News Agency Circulation : Geneva
Subject: Shocking news for digital photographers
With the advent of the digital camera, photographers around the world
have rejoiced that they no longer have to worry about fading and
discolouring of prints and slides because their photographic
masterpiece is preserved for all time in a computer file ? or so they
thought. Professor Ira Lopolf of the Geneva Institute For Photographic
Research & Experimentation has today exploded this comfortable myth
with his announcement of some ground-breaking research carried out over
the past two years.
Prof. Lopolf will address an assembly of the Institute later today
with his formal findings, but has already released some of its content
to the press.
Speaking at his Geneva home before an invited press corps, Prof.
Lopolf said ?I, and some of my colleagues, have long suspected that
each time an image file is opened on a computer, the pixels lose some
of their original colour saturation and vibrancy. We are referring to
this process as Pixel Fatigue. We conducted tests over a period of two
years, making two identical copies of image files, then leaving one
unopened and undisturbed on the hard drive, whilst the other file was
opened and viewed on screen up to three hundred times over the two
years. In every case, when we eventually opened the undisturbed file
and compared it with the one that had been repeatedly opened for
viewing, the visible difference was dramatic, with the repeatedly
opened file having faded noticeably. The results were the same no
atter what type of computer we used, or what format we saved the
images in. Jpg, RAW, Tiff all suffered in the same way.
I have included one of our test examples in the press pack, which
clearly demonstrates how much an image of a colourful rose has suffered
as a result of this pixel fatigue.
I liken this effect to a fine bottle of wine, which if left
undisturbed, will keep perfectly, but once opened and disturbed, will
quickly deteriorate?
When asked what can be done to prevent this phenomenon, Prof. Ira
Lopolf had this to say. ?Sadly, our work concludes that there is no way
of preventing or reversing this pixel fatigue process. If digital
photographers want to keep their image files in perfect condition, they
must resign themselves to never opening or looking at them?
Returning later to his fine bottle of wine analogy, he said. ?We are
now looking into the possibility that an image file which remains
undisturbed on a hard drive for several years may actually improve its
pixel quality with age, but establishing a control file to enable a
verifiable comparison is proving to be a significant challenge?.
So far, none of the major digital camera manufacturers has been
prepared to go on record. However, a disgruntled executive who recently
lost his job from one of the biggest Japanese firms told us ?The top
management in the industry have known about this for a long time, but
we were all sworn to secrecy. They knew that once the information
became public knowledge, digital camera sales would be hit hard. Well,
the cat?s really out of the bag now!?
Professor Ira Lopolf, is tipped for a Nobel Prize next year.
END News report.
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|