Reading 5 - Panpan Deng

In the article, On Compression, Cory Arcangel explain how does the use of the Discrete Cosine Transform(DCT) makes the difference between lossy and lossless images.      

Before I read this article, I know that the obviously, the lossless images are more clear and sharp than the lossy ones. Similarly, the lossless songs are more mellow than the lossy ones. Another difference is that the lossless images are much larger than the lost data one. When I open my ORF (raw image format using by Olympus ) image, it takes nearly 20 seconds, by contrast, the JPEG image only takes me 5 seconds to open. Because of the time-consuming, I always avoid saving the images in raw format and hold an opinion that the raw images are just like those useless expensive luxuries such as golden toilets. However, when I start playing with cameras, one of the seniors tell me one golden rule about the photograph which is : always saving the images in raw formats. Right now it makes sense to me, lossy images are satisfying in small screens but dim in large screens. Even though I right now I have ideas about the advantage of raw images, I still do not think that raw images overweight the lossy images. The transportation of JPEG images are economic, as Arcangel states, “the less we need to send the cheaper and faster it is”(Arcangel, pp.221). Some perfectionist may not agree with me on this but I really think JPEG image’s quality is satisfying to the non-professionals. Arcangel also says that “our eyes and ears are pretty crap, and we don’t usually notice missing bits here and there”.

Then why do we ever need to care about the things we will never notice? Believe it or not, after listen ten times of lossless version of Rhymes of the Rain, I still can not tell the difference between the lossless version and lossy version. Maybe people just want to pretend to be professionals through the format of what they are listening and watching.