1.4. Digital Images

Computers are very different from our good buddy film. Computers are more like the IRS. All that matters are numbers, they operate based on an outdated book of rules, and if you make a mistake, they respond with cryptic messages. Everything you tell them has to be broken down into bite-sized pieces. That's what happens to images: pixel by pixel they get digitized into bits.

Let's talk about bits: A bit is the basic information unit that every digital data is made of. It resembles a very simple switch that can be either on or off, black or white. There is no grey area in a bit's world. If we want some finer differentiation, we need to use more bits.