The camera stores around 20 to 30 images on the diskette, depending on the types of shots being taken and the and the quality setting on the camera. But the diskette stores only 1.4 Mb of information. The camera uses a compression algorithm which takes the image information and compresses each file into a smaller file. Many cameras use a jpg compression, others use pict, and some give the option for no compression at all. Therefore, in order for a computer to understand the information about the image, it has to be able to decompress the files.
Software is necessary in order for the computer to display the image.
Many computers include a picture viewing software package as standard on the hard drives, which means all you have to do is to select an image file, and the computer opens an appropriate graphics package to decompress the file for viewing. John Park for Science Junction, NC State University. All rights reserved.