Princess Peach gets digitized!

Part I: For this blog post, I chose a picture of Princess Peach. A photo is analog, by definition, in that it is represented by something that varies continuously.

Part II: In order to digitize Princess Peach, meaning turn her into something that is now discrete, instead of continuous, I wrote a program using C++. This program essentially breaks down the photo into boxes of whatever size height and width (by number of pixels) you set it to. Then, it takes the average color of all of the pixels in the box and then fills the entire box with the one solid averaged color. In order to show the outcomes for different settings, I did this process 3 different times. For my first photo I set it to be 8 pixels x 8 pixels, for the second one I set it to 20 pixels x 20 pixels, and for the third and last one I set it to be 40 pixels by 40 pixels. The amount of pixels chosen relates to the resolution. The smaller the amount of pixels chosen, the higher the resolution of the outputted image, because more samples are being taken, and the higher the number of the pixels chosen the lower the resolution of the outputted image, because less samples are being taken. With the idea resolution comes the idea of fidelity. The lower the amount of pixels chosen, the higher the fidelity of the photo. This means that when fidelity is higher, the more the digitized product resembles the starting photo. So less pixels = higher resolution = higher fidelity and more pixels = lower resolution = lower fidelity.

original image

8 pixels x 8 pixels

20 pixels x 20 pixels

40 pixels by 40 pixels

Part III: If this process of digitization were to become popular, the resemblance of the initial photo to the outputted image would be affected. This is because, in using my process, when setting the height and width of the samples you wish to take, the decision will change the outcome of the product. If one chose to take fewer samples, perhaps in hopes to save time, the outputted product would hardly resemble the beginning photo because of the loss of clarity and detail.