Senior Research

A characterization of both the color and spatial image quality of a camera was performed in order to find out if the camera is good enough to capture detail in paintings for cultural heritage applications (artwork preservation). The following primary factors that affect color and spatial image quality were characterized: spatial uniformity, tone reproduction, color reproduction accuracy, noise dynamic range, spatial cross-talk, spatial frequency response, color-channel registration and depth of field. In addition, a usability study was performed on Erin P. Murphy’s method for characterizing a camera. A Sigma SD9 was found to not be good enough for cultural heritage application. The methods for evaluating a camera are easy; however, there were some difficulties during the experiment. In addition, some improvements to her method should be considered such as more specific guidelines for the values of the criteria and also suggestions could be made as to whether a camera that excels in most areas but fails one or two tests would still be useful