* α, the opacity value of the foreground pixel. (α=1 for opaque foreground, α=0 for a completely transparent foreground). |
* α, the opacity value of the foreground pixel. (α=1 for opaque foreground, α=0 for a completely transparent foreground). A monochrome raster image where the pixel values are to be interpreted as alpha values is known as a matte?. |
Note that if the operations are performed in a colour space where γ is not equal to 1 then the operation will lead to non-linear effects which will be seen as aliasing? artifacts (or 'jaggies') along sharp edges in the matte. |
The basic operation used is known as 'alpha blending', where an opacity value, 'α' is used to control the proportions of two input pixel values that end up a single output pixel.
Consider three pixels;
Then, considering all three colour channels, and assuming that the colour channels are expressed in a γ=1 colour space (that is to say, the measured values are proportional to light intensity), we have:
Note that if the operations are performed in a colour space where γ is not equal to 1 then the operation will lead to non-linear effects which will be seen as aliasing? artifacts (or 'jaggies') along sharp edges in the matte.
Should cite Porter-Duff? paper
Compositing often also includes scaling, retouching and colour correction of images.
See also: