Image Editing

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Image Editing Mean?

Image editing refers to modifying or improving digital or traditional photographic images using different techniques, tools or software. Images produced by scanners, digital cameras or other image-capturing devices may be good, but not perfect. Image editing is done to create the best possible look for the images and also to improve the overall quality of the image according to different parameters.

Advertisements

Techopedia Explains Image Editing

Image editing is considered a creative, artistic act. Image editing is done for removing unwanted elements such as dust specks and scratches, adjusting the geometry of the image like rotating and cropping, correcting for lens aberrations, sharpening or softening the image, making color changes or adding special effects to the image. Often the tasks involved in image editing are repetitive and need intense processing. Manual image editing done on traditional analog photographs requires a high level of expertise and attention to detail. Image editing software applications are also available for editing images. Unlike other conventional methods, these tools provide advanced image editing operations like data compression, photo organization and selection of image properties.

In digital image processing, image editing is basically categorized into pixel editing and parametric image editing. Pixel editing focuses on altering the image by working at the pixel level. Parametric image editing, on other hand, focuses on changing the appearance of the image without altering the original image.

There are benefits associated with image editing. It enhances the original images in accordance to the user's requirements. They can bring more color and life to the image. It helps in bringing the best possible image in the interests of the viewers.

There are a few drawbacks for image editing. Advanced software for image editing is expensive and often requires time for an individual to understand and become familiarized with its features. Furthermore, some consider edited images to be false or misleading, causing a negative reputation for some people toward image editing.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.