CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
1 BEGINNINGS
Three Snapshots 3
The Raster Grid 4
Digital Image Creation 6
Mutability and Manipulation 6
Digital Images and the Postmodern Era 8
2 THE NASCENT MEDIUM Early Development 11
IMews Photography Goes Digital 16
Popularization 17
The Displacement of Photography 19
3 INTENTION AND ARTIFICE
Claims to Credibility 23
Adherence of the Referent 24
Intention and Objectivity 28
Coherence 31
Relationship to Visual Discourses 37
Provenance 43
Originals and Copies 49
Mutation and Closure 51
Image Ethics Redefined 52
Devaluation 56
4 ELECTRONIC TOOLS
Tools and Purposes 59
Image-Capture Devices 60
Information Content 66
Storage and Compression 69
Color and Color Separations 70
Digital Halftoning 74
Printing and Display Devices 78
Transmission and Distribution 80
Image Collections 82
Indexing, Access, and Contextualization 83
Vision Remade 85
5 DIGITAL BRUSH STROKES
Filters 87
Figures and Grounds 88
Tone-Scale Adjustment 90
Darkening, Lightening, and Contrast 94
Thresholding and Posterization 95
Positives and Negatives 99
Colorization 100
Color Corrections and Transformations 101
Sharpening and Smoothing 104
Macchiaiolation and Diffusion 109
Line Extraction 109
Arbitrary Filters 112
True Colors 114
6 VIRTUAL CAMERAS
Algorithmic Image Construction 117
Visual Reconstruction and Prediction 118
Modeling 119
Rendering: Projecting and Shading 124
Wireframe Projections 125
Viewing Parameters 128
Hidden Lines and Surfaces 132
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 134
7 SYNTHETIC SHADING
The Logic of Light 137
Intrinsic Color 137
Ambient Light 138
Lambert Shading 139
Curved-Surface Shading 142
Specularity and Highlights 143
Surface Detail 145
Light Sources 148
Cast Shadows 150
Transparency 152
Global Illumination 153
Ray Tracing 153
Radiosity 156
Atmospheric and Volume Effects 159
Camera Artifacts 160
Photorealism 161
8 COMPUTER COLLAGE
Mise en Image 163
Cutting and Pasting 166
Rotating and Reflecting 168
Scaling 171
Stretching and Shearing 173
False Foreshortening 175
Displacement Mapping 177
Blends, Mattes, and Masks 177
Retouching and Painting 183
Combining Synthetic and Captured Images 185
The Missing Witness 188
9 HOW TO DO THINGS WITH PICTURES
Functions of Pictures 191
Denotation and Existence 195
Insertions 196
Effacements and Elisions 200
Substitutions 204
Anachronistic Assemblages 210
Falsehoods and Fictions 218
How Pictures Do Things with Us 220
10 THE SHADOWS ON THE WALL 225
NOTES 227
SELECTED READINGS 255
INDEX 269