As my faithful reader knows, I enjoy capturing images, taking pictures, taking photos… etc. What is interesting is the fairly basic question, what is the difference between an image, a picture, and a photograph? The definitions are as follows (taken from the Apple Mac OSX Dictionary):
Image (noun) a representation of the external form of a person or thing in sculpture, painting, etc.
- a visible impression obtained by a camera, telescope, microscope, or other device, or displayed on a video screen.
- an optical appearance or counterpart produced by light or other radiation from an object reflected in a mirror or refracted through a lens.
Picture (noun) a painting or drawing : draw a picture of a tree.
- a photograph : we were warned not to take pictures.
- a portrait : have her picture painted.
Photograph (noun) a picture made using a camera, in which an image is focused ontofilm or other light-sensitive material and then made visible and permanent by chemical treatment.
However I believe that there are different connotations to these annotations. A different value placed on each in relation to digital photography and drawing. To me an image is a drawing or illustrative picture. It is not meant to be art (emotional or visceral), it is meant to convey meaning or definition. An example of my concept of an image would be a screen capture that shows what is being discussed, this screen capture that highlights the problem I was having with Outlook would be an image 
It could just as easily be an image of damage to a motorcycle such as this
It is for documenting and clinical to some degree.
A Picture on the other hand is something that is designed to help one remember, not just clinically but also the time that was being had while the picture was being taken. It can also be used to share an experience with others. This is not to say that a picture canʼt be dramatic, inspiring, or artistic it is just not a formal process to create the image it is often just taken quickly. An example would be a picture of a bunch of friends going tubing.
The picture took a little while to pose and frame, but not a whole lot of thought of composition, just a quick can everyone be seen? Yup, snap a couple and letʼs get back to having fun.
Now a Photograph is a little more difficult, often times pictures can become photographs but in my definition a photograph is more precisely set up and composed than taking a picture. This does not mean that a dSLR has to be used, it can be an inexpensive point and shoot camera, or even a cell phone. What it does mean is that while looking through the viewfinder the “operator” is thinking about the composition, is projecting the way the finished image will look and preparing for that. It is more studied. It does not mean that it canʼt just be taken quickly, it just means that the “operator” is more carefully weighing the composition and meaning of the picture.
Some what arbitrary terms, but I use them for classifying my images, pictures, and photographs. A diagram (image) might help to explain my thoughts and connotations a little more.
The fact is that at times one might snap multiple captures (image) while trying to get the right photograph or picture, how should that be categorized? Are they photographs or pictures or images? I am not sure it really matters what they are called, typically one would delete the ones that donʼt work. I call them images.
Seems like an awful lot of parsing words but I believe that it is important to know the goal when taking action or considering something. An example would be a common question such as “What camera do you recommend?” My first response, “What are you wanting to do with it?” I went through these thoughts when looking at books about Photoshop. Doing a search in Amazon there are quite a few options; 922 to be exact if one limits the search to Photoshop CS3 in Books. Here is a sample of titles, tell me which one is the right one to purchase:
- Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended for 3D and Video
- Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended: Retouching Motion Pictures
- Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor’s Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC
- Adobe Photoshop CS3: Web Design (ILT Series) (Student Manual)
- Adobe Photoshop for Textile Design – for Adobe Photoshop CS3
- Adobe Photoshop for Underwater Photographers
- Believing Is Seeing: Lighting On A Laptop II: How to Light Like a Sunbeam
- Black and White in Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom
- Creative Photoshop: Digital Illustration and Art Techniques (Digital Workflow)
- Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 (Graphics Series)
- How to Cheat in Photoshop CS3: The art of creating photorealistic montages
- Mastering Photoshop CS3 for Print Design and Production
- Nighttime Digital Photography with Adobe Photoshop CS3
- Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals
- Photoshop CS3 for Nature Photographers
- Photoshop CS3 for Screen Printers
- Photoshop CS3 Portrait Retouching Techniques
- Photoshop CS3 Restoration and Retouching Bible
- Photoshop for Architects CS3 Extended Edition DVD-ROM
- Scientific Imaging With Photoshop Cs3
- The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers
I could of course list them all, but figure that this list is a good enough illustration of why it is important to define things carefully. So that is why I decided that there are differences between images, pictures, and photographs.How would you define them? Do you always take photos? Are you just taking pictures and every so often get a photo in there? Are you just making images? It doesnʼt matter if it makes you happy.
Coming soon, my favorite image/picture/photograph of 2009…
Does this mean I have to stop using the phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words”?
I know I have been not posting a whole bunch recently, mainly cause I have been fairly busy with work. Pretty sure given the current state of the economy, that is a pretty good thing. This post will probably be a winding one with lots of little thoughts in it. I am writing it while not connected to the Internet. However that is a nice segue to a comment I received on my blog.
The comment came in response to the post “Offline Writing“, I have gotten a comment or two from people I do not know, but this one looked a little too generic to be a real response. The response was
“Well, the post is actually the greatest on this worthy topic. I concur with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your upcoming updates. Saying thanks will not just be adequate, for the exceptional clarity in your writing. I will directly grab your rss feed to stay privy of any updates. Gratifying work and much success in your business endeavors!”
The e-mail was from Gmail, the author’s IP address was from France and the URL for their website is from Czech and about money transfers and advances. So I think it is spam, and marked it as such. The reason that is seems to be spam to me is, They commented in December saying they were looking forward to my upcoming updates, from a post in March that I have already made follow up comments on. That plus the fact that the last sentence does not apply to a personal website. The approach is unique and a new way to get the website links up. Just something to be aware of. for those of you out there.
After getting this spam, I decided it was time to update my purging of my Twitter spam followers. I then thought about it, do I want to have it still be public of should I make it private. The main concern is the privacy and security for the physical world by people knowing where and when I am, but then I shoot a big hole in it by having a website with a blog on it. I guess I could simply make my blog password protected, and only have invited people know about it. The thought spoils the aim I had in starting it in the first place, to share ideas, thoughts, events… etc. Then I thought about making it so that one has to register and then once registered the blog is open. I think anyone who has administered anything with a password knows that there will be an additional effort as people constantly lose them. The logic starts to wrap itself up pretty well in a circular form. What to do? I started thinking about perhaps having some blog posts protected, and others not. I wanted to look to see if WordPress can do that, however I am in a place with no internet access as I alluded to previously. (see, a little vague as to where I am; eh?)
I am still trying to figure an easy way to virtualize a LAMP server so I can travel with it and run it as a virtual machine under VMWare Fusion. I do this for the Windows OS I still use for a few applications that don’t work under Mac. I do not want to become an expert at installing and configuring a LAMP server, I want to be able to have a testing server that can travel with me. I do not want to simply turn on the server in the Mac, as there may be some idiosyncrasies between the Mac OS and the LAMP server. It has not been easy to find a simple solution for this one yet, but I have not given up yet. I am going to wander over to the VMWare forums and see if anyone has a solution.
I have both Parallels and Fusion to allow me to virtualize an OS for my Mac, and have found that the VMWare forums have better signal to noise most of the time, however I like the way that Parallels has decided to handle USB Human Interface Drivers a little better. I also do like that when I called Parallels about a work issue I was troubleshooting, Parallels connected me with a real program that worked through the use case process with me and called me back with answers and contact information if I hit the issue again. Then again, I have not had to call VMWare yet. So you may ask, which is better? I can’t tell you, I can tell you to try both and decide for yourself. Mine came down to the fact that VMWare ran a little faster and I knew more people who use it if I get stumped.
These type of questions come up very often and there is often no one answer that applies to everyone. An example I use is a question that came up a few days ago on the Digital Grin Forum, which is better for running Adobe Creative Suite; Mac or Windows? The answer is that of course it varies on your needs and other things to consider, but people often expect there to be a definitive answer. I wonder if people are looking for reassurance or an answer when they post some of these questions.
The Adobe Creative Suite issue is still causing me heartburn, as the speed at which they ran from supporting a product is disappointing. From a technical standpoint, I understand how they decided to not update previous versions of Creative Suite (anything before CS4) to support Mac OS X 10.6; a.k.a Snow Leopard. But the fact that when CS3 was the current version they had some challenges when one updated the Mac OS X to 10.5, a.k.a Leopard. I was patient and waited for them to fix the issue. I was disappointed but understand how it can happen. Under Snow Leopard, I cannot use Adobe Acrobat Distiller, basically the printer emulator, at all. (Acrobat was the package that had trouble under Leopard.) This coupled Couple this with the fact that the “Updater” that Adobe launches each time the application is launched, it is extremely frustrating. Luckily Mac OS X has the ability to create a PDF built in.
I did the searches to try and figure out how to turn off the “Updater” under Mac OS X; as there is not a simple preferences box to check or uncheck; one has to create a custom file and place it in the proper location. The directions are less than helpful. The directions are as follows:
- Using a text editor or plist editor, create a new file named “com.adobe.AdobeUpdater.Admin.plist” in the folder /Library/Preferences
- In this new .plist file, create a child at the root named “Disable.Update”
- Set the Class of this new child to Boolean with a value of “Yes”
I was stumped, so I asked a programmer friend of mine, HanClinto, who is actually doing development of a gaming tool on his Mac. He was stumped as well. even once we got it figured out, it was to functioning, so I once again asked at DGrin and they suggested another location.
What truly irks me about this situation, is it is not an inexpensive software suite. I have been a customer with them since Aldus Pagemaker, Macromedia Freehand, and Adobe Type Manager – early 1990’s. I have tried to keep up when I can afford to. However I have not seen any real reason for going up to CS4 and a very steep upgrade price. Couple this with the fact that in my opinion Mac OS X going from 10.5 to 10.6 is not a major revision, that would be going from 10.5 to 11. This is akin to a service pack in my mind. One should not expect this to be such a faster turn over rate nor so expensive. I believe that Adobe, as is many other software developers, to a subscription approach, keep updating the software to keep the revenue coming in. That is understandable; however the pricing structure is not. It is more expensive for me to upgrade my existing package (Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium) to the current version of it, than it is to purchase the Complete Package (Adobe Designer Premium) as a student. So I am very much stuck. Being that I don’t use these tools professionally (I do use them at work under Windows XP SP 3 and a different license) I have a hard time paying as high a fee for an upgrade. The reason I got the suite is that I want to work in the same software environment at work as I do at home. It is advantageous in both directions, I hone my skills and can apply what I learn in my personal time at work. Our official graphics artists and I have even been trading tips and tricks, so it does work.
I will say that I do like how similar the environments are in both OS’s for Adobe’s products. Microsoft among others could learn a lot from them. I have stopped using Microsoft Office for Mac as it is so different from the Windows version. I am still disappointed with iWork under Mac, there are some features (pivot tables for example) that just aren’t there. I even tried to do the trial of the updated version iWork 09; however I could not see if it addressed just the basic thing of working with Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows better as I am some what of a power user in there. However that even failed. It can open an Office 2007 format document, but it can not save into one – you have to export it. If I do the same thing in Microsoft Office 2007 opening a 2004 document, it allows me to save it in the older format and tells me what the problems will be, it allows me to work with it just fine.It also does not support many features I use often. So I can’t really interchange my work easily with others from Mac and once again, a different environment. Good thing I got Appzapper, time to get rid of iWork ‘09.
It seems cranky, I know, but these are the things that have been kind of irksome over the last few weeks to me. Aren’t computers supposed to make things easier? I have no problem with people making a profit, I have a problem with people gouging. I have no problem with wanting things to be a little different and unique between application, but if you advertise that one can exchange files with other applications, do not have some many problems; make it transparent to the user.