7. 5. 2014, 6pm, Joe Padfield, National Gallery, London: How Big Do Digital Images Need to Be?

Venue: UCL, Department of History of Art, Gordon Square no. 20, London WC1E 6BT, room 3/4

For many years the cost and speed of digital technologies restricted the practical size of digital images. However, with continually improving systems, cameras and procedures it is now possible to create digital representations of paintings well into the multiple gigapixel range. Images so large that standard office computers are not even able to open them up for viewing let alone image processing. Are we capturing too much information now, are we capturing just enough or is there still room for improvement ?

Chemist and conservator Joe Padfield (National Gallery, London) will discuss the development of digital imaging within the National Gallery, looking at how we create and share our images, where we would like to move to in the future and examine the question, how big do digital images of paintings need to be?