Below we display images taken with three different cameras. On the left are analog pictures taken with a Polaroid™ disposable camera (subsequently scanned); the middle digital photographs were taken with an inexpensive digital camera; and, on the right are digital photographs taken with a more expensive digital camera.

We've applied the Athentech Imaging process to the photographs and Perfectly Clear has improved each of them.

THE DIGITAL ADVANTAGE

The power of the Perfectly Clear process lies at the very root of the advantage that digital photography has over analog photography.

The strength of analog photography is the number of dots or pixels on the film. Film could have as many as 20 million pixels per frame contributing to a high-resolution image. However, the comparative weakness of analog photography is that each pixel is limited by containing only three bits of information about itself.

The weakness of digital photography is that, currently, it contains fewer pixels per frame than film – usually 1 to 6 million pixels. On the other hand, the strength of digital photography is the dramatically increased amount of information that each pixel can "know" about itself. Most digital cameras today have 24-bits of information for every pixel, and there are cameras with 30-bits and 36-bits.

An analog camera with 3-bits of information per pixel can record eight colors per pixel. Contrast that with a 24-bit camera that can record 16-million colors (256 shades per color) per pixel and a 30-bit camera that can record one billion colors (1,024 shades per color).

Although the human eye will not distinguish between all the shades of all the colors, the dramatic increase in color information captured by a digital camera does represent an extraordinary increase in the dynamic range of the photograph. The Perfectly Clear process utilizes this increased dynamic range to deliver "true color pictures" – essentially giving Perfectly Clear more data to use in compensating for trade-offs required by the lighting to create a picture which represents what the eye sees.

Enough dynamic range enables the dark grass in the shade of the tree in the park on a sunny day to become green again!


APPLICATION OF PERFECTLY CLEAR

Perfectly Clear can be directly incorporated as firmware or hardcoded as silicon in a camera, allowing the user to take a better picture at first instance or an instant quick fix of a picture they've just taken. Perfectly Clear can also deliver more depth of field (see Camera: Depth of Field). Perfectly Clear also works on movies and digital video (mpeg, avi, etc) (click here for more information).

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