A thought on image technology.

Hey

First thread I have started in a LONG time. And apologies if this is in the wrong forum.

Any way, I was just commenting on another thread about how there is no technology, as far as I am aware, that is available at public consumer level, that can zoom into a standard jpeg, right down to the bare pixels, and process it to show maximum detail.

To give you an example, take a look at the thread linked below, and go through the pages. You will come across a picture that somebody has put through Photoshop to crop down to the "object". I am not debating what the object is here, I am using the picture as an example. There is no way we could zoom into that object, and bring out any detail. Photoshop won't do it, and as far as I am aware, nothing else will. And this got me thinking....... Why?

www.abovetopsecret.com...


Remember, image processing software is still fundamentally based on the ol 011001010101's. (I think?). We have made such advances in technology of late, but we still don't have the tools to compress pixels or whatever you would have to do in order to bring out detail. You would think this would not be too difficult? It's technology, there is no physical way we can't advance pixel manipulation?

This is where my train of thought goes bananas, so get your salt pots ready!

Is it... At all possible... that TPTB have actively HELD back image processing technology so that, in case someone snaps an image of an "object" on your bog standard digital camera, they will not be able to get hold of the tools needed to bring out such detail that would prove or disclaim what they "saw"?

Now I know cameras now days are absolutely ridiculous when it comes to image sensor technology. I know this because I am a photographer!! But there is still a point that when you zoom in, you will loose all quality and detail. Especially if something is in the sky at 100,000ft for example. Yes, lenses can zoom very far now, but still, they are not limitless to the amount of detail they can provide. So, has my question got any validity? I understand JPEGS are literally just bits of data (I'm not a computer geek), and so forth, but... I don't know... it has me thinking!

Again, take this with a HUGE pinch of salt. I have the Friday feeling and just wanted to have some fun at work!

I hope someone can give me the facts and say this is IMPOSSIBLE to do in anyway, no matter what. But unless someone can prove it CANT be done, I will let this VERY small candle in my head burn away

you already can zoom in to pixels

drag the pic to a browser and zoom in, or copy and paste it to paint and zoom.

you can use PS or gimp and smooth the pic with various filters to make the pixels smother but its artificial, you wont get any better definition.

there is no way to get better definition, a pic has X pixels and thats that, now a real photograph can be enhanced as it can be scanned at various levels of detail and is not subject to defined digital definition (well until its scanned and therefore digitized).

The problem is, there's no more detail than what you have. It's a bit like putting bigger and better amplifiers on a crappy antenna - you can't amplify what you don't have.

A JPEG has already had detail removed to some degree. Even a raw uncompressed file has the data it has and no more. You can't add extra new meaningful pixels that aren't there to start with.

Now it's true, you can sharpen edges, remove noise, stretch dynamic range and so on, and these things may make it easier to see something you're overlooking. But you can't create new detail in a digital image.

It's sort of like really bad TV programs where the guy goes "Enhance! Enhance! Enhance!" over and over and the image gets better and better until you can count nose hairs on passersby from a shot that was originally 640x480. But in real life, you can't do that, which is why "Enhance! Enhance!" is a sort of stock joke around work.

Now, that said, there are a lot of really fun and interesting video technologies in the sensor fusion groups that SORT of do something like what you're talking about. Namely, they can take a lot of crappy cameras that are in an area and through mystical magical math they can look at a scene from a lot of viewpoints with sort of wormy imagers, and put them together in a whacking good image that you would never have believed you could get.

Of course, one of the first things the community did with that was put a group of randomly placed 640x480 CMOS cameras together and read peoples' iris prints as they walked down the sidewalk. It was that good. Sensor fusion, done well, can be startling.

a reply to: Biigs

I think you mis understood my friend. I know you can zoom in and process in current technology. I do it every day. But you cannot process X amount of pixels and make them look as if that was the original (In JPEG. I am talking JPEG, not RAW)

I want to know why, what law of physics is stopping us creating technology?

a reply to: Biigs

now a real photograph can be enhanced as it can be scanned at various levels of detail and is not subject to defined digital definition (well until its scanned and therefore digitized).

That answers OPs question about why we can't resolve digital images. These days all cameras are digital and usually low resolution, specially for any unknown we might see. That reducers ufology to Blurds (blurry birds).

How much of that is by design?

originally posted by: brace22
a reply to: Biigs

I want to know why, what law of physics is stopping us creating technology?

Are you wanting to turn JPEG back into RAW?

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Biigs

now a real photograph can be enhanced as it can be scanned at various levels of detail and is not subject to defined digital definition (well until its scanned and therefore digitized).

That answers OPs question about why we can't resolve digital images. These days all cameras are digital and usually low resolution, specially for any unknown we might see. That reducers ufology to Blurds (blurry birds).

How much of that is by design?

well real photos are chemical and have no resolution, they are theoretically of infinite resolution, digital or digitized images have a defined pixel resolution so can't be enhanced endlessly like real chemical photos.

originally posted by: Biigs

well real photos are chemical and have no theoretical molecular resolution,

Oh, sure they do. It's called grain size, and it limits the detail you can resolve with conventional film. Some films have smaller grain, others larger, and it's also a function of how you process it. And expose it. If you're shooting for maximum detail, you gotta be attentive to processing issues you normally wouldn't care about. Below grain size, which you can sort of do something about, is fundamental emulsion particle size which you can't.

Also the lens aperture sets a maximum resolution for a photo even if you have the tiniest grain media ever.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: Biigs

well real photos are chemical and have no theoretical molecular resolution,

Oh, sure they do. It's called grain size, and it limits the detail you can resolve with conventional film. Some films have smaller grain, others larger, and it's also a function of how you process it. And expose it. If you're shooting for maximum detail, you gotta be attentive to processing issues you normally wouldn't care about. Below grain size, which you can sort of do something about, is fundamental emulsion particle size which you can't.

Also the lens aperture sets a maximum resolution for a photo even if you have the tiniest grain media ever.

agreed, im assuming a max res photo on a stand - blur and shake/wobble will mess up a very extreme definition everytime at some degree of zoom/magnification.

originally posted by: brace22
a reply to: Biigs

I think you mis understood my friend. I know you can zoom in and process in current technology. I do it every day. But you cannot process X amount of pixels and make them look as if that was the original (In JPEG. I am talking JPEG, not RAW)

I want to know why, what law of physics is stopping us creating technology?

JPEG is already heavily altered by the camera removing a lot of data so you have less to work with, which is the reason everyone is needing bigger computing power to process RAW images. Plus when you are done generally it can only be viewed at the PPI of your monitor. Pixel Density is what kills the zoom.

originally posted by: Biigs

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Biigs

now a real photograph can be enhanced as it can be scanned at various levels of detail and is not subject to defined digital definition (well until its scanned and therefore digitized).

That answers OPs question about why we can't resolve digital images. These days all cameras are digital and usually low resolution, specially for any unknown we might see. That reducers ufology to Blurds (blurry birds).

How much of that is by design?

well real photos are chemical and have no resolution, they are theoretically of infinite resolution, digital or digitized images have a defined pixel resolution so can't be enhanced endlessly like real chemical photos.

I agree.

We lost resolution by going digital (for "higher" resolution).

originally posted by: intrptr
We lost resolution by going digital (for "higher" resolution).

Over about 10MP, digital has more resolution than conventional photo film. There are some really specialized emulsions (i.e. spy stuff from the olden days) that could resolve about 16MP. But you can get off the shelf commercial cameras that have a sensor that's pushing what the lens can manage.

Even if you had "perfect" film with an infinitely small grain, you couldn't quite get 1.5x the resolution of a very very good lens/film system like a Hasselblad, because about there you'll hit the MTF of the lens, and past that you can't resolve anyway.

It's the same reason you can't read the dates on coins from space like the rumors say. Won't work.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: intrptr
We lost resolution by going digital (for "higher" resolution).

Over about 10MP, digital has more resolution than conventional photo film. There are some really specialized emulsions (i.e. spy stuff from the olden days) that could resolve about 16MP. But you can get off the shelf commercial cameras that have a sensor that's pushing what the lens can manage.

Even if you had "perfect" film with an infinitely small grain, you couldn't quite get 1.5x the resolution of a very very good lens/film system like a Hasselblad, because about there you'll hit the MTF of the lens, and past that you can't resolve anyway.

It's the same reason you can't read the dates on coins from space like the rumors say. Won't work.

the problem is "everyday" people dont have that sort of tech when somthing weird shows up.

They have HD at best, maybe multi HD resolution, lens, pixel count are very bad on camera phones - this is who shoots most "anomalies" if we all had 10m+ perfect lens cameras then we would see much more and in more detail, sadly we arnt there yet.

a chemical developed camera shot is FAR superior to a phone cam, sure super high def proffional ccd cams are better but we dont all have 1000 bucks to splash on one and have it handy.

originally posted by: Biigs

the problem is "everyday" people dont have that sort of tech when somthing weird shows up.

They have HD at best, maybe multi HD resolution, lens, pixel count are very bad on camera phones - this is who shoots most "anomalies" if we all had 10m+ perfect lens cameras then we would see much more and in more detail, sadly we arnt there yet.

a chemical developed camera shot is FAR superior to a phone cam, sure super high def proffional ccd cams are better but we dont all have 1000 bucks to splash on one and have it handy.

I guess MHO is that if you're going for an SLR, these days a decent film SLR costs as much or more than a digital SLR. And the processing and film is fairly spendy too. A decent setup you can pack around with you all the time is tough to find both small and cheap and good. Pick any one.

I'm not sure a disposable 35mm with a plastic fixed focus lens of small aperture is any better than a good phone these days.

originally posted by: brace22
There is no way we could zoom into that object, and bring out any detail. Photoshop won't do it, and as far as I am aware, nothing else will. And this got me thinking....... Why?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

It was zoomed into here and as biigs said you can do this with paint:

originally posted by: LukeDAP

Now, if you know what you're looking for, then you might be able to do some enhancements.
But in this case we don't know what we are looking for, so any "enhancements" may actually be degrading rather than improving the image and we have no way to know.

For example, take edge sharpening. If a jagged sawtooth shape of pixels is actually a straight edge on the real object, then you might think it's a good idea to process those pixels to make a straight edge. If the pixellated edge was the edge of a building which usually has straight edges, this would be a pretty good guess. But, what if the actual object in this case is something like an insect (which I suspect is a strong possibility) and insects have few straight edges. In this case straightening out a jagged edge is a degradation, not an improvement, if the original edge is jagged.

Bedlam mentioned a good way to take multiple images and get an enhanced image...that actually works. Nothing you try to do to this single image works with the caveats I already explained. Nothing, at any price.

If you have video instead of a photo there is an alternative similar to what Bedlam mentioned which astronomers use all the time. It's called "Frame Stacking", which is the same idea: It takes multiple different frames from the video, and mathematically stacks them on top of each other to get a better view of the object than is possible from any one single frame. That actually works and it's available to all of us, but it can't do anything with a single image like this, since there's nothing else to stack with it.

Frame stacking also has limitations though. If the video was of a bird flapping its wings, it would resolve the fairly consistent image of the bird's head and tail, but if the perspective of the wings is different in each frame, it will never resolve the bird's wings. You need a fairly steady image from frame to frame to resolve it. By the way if it's not an insect, this image is probably a bird. There's nothing to rule out either possibility and both insects and birds are abundant in our skies so as to make them likely candidates, as does the photographer's description about the conditions for taking the photo.

a reply to: brace22

This technology doesn't exist outside cheap crime dramas. Once you capture an image, the resolution is fixed. You can't add more information than is captured in the original image. This is not a JPG-specific issue, it applies to all images.

We have made such advances in technology of late, but we still don't have the tools to compress pixels or whatever you would have to do in order to bring out detail.

We can compress pixels. JPG does just that. And no, you can't arbitrarily bring out detail that was not originally captured in an image.

a reply to: Bedlam

Maybe I should have said the software is less resolved than the camera imager chip..

Thanks for the details in your analysis.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Bedlam

Maybe I should have said the software is less resolved than the camera imager chip..

Thanks for the details in your analysis.

Well, a raw file ought to be the same, except maybe a ring at most three pixels around the edges.

JPEG takes the raw file and reduces it in size by throwing away resolution. Once it's thrown away, it's gone. There's no getting it back.

Look into "Image Stacking" - it's a technique to amplify "signal" and reduce "noise" in a collection of images. The problem is that it requires multiple images of the same scene.

I have long wondered if it might be possible to get a good result by stacking "treated" copies of the same image...like stacking a "sharpened" copy with a "blurred" copy and a "smoothed" copy and the original.