Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are digital photographs, traditional photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such as an airbrush to modify photographs or editing illustrations with any traditional art medium. Graphic software programs, which can be broadly grouped into vector graphics editors, raster graphics editors, and 3D modelers, are the primary tools with which a user may manipulate, enhance, and transform images. Many image editing programs are also used to render or create computer art from scratch. The term "image editing" usually refers only to the editing of 2D images, not 3D ones.
A colorized version of originally black and white photo, colorized using GIMP
Original black and white photo: Migrant Mother, showing Florence Owens Thompson, taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936.
This is a photo that has been edited as a Bokeh effect, using a Gaussian blur.
Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man overlaid with Goethe's Color Wheel using a screen layer in Adobe Photoshop. Screen layers can be helpful in graphic design and in creating multiple exposures in photography.
An image is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a projection on a surface, activation of electronic signals, or digital displays; they can also be reproduced through mechanical means, such as photography, printmaking, or photocopying. Images can also be animated through digital or physical processes.
A synthetic-aperture radar image acquired by the SIR-C/X-SAR radar on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour shows the Teide volcano. The city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is visible as the purple and white area on the lower right edge of the island. Lava flows at the summit crater appear in shades of green and brown, while vegetation zones appear as areas of purple, green, and yellow on the volcano's flanks.
2D image
