A New Photographic Reproduction Method Based on Feature Fusion and Virtual Combined Histogram Equalization

A desirable photographic reproduction method should have the ability to compress high-dynamic-range images to low-dynamic-range displays that faithfully preserve all visual information. However, during the compression process, most reproduction methods face challenges in striking a balance between maintaining global contrast and retaining majority of local details in a real-world scene. To address this problem, this study proposes a new photographic reproduction method that can smoothly take global and local features into account. First, a highlight/shadow region detection scheme is used to obtain prior information to generate a weight map. Second, a mutually hybrid histogram analysis is performed to extract global/local features in parallel. Third, we propose a feature fusion scheme to construct the virtual combined histogram, which is achieved by adaptively fusing global/local features through the use of Gaussian mixtures according to the weight map. Finally, the virtual combined histogram is used to formulate the pixel-wise mapping function. As both global and local features are simultaneously considered, the output image has a natural and visually pleasing appearance. The experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method and the superiority over other seven state-of-the-art methods.

Photographic Reproduction and Enhancement Using HVS-Based Modified Histogram Equalization

Photographic reproduction and enhancement is challenging because it requires the preservation of all the visual information during the compression of the dynamic range of the input image. This paper presents a cascaded-architecture-type reproduction method that can simultaneously enhance local details and retain the naturalness of original global contrast. In the pre-processing stage, in addition to using a multiscale detail injection scheme to enhance the local details, the Stevens effect is considered for adapting different luminance levels and normally compressing the global feature. We propose a modified histogram equalization method in the reproduction stage, where individual histogram bin widths are first adjusted according to the property of overall image content. In addition, the human visual system (HVS) is considered so that a luminance-aware threshold can be used to control the maximum permissible width of each bin. Then, the global tone is modified by performing histogram equalization on the output modified histogram. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method can outperform the five state-of-the-art methods in terms of visual comparisons and several objective image quality evaluations.

"To see some few proofs of enormous wickedness": The Use of Photographs and Wood Engravings of Prisoners of War in Six American Civil War Publications, 1864-1865

This thesis addresses the use of a set of photographs of returned prisoners of war (POWs) published both as tipped-in albumen prints and as wood engravings in six different publications from 1864 and 1865, including three versions of Narrative of Privations and Sufferings of United States Officers and Soldiers while Prisoners of War in the Hands of the rebel Authorities, one pamphlet, and two magazine articles, The discussion focuses on the dissemination of these images by the United States Sanitary Commission, the ways in which the photographs were presented in the individual publications that contained them, the decisions that the engravers made in translating the photographs into wood engravings and the visual codes that informed the photographs and the related engravings. The illustrated essay situates these photographs and wood engravings within the political context of the American Civil War and the history of photography in the 1860s. The dissemination of photographic imagery via wood engravings before the widespread use of halftone reproductions, beginning in the 1880s, is presently under researched. The paper encourages consideration of wood engravings when examining the history of photographic reproduction during this transitional time period.

"To see some few proofs of enormous wickedness": The Use of Photographs and Wood Engravings of Prisoners of War in Six American Civil War Publications, 1864-1865

This thesis addresses the use of a set of photographs of returned prisoners of war (POWs) published both as tipped-in albumen prints and as wood engravings in six different publications from 1864 and 1865, including three versions of Narrative of Privations and Sufferings of United States Officers and Soldiers while Prisoners of War in the Hands of the rebel Authorities, one pamphlet, and two magazine articles, The discussion focuses on the dissemination of these images by the United States Sanitary Commission, the ways in which the photographs were presented in the individual publications that contained them, the decisions that the engravers made in translating the photographs into wood engravings and the visual codes that informed the photographs and the related engravings. The illustrated essay situates these photographs and wood engravings within the political context of the American Civil War and the history of photography in the 1860s. The dissemination of photographic imagery via wood engravings before the widespread use of halftone reproductions, beginning in the 1880s, is presently under researched. The paper encourages consideration of wood engravings when examining the history of photographic reproduction during this transitional time period.

Językowy obraz wojny według uczniów klas IV-VII szkoły podstawowej

Kuszak Kinga, Językowy obraz wojny według uczniów klas IV-VII szkoły podstawowej [Linguistic Image of War According to Students of Years 4-7 of Primary School]. Studia Edukacyjne nr 56, 2020, Poznań 2020, pp. 39-56. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. ISSN 1233-6688. DOI: 10.14746/se.2020.56.3The article discusses the linguistic image of war as an element of the linguistic worldview, based onstatements made by students of years 4-7. The author follows Jerzy Bartmiński’s assumption that a linguisticworldview is a linguistic interpretation of reality, which can be defined as a set of judgements about the world. These judgements may be fixed in the language itself, in its grammatical forms, lexicon, clichéd texts (e.g. proverbs), or as implied linguistic forms and texts. Language is a means of interpreting the world and the words used not so much to “render a photographic reproduction of things” as to “portray” them mentally. The author, inspired by Franciszek Hinczer’s research on war conducted in 1919 among students aged 8-14, asked students of two primary schools (302 people in total) about their opinions on the same topic. The students taking part in the research, conducted a hundred years after the study was published in the Szkoła Powszechna journal, answered the following questions: What do they think a war is? What do people do during a war? What do adults do during a war and what do children do? The students’ statements were analyzed and categorized. Each selected category was illustrated with sample answers from the respondents. The presentation of the results was preceded by an analysis of the notion and image of war in selected dictionaries of the Polish language.

Archeographic Publications of Cossack Chronicles during ХVІІІ–ХХІ centuries

The article shows the publications of the Cossack Chronicles of Eyewitness, H. Hrabianka’s and S. Velychko’s during ХVІІІ–ХХІ centuries. During the study historical and comparative method and method of analysis and synthesis were used. The distinctive phenomenon of Ukrainian historiography of the late seventeenth – and early eighteenth-century is the so-called «Cossack chronicles». These works are products of the culture of the Cossack chancellerists of the Hetmanate, which were the new forms of history writing. Cossack chronicles deals with the political concept social elite of ХVІІІ century and cultural ideals of the Baroque period. The article contains the analysis of the publications these historical-literary compositions, their correspondence to the academic, scientific-critical or popular type of publications. The ways and methods of text transmission, which were used in the publication of the Cossack «chronicles» taking into account in edition practice of their editorial offices and numerous copies are disclosed. The scientific support of publications of Cossack «chronicles», are characterized. The article contains the analysis of the presence of comments, notes, name and geographical indications, the dictionary of obsolete words, archeographic, paleographic and textological study of the compositions, as well as information about the author’s personality in the texts of Cossack «chronicles» . Today there are several editions of Cossack Chronicles. But these publications are not intended for historians, but for a wide range of readers and do not qualify for a scientific status. Because these texts are reprints or photographic reproduction of the earlier editions of the second half of the nineteenth – early twentieth century. The publication 1971 of the Chronicle of the Eyewitness is the most qualitative publication from all the Cossack chronicles. This text is given in comparison with the corresponding fragments of the remaining copies of the composition, and this work has the obligatory attributes of academic type of the publication. Therefore modern Ukrainian historical science is in urgent need of a full-fledged scientific study and reprinting of the Cossack Chronicles of Eyewitness, H. Hrabianka’s and S. Velychko’s which was important historical narratives and compositions of the political thought of the eighteenth century.

Photograph as Skin, Skin as Wax: Indexicality and the Visualisation of Syphilis in Fin-de-Siècle France The William Bynum Prize Essay

In early twentieth-century France, syphilis and its controversial status as a hereditary disease reigned as a chief concern for physicians and public health officials. As syphilis primarily presented visually on the surface of the skin, its study fell within the realms of both dermatologists and venereologists, who relied heavily on visual evidence in their detection, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease. Thus, in educational textbooks, atlases, and medical models, accurately reproducing the visible signposts of syphilis – the colour, texture, and patterns of primary chancres or secondary rashes – was of preeminent importance. Photography, with its potential claims to mechanical objectivity, would seem to provide the logical tool for such representations.Yet photography’s relationship to syphilographie warrants further unpacking. Despite the rise of a desire for mechanical objectivity charted in the late nineteenth century, artist-produced, three-dimensional, wax-cast moulages coexisted with photographs as significant educational tools for dermatologists; at times, these models were further mediated through photographic reproduction in texts. Additionally, the rise of phototherapy complicated this relationship by fostering the clinical equation of the light-sensitive photographic plate with the patient’s skin, which became the photographic record of disease and successful treatment. This paper explores these complexities to delineate a more nuanced understanding of objectivity vis-à-vis photography and syphilis. Rather than a desire to produce an unbiased image, fin-de-siècle dermatologists marshalled the photographic to exploit the verbal and visual rhetoric of objectivity, authority, and persuasion inextricably linked to culturally constructed understandings of the photograph. This rhetoric was often couched in the Peircean concept of indexicality, which physicians formulated through the language of witness, testimony, and direct connection.

Looking at the Images

Neorealism offered a harsh representation of reality in its portrayal of war brutality, shantytowns, an impoverished population, and abandoned children. This depiction relied on photographic reproduction. However, besides this rendition, neorealism consisted of other multifaceted forms that defined its visual culture. Film posters promoted neorealist productions through a pictorial style and the eroticisation of the actors’ bodies,instead of displaying photographic images of everyday reality, as in photojournalism. Neorealism emerged at the same time as photo-romances, which were popular magazines offering melodramatic narratives in pictures. Neorealist works were novelised according to this template, which contributed to defining neorealist visual culture. In the 1950s, as neorealism declined, attempts were made to merge documentary representation with the template provided by photo-romances and the burgeoning field of photo- journalism. Photo-documentaries published in Cinema Nuovo expanded and prolonged neorealist visual culture into photography.

Extended Printmaking: (Im)Pure Print practices | Gravura prolongada: Práticas impuras

This article seeks to reveal how the Pure Print International Printmaking Meeting may contribute with new insights towards the current quest for a relevant printmaking practice. The meeting was converted into a research platform, allowing a compilation and experiment with our desire for a full printmaking experience. Refusing a linear technological progression and rigid research plans, we moved into an impure practice seen as a transition into an intermedia experience. Slowly, we embarked on a series of experiments to pursueprocesses that have the potential of a photographic reproduction and looked back at a past where terms as “chemical printing” referred to the print capacity to literally transfer a drawing as first found in stone lithography. In the end, multiple technological incursions and cross academic contributions confirmed how printing research may be used to make the production of contemporary artistic printing practices easier and expand their aesthetic possibilities. Moreover, the modes of production employed reinforce perceptionsof how context, conditions, and processes must be set up for a creative, resolutive, and innovative research to take place. By emphasizing the use of local resources, aligning craft and practice, and selecting connections between printmaking and creative practices at large, we shed new light on how printmakers may construct knowledge.

Tone Mapping Operators Evaluation Based on High Quality Reference Images

High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging applications have been commonly placed recently. Several tone mapping operators (TMOs) have been developed which project the HDR radiance range to that of a display. Currently, there is no agreement on a technique for evaluation of tone mapping operators. The goal of this study is to establish a method based on reference images to evaluate the TMOs. Two psychophysical experiments were carried out for the evaluation of tone mapping operators. In the first experiment, a set of high quality images were generated to possess right extents of image features including contrast, colourfulness and sharpness. These images were further used in the second experiment as reference images to evaluate different TMOs. It was found Reinhard's photographic reproduction based on local TMO gave an overall better performance. CIELAB(2:1) and S- CIELAB metrics were also used to judge colour image quality of the same TMOs. It was found that both metrics agreed well with the visual results.