Curating the World — Toby Ord
tobyord.com · 1,462 words · saved by 1 readers
How much information is in a photograph? I suggest there is very little, about 42 bytes. Understanding why changes how we see photography.
How much information is in a photograph? The standard answer views the photograph as the image file your camera produces. A mid-range DSLR these days might have a sensor with 20 million pixels, each of which is represented with 14 bits of information, giving a 35 megabyte RAW file. Lossless compression may take this down to 20 megabytes. Or with some almost imperceptible lossy compression you might get it down to 10 megabytes. These are the kinds of numbers that are relevant when storing the images or sending them to a friend. As a photographer, this is how I usually see things. But there…
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