390 USD has already been earned from the movie [6].

The graphical models in the CGI technology in Avatar are very similar to the things we encountered in the real world, or even more gorgeous than what we observe in the real world. Nevertheless, not like Toy Story, we think that the movie Avatar is very ‘realistic’ because the images used in the movie fit comfortably to our intuition, without a diametrical conflict to what we observe and experience in our daily life. In other words, we will ‘believe’ the unreal graphics in Avatar but not in Toy Story.

So, something wield springs up in my mind. In what mentioned above, it seems that the CGI technology is so powerful that we can purely generate a ‘realistic’ movie without any human interventions. However, something contradictory to our thought is that the movie Avatar still needs actors and actresses to generate 3D models! Without anyone acting in the movie, the CGI technology is incapable of creating creatures that moves so smooth like humans. What the directors of the movie Avatar have used to capture the motion of humans in an attempt to create human-like creatures is that they install motion sensors in every single joint of the actors and actresses [7], and meanwhile transfer the sensors’ signal to the virtual camera in order to perform motions of the computer 3D models [7]. In fact, generating a series of human actions does require a lot of human resources. Without capturing the motions of human in the real world, it seems that it is extremely difficult to generate some complicated movements of a 3D model purely by manipulating the movements of the 3D components and adjusting the positions of the joints of the 3D model. Knowing that these kinds of movies still involves human manipulation is very important because people will feel bad if we intuitively ‘believe’ that the whole displayed world in the movie Avatar is real, but the movie actually contains no ‘real’ things. We are pleased to know that there is still a little proportion of ‘real things’ (the motions and gestures of the  haracters) in the movie, corresponding to what we ‘believe’.

Figure 3 The tricks behind Avatar [8]

This fact inspires us to think of a very thought-provoking question: Can the CGI technology generate a perfectly unblemished video (or animation) containing smooth and human-like motions? In my own perspective, this dream is nearly impossible in the near future. In the field of computing, it seems like we are continuously using computer graphics to imitate the real world. In fact, I think the machine cannot perfectly simulate the real world because the world is perfect due to its imperfectness. What I mean is that there exist some blemishes in the real world as some random noises and flaws will emerge in the real world. The images generated purely by the CGI technology are highly imitative and with regular pattern, but thanks to these seem-like merits, the images cannot present the imperfect random events naturally. So, we can observe that CGI is more commonly used in the movies having imaginary characters which are less likely to be contradictory to our intuition, in order to make the character more ‘realistic’. Iron man, Spiderman and Transformer are some of the typical examples substantiating the idea that the CGI technology aids mainly the imaginary characters in the movies.

Based on the computer technology now, I think it is too soon to say that computers can one day perfectly simulate a virtual world that the unreal graphics can make us ‘believe’ the ‘unreal’ is ‘real’. Believing what we are seeing still seems agreeable in the sense that if we see something realistic, there must be at least some human manipulations involved (e.g. the motion generating aspect in the movie Avatar).

Are people going to endeavor to make the ‘realistic’ video described above? May or may not be. But at least, it’s clear that amazing images can be made without human intervention if human-like motions are not required. Believe it or not, both of the following images are based on CGI that they are purely vectors and polygons drawn by using graphical software. In the first glance, or even deeper examination, we will conclude that the two girls are real if we are not allowed to use any computer program to examine the factuality of the images.

Figure 4 The realistic women created by CGI [9]

But what if the CGI technology eventually advanced to a level that it is capable of simulating human and even the whole real world? If the CGI technology can really simulate all movements and motions that humans can do, a very interesting phenomenon may appear – the virtual idol. What I mean is a tailor-made idol who can act, sing and even do anything that human can do, but can only be seen on videos. He or she may be very handsome or very pretty, having multitudes of talents in different areas. He or she (or should I say ‘it’?) can be the main character of a movie and interact with other movie stars. The essence of this issue is in the question – would people still like to become fans of the virtual idol even they know it is not real at all?

Would people choose to ‘believe’ in a very realistic virtual object even when they are told that the object is completely made by CGI? This is really an intriguing question aiming to examine the reaction of people dealing with something which is completely unreal. But sadly, the answer will only be released at the day when CGI can impeccably simulate the real world.

Reference

1. Wikipedia Computer-generated imagery. [online], available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-generated_imagery
2. Wikipedia Computer-aided design. [online], available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_design 
3. John S 2010, designer. The 3rd and 4th assignments’ illustration of the course ‘Introduction to 3D Modelling’. Course number CD 85-215-56-01 (01). HKU Space.
4. Photos: Top ten CGI films to keep the kids quiet over easter. [online], available at: http://www.computerweekly.com/galleries/235560-2/Toy-Story-Top-ten-CGI-films.htm 
5. Wikipedia Avatar (2009 film). [online], available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film) 
6. Total Lifetime Grosses of Avatar. Boxofficemojo. [online], available at: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.htm 
7. Taking movies beyond Avatar -- for under $150. University of Abertay Dundee 2010. [online], available at: http://www.photoxels.com/tag/avatar-movie/ 
8. Avatar Showtimes Clips and Trailers. [online], available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq_nRfoBSm0&feature=fvw 
9. Brain 2008. Spring Fling. [online], available at: http://librarybrainblog.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/spring-fling/

Computing technologies used in document processing

Nowadays, computer becomes our indispensible tool because we use it to create, store and access documents. We transfer messages, share feeling and communicate with others through documents. Due to increase efficiency, computing technologies used in document processing are highlighted. Documents are not confined to text document but also graphics and audio. This survey would focus on some basic computing technologies used in processing different documents.

First, ASCII is worth to mention here when talking about text document processing because it is the foundation stone of developing other coding schemes. ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is the most used coding system to represent data. Since computers are digital devices, they can have only two states, on and off. Our computers are digital so they can use two digits, 0 and 1 to represent these states. (Cashman, Shelly and Vermaat, 2008) However, 0 and 1, which are called bits, are not enough to represent all the alphabets, digits or symbols. Therefore, each ASCII code is stored using 7 bits and the standard ASCII can encode total 2^7 =128 characters.

Here is the standard ASCII table (CSGNetwork, 2009).

Table 1: standard ASCII table

The ASCII codes 0 – 31 are known as control characters, which are used to control peripheral devices like printers and is unprintable. The printable characters, ASCII codes 32-127, mean letters, numbers, punctuation marks or symbols.

As mentioned before, the standard ASCII can only represent 128 characters. There are several larger character sets that use 8 bits or 1 byte, which extend ASCII codes to 256 characters. The additional characters are used to represent the non-English characters, graphics character and mathematical symbols.

With the ASCII, we can make and store a text document.

For processing an image, I would like to talk about computing technologies used in capturing image with a digital camera. Digital camera uses digital sensor to record and digitalize the light rays from outside and store into a memory card. Its digital sensor (Cambridge in Colour, 2009) is composed of color filter and a sensor underneath it. Each color filter allows only one particular color to pass through. When the incoming light arrive the sensor array, the photons of the particular light ray will be collected. The relative quantity of photons is then sorted into various intensity levels.

Figure 2: typical digital camera’s sensor

Figure 3: color filter

That penetrated color is then digitalized by a 8-bit coding system. With the three primary colors which are red, green and blue, the total bits per pixel in a digital image should be 24bits. Each color would make up of 2^8 or 256 different combination and all three primary colors allows for as many as 2^(8*3) or 16,777,216 different colors at each pixel.

Therefore, the color at any point is conversed to numbers from 0-255 as a RGB form, for example: (0, 0, 0) is a black spot. With millions on little dot of pixel on the sensor, with the stronger processor to process the algorithm, we see a images just like we see it from film. Every pixel is converted into RGB code as mention, and it will be stored into memory card. This is why digital camera can capture the image and stored digital image in memory card.

Also, from the figures above, we can know that there are double numbers of green sensors than the others. It is because our eyes are more sensitive to the green color. This is how the digital cameras work.

The last point I want to mention is about sound record. To record sound, an input device such as microphone is needed. Sound is captured when the sound waves vibrate the membrane of the microphone. If we just graph the intensity and vibration of the membrane, we can obtain a smooth waveform curve showing the frequency of sound, like the following graph. Analog signal of sound is a continuous signal, representing the changes in physical properties of sound through time. As with most physical properties such as air pressure or temperature, the waveform of analog signals is more complex because different frequencies will be captured at the same time.

Graph 4: simple waveform curve of sound

Graph 5: digital approximation of Graph 4

When we record sound in a computer (LeLoup & Ponterio, 2010), the analog signals is represented by a digital approximation which is a series of binary number measuring the analog curve through an analog-to-digital converter. These numbers will then be stored onto recording media. Since it is not available for computer which has limited space to store the complicated analog curve, these binary numbers stored in computer just approximate the original analog signals. Just like the graph 5, the digital waveform can never be completely smooth. When we play the sound or music stored in computer, the sequence of those binary numbers transform back to the analog signals by a digital-to-analog converter. The signals are then amplified and transmitted to the loudspeakers.

In conclusion, computing technologies used in document processing help us a lot and they enrich our life. On the other hand, although the digital format media approaches the quality of traditional media, it would never be the same, as sampling and approximation took place during the transformation between the two. We cannot totally rely on the virtual world but appreciate and admire the real world.

References

1. Cambridge in Colour. (2009). Digital Camera Sensors. Retrieved October 2010, from Cambridge in Colour: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-sensors.htm
2. Cashman, T. J., Shelly, G. B. & Vermaat, M. E. (2008). Discovering computers 2008: Complete. Boston, MA: Thomson course technology.
3. CSGNetwork.com. (2009). ASCII Character Set. Retrieved October 2010, from CSGNetwork.com: http://www.csgnetwork.com/asciiset.html
4. LeLoup, J., & Ponterio, B. (2010). Digital Sound Recording. Retrieved October 2010, from http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/mm-course/sound.html

Seeing is not believing: Can we trust a photo anymore?

As technology advances, many things in our daily lives can be digitized, including our photos. Digitization is an implication that things can be processed by using computers, so photos are not exceptions. In the following paragraphs, the concept of “photo” would focus on the digital images only.

An image processing software called Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is very popular for its powerful tools to modify photos. How powerful could it be? Here we will see a few examples.

There is a tool in Photoshop called “Quick Selection Tool”, which can conveniently crop a distinct figure on the photo without including the background. This is basically done by edge detection technique, i.e., Photoshop attempts to check those pixels that have contrasting color comparing with the neighboring pixels.

Another commonly used function is to smooth out rough lines or edges in a photo. This can be done by selecting the desired edges, and then blur it by using any options like Gaussian Blur. Simply speaking, the principle used in Gaussian Blur is that for each selected pixel, we perform averaging of neighboring pixels with the weightings in Gaussian matrix. The weightings are calculated by means of a complicated Gaussian function.

An even more powerful tool in Photoshop is called “Content-Aware Fill”. It can remove any image detail on a photo and automatically fill in the space left behind from the background so it looks as if the removed content never existed. Briefly speaking, the mechanism behind this tool is randomly choosing small regions around the image detail we want to get rid of, and using these small regions to fill in the empty spaces after removal.

One can imagine that using only these three tools in Photoshop to perform a lot of modifications, like adding a new object into a photo followed by smoothing edges, or removing an extra object and use “Content-Aware Fill”. Therefore, no matter we are professionals or laymen, it is not a difficult job for us to change any details in a photo. The problem arises: should we trust a photo anymore? In fact, it depends on how we use this two-edged knife.

If we have taken a photo of nice scenery in a foreign country, and we want to use it as our desktop background, unfortunately there are a few visitors on the photo which obstructed this beautiful scenery, what could we do? In the past, we seem to have no solution except taking the photo by going to that country once again. But with the above tools, we can simply select the visitors, and delete them with the use of “Content-Aware Fill” (see Figure 1). These tools undoubtedly bring us more convenience and in turn save a lot of our time.

Figure 1: before (left) and after (right) the use of “Content-Aware Fill”.

Nevertheless, some people attempt to use these powerful tools to conceal certain facts revealed from the photos. Such act is known as “image tampering”. There can be many reasons behind for doing this, e.g. exaggeration of the facts in news in order to arouse public’s interest (see Figure 2), or even modification of people’s political memories (see Figure 3), etc. Undoubtedly this is not a good phenomenon because if the processing tools are abused, the mass media would not bear its responsibility to deliver the truth.

Figure 2: In this Reuters photo from August 2006 (left), thick black smoke rises above the capital of Lebanon after an Israeli air raid. But in the original (right), the smoke is neither as thick nor as black. Reuters subsequently removed all of photographer Adnan Hajj’s work from its Web

Figure 3: An original photo of Tiananmen Square (top) and a modified photo of the same scene (bottom). Compared with subjects who saw the real photo of Tiananmen, those who saw the modified photo were twice as likely to estimate that more than 500,000 people had participated.

We come back to the problem of whether we should trust the photos. In my opinion, as long as the modified photos are not doing any harm to any parties, we do not need to bother the originality of the photos. Just like the first imagined situation mentioned above, sometimes the “truths” (obstacles of scenery) are not what we want to see. Getting rid of them may be beneficial to us, since we improve the photos’ quality in the sense of art. However, if the photos are related to some critical issues, such as some historical events or scenes of current news, we should be more sensitive to image tampering.

But how could we know when we should trust a photo? To deal with image tampering, researchers have done a lot in a field called “digital forensic”. Digital forensic is mainly about different techniques that enable us to check whether a photo is modified, such as agreement of lighting environments, detection of chromatic aberration, etc. But one may wonder: how about the laymen? Although we cannot perform those verifications like the researchers, we can still try to make critical judgments on the issues related to the photos, and think about if there could be reasons for someone to modify those photos.

References

1. http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/whatsnew/index_rr.html?segment=design
2. http://www.slate.com/id/2255276/
3. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/tampering.html
4. http://spectrum.ieee.org/slideshow/computing/software/slide-show-a-tour-of-photo-tampering

Carrying a computer all the time? The Pervasive Use of Smart Phones

Mary McDowell, Executive Vice President for Mobile Phones at Nokia, states that “80% of the world’s population is now within range of a cell-tower – people aren’t going to use PCs to connect [to the Internet], they’re going to use affordable mobile devices”.

Few years back with the inventions of portable, compact computers the business transactions became very convenient. But today this technology is being replaced by smart phones at a rapid pace. When asked 79% of the respondents cited the smart phone as a means of organizing the business than the office PC’s or the laptop. According to another survey 38% of Chinese mobile subscribers access the Internet from their hand.

According to a research by Ypartnership/Harrison Group which involved of 2,524 households, three in ten mobile phones in USA are internet enabled phones. One in five of them (19 %) had downloaded travel-related application. Travel app is a particularly easy and efficient way to get information for the business individuals. Previously laptops were used to access to any information. For example with the invention of TripIt, iPhone travel app that keep routes updated whether one is online, offline or in airplane mode have made the trip for the business individual more feasible. According to a research about 47% travelers use GPS to find the way to destination. Hence the use of laptops is becoming outdated from the lives of the business individual in looking forward for the information about the destiny of their business trip. The maps are available in the phone which can be conveniently accessed.

Business individuals use smart phones to keep track of their daily appointments. Applications such as reminder in the smart phone play the role of a secretary. The functions on the smart phone for example a calendar let the user create a reminder and add details of the meeting. In his busy schedule, the business man might forget but the phone serves as his assistant. In order to run the business successfully, one should show up for the meetings on time. Otherwise this will have an adverse impact on the business. Clients may consider one as non-serious or unprofessional.

The smart phones are further used in organizing the business by pairing them up with the computer. The phone can be connected using a USB cable or via Bluetooth. An individual will stay updated with the information. The data can then be processed in text editing softwares which are easily available in phones. The information can be accessed when offline or immediate access in a meeting. So it gets very convenient to access the information just by clicking few keys rather than to carry a laptop. With the push of a button, one has instant access to a client’s email address, phone number, instant messenger name and much more. This becomes very efficient when contacting a client when one is not at the office. With the smart phone a business individual is always in reach of the co-workers and clients. There are no barriers of internet usage which occur while using e-mail service.

With the data and contacts the individual can work at any place whether he is relaxing at home or travelling in a car. The usage is very convenient too as the personnel just have to carry a small device of negligible weight when compared to laptops.

The next question which arises is “does a smart phone have a fax service?” The fax is not the first priority when a business individual has internet access via his smart phone which allows him to e-mail the important documents. The documents can be saved or read in the portable document format (pdf). Fax services such as “Myfax”, “efax” can be approached which allow the user to send and receive faxes on a smart phone.

The camera in the smart phone is used for video conferences with the clients and workers. The smart phone can be used as a mini copy machine as important document can be captured via camera. Some phone cameras, such as the one on the Omnia/Omnia II, include a Text mode setting to make it easier to photograph a document. In some phones, camera can further be used for the efficient uploading of the directory. For example in Omnia there is a business card reader called Smart Read; with this software we can photograph a card and the information is extracted and directly put in the contacts phone book. It makes use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program that converts images to text.

If one is in a field, images of the items can be taken relevant to job and can be mailed to the office. It can even be sent to the client or used in a meeting to give a clearer view to the client rather than describing. Picture of the clients can be taken and later can be assorted in the directory along with their names. In this way it gets very easy to remember the people in future.

Due to the priority given to the smart phones over laptops, the software companies are devising new programs to further increase the efficiency of phones in business organization. One such software is “Google Finance”. It enables fast access to finance data, charts, and reports. With the aid of graphs and charts a person can predict the future trend. This is immensely useful in stock market and in other fields. In stocks a person can evaluate a constant change in stocks rate by device carried in a pocket (smart phones). This enables them to take quick decisions thus decreasing the reaction time. The individual can perform market research. This can in return save a particular company from potential loss as a person can understand the impacts and risks of investment. Furthermore the overall economy will also be strengthened. This is because of the integrated approach of the individuals in managing the capital due to the convenient access to market analysis with the aid of smart phones.

The smart phones on the other hand are not user friendly. They have a small screen of few inches and small keyboard size. It gets tiring while using them for a long time. At the end of the day, the individual may not be able to concentrate on the work and think intellectually. This may further lead to commitments and transaction which may result in a potential loss.

More over from the other aspect I will say smart phones have become essential part of one’s life. A person could not take a day off from using his phone. As a result there is no designated number of hours a person works daily. There is no clear delineation between home life and work life. This further impacts the relationships and give rise to social problems. Additionally this will affect the health of the individual. As the person is under continuous stress and workload with little leisure time, he may suffer from health drawbacks such as psychological problems, diabetes mellitus, cluster headache, blood pressure and heart diseases.

The websites viewed on the smart phones are edited by the software to optimize the web pages for the small screen of the phone. There may be some important data missing. The small size of the screen and the scrolling of the page become exhausting for an individual. As a result a person may ignore some information. This again is an important factor with can have unfavorable consequences.

The cost of using the smart phone for business purposes is relatively higher than using the computers. This is because of the long-term contracts between the users and cell phone providers. According to a research, the internet service provided increases the cost by $70 to $100 for the user. This tells us that small businesses cannot make use of smart phones to organize their business efficiently. So this can be regarded as a drawback. It can be concluded that this technology can only be availed by big enterprises.

Some users find the smart phones complicated. It takes time for them to learn and adjust to new features. As the new technology is emerging this means the user has to spent considerate amount of his time in learning the new programs. Handsets of different companies have unique features and graphics. So as a result it gets difficult for the user when he switches on a new handset. This problem is very frequent as the average life of phone is one year.

The smart phones have several advantages as discussed above but on the other hand there are many setbacks. According to my perspective the unique features of the smart phones outnumbers the drawbacks. The immense importance given to the smart phones can be judged by the sale of the smart phones even during the recession period. According to a research firm NPD Group “the high-end devices, which assemble computer-like features into handheld devices, accounted for 23% of U.S. mobile phone purchases by consumers in the fourth quarter of 2008, up from 4% two years earlier.” Due to the increasing use of the smart phones, the worldwide sales of smart phones grew 30 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 53 million phones. The number of smart phones in use globally is expected to hit 1.7 billion by 2014.

Under the light of the above discussion, the success of smart phones as mobile computing platforms can be attributed to the ‘micro- form’ factor. It is a tremendous benefit for convenience and portability. The smart phone for a business individual provides a dual function of a mobile and as an organizer or a laptop. Due to this psychological factor the use of smart phones for business is increasing at a rapid pace.

Reference

1. http://www.allbusiness.com/reports-reviews-sections/polls-surveys/14415704-1.html
2. http://reviews.cnet.com/4321-6452_7-6544038.html
3. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/194137/business_professionals_choose_smartphones_over_coffee.html
4. http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Trends/9-Reasons-Smartphones-Will-Take-Over-Business-Computing-743743/
5. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Finance-Optimized-for-Smartphones-153641.shtml
6. http://www.pavingways.com/category/statistics
7. http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/09/23/how-mobiles-will-drive-social-media-in-developing-countries/
8. http://www.cellphone-advertising.com/mobile-applications-revenue-to-reach-32-billion-in-2015/
9. http://www.ehow.com/how_4524176_use-smartphone-organize-business.html

Seeing is not believing: Can we trust a photo anymore? --- A real photo is really “real”?

There are two common types of equipment for taking photos, first is the traditional film camera which has a long history. The second is the digital camera which was developed in the last quarter of the 20^th century. Both of them are designed to produce images. Throughout the history of mankind, writing, drawing and spoken language have been the only three ways to record information until the camera was invented which became an extra option. Photos are proved to be a lot more effective for recording in certain areas. However, photo is also a double edged sword unfortunately.

We are living in the age of information. I would not be wrong if I say that we all are surrounded by photos everywhere in our daily life. However, there is one thing people need to take notice is that photo doesn’t necessary equal to truth because there exists image tampering. Thanks to technology, we have software like “Photoshop” which helps us easily modify an image in any way you wish. Depends on the amount of modification, the original message or the impact of an image can be changed completely. As a result, we may be easily misled by a photo if we trust it entirely. Therefore, we should not regard photo as physical evidence, instead we should use it as a reference or visual aid. This is similar to the situation of Wikipedia where anyone can edit the content of articles.

I once heard of an interesting thought saying that every photo cannot be “real” simply because it is a photo, no matter it is taken by a film or a digital camera. The question is how do we define the word “real”?  We normally distinguish a real image from a fake one by judging whether the objects in the photo really exist and the appearance is identical in the real world. If we just focus on the photo itself, regardless of the meaning or the impact it brought. For a photo without any modification, either it is directly developed from a film or captured in digital format, two out of the three primary elements of an image, line and shape, can look almost the same as the original object. However, for the last element, colour, is a lot more difficult to achieve. In terms of colour accuracy, photos are sometimes much different from what your eyes actually see unless you take pictures with the most high end camera and view the photo using a professional computer display. For most of us, the different brands and models of camera we use can produce varied images with the same scene, even in a controlled situation, where lighting, angle, position are the same. This may be the reason that people sometimes ask why the photo doesn’t seem to be real even though they know it is not a fake one. Therefore, can we decide which image is really presenting the true colours of the object? If not, can we still trust the appearance of an object in a photo?

To enrich the idea of a “real” photo, the two examples below is an experiment in photography I’ve done in the past as a hobby. The photo on the left hand side is the original without any modification, came out straight from a memory card. The photo on the right hand side is modified by making adjustments carefully to improve colour accuracy. The goal of this experiment is to capture a truly real photo which means it is very close to the reality. This is done by using naked eyes to calibrate the photo in detail at the same place as where the photo is taken immediately after it is taken.

  

The result is a photo which is almost identical to what you actually see in reality. No professional equipment like DSLR was used, but only a simple digital camera which is widely available in the consumer market.

People nowadays have different purposes to modify a photo. Some of them only want to remove the impurities from a photo so that they can have a good looking photo to share with friends. This kind of modification is generally acceptable. However, sometimes image tampering can cause a lot of troubles. Even large corporation like Microsoft use fake photo on their website. The following photo was reported on the Microsoft’s Polish website in August last year.

Although Microsoft didn’t give out any official explanation and the reason remained unknown, people suspect of racism and they feel bad about this because they wouldn’t expect such a large company would use this rather unpleasant technique.

In conclusion, I personally would advise we treat a photo just like a piece of art. Artist can do paintings freely without any restriction. They won’t be penalized because of presenting something not real. When people look at a painting, they simply focus only on the beauty and seldom have a thought of trusting anything from the painting. We all should remind ourselves that a computer only provide us a virtual platform. For example, a folder in a hard disk is not an actual folder made of paper we use for filing paperwork and the recycling bin on your desktop is not the same as a one in the real world, it is just a symbol indicating where we moved the unwanted data to. We are only looking at a screen and that’s all. For a photo print, it is just a piece of paper filled with ink, similar to a canvas with paints. What’s the point of caring about whether some virtual stuff is true or not?

There is another very good example I can think of. The movie “Matrix” expressed the idea “Seeing (or even feeling) is not believing” thoroughly. How can we prove that the world we are living, the world we know is actually real, but not a simulated reality? This brings the whole question to a new and more complex level. To keep our life simple, my suggestion would be trust a photo only if necessary. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be worthwhile having our life disturbed by over focusing on the trueness of a photo.