About Digital Images

What is a digital image? Digitzing is the process of changing information into strings of ones and zeros which make the content readable to a computer, so in a sense a digital image is a small piece of computer binary code that instructs the computer to create that exact image. Each picture element, or pixel, is part of a larger mosaic consisting of many millions of pixels which each contain specific information about the photo's content, color, brightness, hue, and saturation. In effect, the picture has now been defined numerically and exists as a piece of software.

For most modern printing presses, an image must go through this digitazation process at some stage, before it can become part of a printed page. A scanner must first scan a film image, in order to translate the image's specific information into numeric format - a series of ones and zeros. After an image is created with standard film photography, it must go through this conversion process in order to be shared electronically or become printed material.

By using high tech digital cameras, we are taking the digitazation process to the point of origin of the image, rather than at some stage in between. With digital capture photography, the image is created in the same format that is required for online viewing or for printing. The immediate product is a digital file which has already been optimized for online viewing or for the printed page - a high fidelity oroginal that can be duplicated exactly. A digital negative that does not require an additional change to it's native state in order to be shared with a great number of people. Digital capture is immediately deliverable. No film, chemicals, or scanning are necessary. The image is already a string of binary code, ready willing and able to be interpreted by a computer or a printing press.

About Our Images

Our images are mastered from high-fidelity digital file originals in the device-independent RGB color space, Adobe encoded, and are saved in the JPEG format, optimized for maximum photo quality and resolution. Our images are Windows and Mac compatible. All of our images are captured with professional, high quality digital cameras, and are ideally suited for print or on-line viewing, for editorial or advertising stock, for business or personal use. Our images are extremely consistent, and offer color and quality that match or exceed any photo taken with 35mm film. Our stock images feature superb definition, clarity and dynamic color fidelity.

Our royalty-free stock photography collection consists of approximately 10,000 photos captured between 1998 and the present. Currently featured on this web site are over 700 of those images featuring nature, architecture, animals, birds, fish, landscapes, plants, flowers, people, objects, food, drink, textures, and backgrounds. All of the pictures on this site are available for single image purchase and download. All of the photos in our image library are original works by Ambient Creations that have not been previously published prior to being added to this website. All images are royalty free for most uses. Please see our License Agreement for full details on licensing image rights.

The majority of our images were originally captured and processed as 16 bit images, which preserves almost three times more color information in the picture.

High Quality Digital Negatives

Using digital capture enables the creation of an extremely high resolution, high quality original by bringing the digitization process to the point of origin--at the beginning when the file is created, rather than at the end of the file creation process, such as occurs when taking film images to a reproduction house.

Image Size

Each photo is available in a 72 dpi file size, and one of three, high resolution, 300 dpi file sizes. See our Size and Pricing page for pricing, exact pixel dimensions and other information.

Remastered Digital Image Files

We have a passion for quality, so each and every image is remastered to refine exposure compensation, black point, white point, color temperature, hue and saturation, brightness and contrast, and other variables, so that the very finest images possible are available for our customers to license and download.

Each picture in our photo collection has been meticulously examined for balance, color and overall presentation and print quality, using sophisticated, professional image editing software. All image adjustments are made in proper order based upon industry standard professional image editing procedures.

RGB versus CYMK

All of our photos are managed and corrected in the wide-gamut, Adobe RGB color space. Why do we choose RGB? We want our images to contain the widest array of color information possible, so they offer more value to the customer. When an image is converted from RGB to CYMK for printing, all sorts of factors must be taken into consideration, such as the specific ink, paper and printing device. We want to leave those design decisions up to you or your printing consultant, so we offer our images in wide gamut RGB, leaving you more flexibility and control over your image project. Please consult with your output provider for their specifications and advice before converting your image to CYMK.

JPEG

Our images are offered in the highest quality JPEG format available. A JPEG is a type of image file that was first defined by the Joint Photographic Experts Group, a committee of image experts who wrote the specifications for the JPEG file type, hence the acronym. JPEG by it's nature is a file compression format, so if you plan to size and/or make other changes to the image, we recommend saving your image in a nonlossy format such as TIFF, EPS, or PSD prior to making and saving changes.