Contents Selection Intro- file size Conversion Quality Control Metadata Technical Presentation Digital Preservation Management Continuing Education
Basic Terminology-dynamic range Basic Terminology-compression

1. Basic Terminology

Key Concepts

digital images
resolution
pixel dimensions
bit depth
dynamic range
file size
compression
file formats

additional reading


 

 

FILE SIZE is calculated by multiplying the surface area of a document (height x width) to be scanned by the bit depth and the dpi2. Because image file size is represented in bytes, which are made up of 8 bits, divide this figure by 8.

Formula 1 for File Size
File Size = (height x width x bit depth x dpi2) / 8

If the pixel dimensions are given, multiply them by each other and the bit depth to determine the number of bits in an image file. For instance, if a 24-bit image is captured with a digital camera with pixel dimensions of 2,048 x 3,072, then the file size equals (2048 x 3072 x 24)/8, or 18,874,368 bytes.

Formula 2 for File Size
File Size = (pixel dimensions x bit depth) / 8

File size naming convention: Because digital images often result in very large files, the number of bytes is usually represented in increments of 210 (1,024) or more:

1 Kilobyte (KB) = 1,024 bytes
1 Megabyte (MB) = 1,024 KB
1 Gigabyte (GB) = 1,024 MB
1 Terabyte (TB) = 1,024 GB

Reality Check

What is the file size for a US letter-size page captured bitonally at 100 dpi?

bytes    

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Basic Terminology - dynamic rangeBasic Terminology - compression
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