RE: [Leica] Digital progress

[Austin Franklin <austin@darkroom.com>]

> Kodak noted in an interview with the developer of the CCD chip that they 
are
> not afraid to sell the chip to others as the true knowledge is not the 
chip,
> but the software for image manipulation and the algorithms for capturing 
and
> compressing and correcting the raw ccd sensor output.

That sounds kinda silly.  No real algorithms are used in capturing the 
data...you scan the array, and get the data.  What image manipulation are 
you going to want to do?  Don't you want an accurate representation of the 
image you captured?  The things that have to be done are setting the set 
points, and adjusting the gamma curve to get an accurate tonality in the 
image.  Every digital camera today already does that, and does it pretty 
well.

Think about scanners.  A digital camera is basically a scanner.  If this 
statement above were true, then it would have been applied to scanners, and 
scanners don't do any real image manipulation.  They automatically set the 
set points and gamma look-up correction.