Image Processing: Where to begin

One of the subjects I am exploring in recent times is image processing.

How does Image Processing relate to a person in daily life?
With the explosion and usage of digital gadgets in our daily lives: such as cameras, ipods, cellphones , unconsciously we are exposed to some aspect of image processing tasks. For example: uploading images from your camera to a website such as picasa or flickr involves data compression. This is one of the major image processing problems.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: image processing

Set of computational techniques for analyzing, enhancing, compressing, and reconstructing images. Its main components are importing, in which an image is captured through scanning or digital photography; analysis and manipulation of the image, accomplished using various specialized software applications; and output (e.g., to a printer or monitor). Image processing has extensive applications in many areas, including astronomy, medicine, industrial robotics, and remote sensing by satellites.

As a technology fan, I like to experiment with new gadgets and applications. But as a computer scientist, I have to be familiar if not an expert in the computational algorithms and techniques. That is every time I upload an image, I will be wondering about the algorithm behind it.

This is the book followed in many universities for the Image Processing course.

Digital Image Processing

By Rafael C. Gonzalez, Richard E. Woods

Published by Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007

ISBN 013168728X, 9780131687288