Patent ID: 7043059

Claim:
A method of selectively storing digital images in a memory, the memory being connected to a processor, the processor being connected to a digital image source, the method comprising: storing, in the memory, a plurality of digital images received from the source, each image representing an event captured at a different respective time; using the processor to perform an analysis of the images; assigning a quality factor to each image, the quality factor being representative of the composition quality of the analysed images; and updating the memory to maintain images for which the assigned quality factor indicates a higher composition quality than an image captured at an earlier time, wherein: the step of analysing the images comprises identifying at least one portion of the image, comparing the or each portion with an equivalent portion of a previously acquired image to identify images having similar appearance, the step of updating the memory being performed separately for images of a similar appearance; in the step of analysing the images, the at least one portion of the image to be compared is established by means of (i) identifying at least one area of interest in the image, and (ii) tracking the motion of said at least one area of interest over subsequent images; the step of analysing the images further comprises identifying at least one subject area of interest, and wherein, in the step of assigning a quality factor to each image, the quality factor is representative of the composition quality of said at least one subject area of interest; and the quality factor is determined according to the size of said at least one subject area of interest, the composition quality increasing with the size of said at least one subject area of interest.