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What is the difference between photo and image?

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I saw it but I said photo and image not picture – Amirouche Douda May 3 '11 at 22:34
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I saw that, hence "see this related link" and not "closed with extreme prejudice". (^_^) – RegDwighт♦ May 3 '11 at 22:37
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The more interesting question is the one both of these questions avoid: what's the difference between a picture and an image. – Marthaª May 3 '11 at 23:44
+1 exactly Martha :) – Amirouche Douda May 5 '11 at 12:47

2 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

A "photo" is something that was taken with a camera.

Short for "Photograph". Photo means 'light'.

An "image" is something generated or a representation of something in any other way.

All elephants are gray things, but not all grey things are elephants. All photos are images, but not all images are photos.

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More succinctly, a photo is a type of image created by a camera. – Marthaª May 3 '11 at 23:43
photography = light writing – Mallow Nov 13 '12 at 7:02
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Every photo is also an image, but not every image is a photo. An image can also be a drawing, a vector graphic, a bitmap file, many more. The distinction also very much depends on the context. In software, images and photos belong to the same group of objects and behave similarly, for example when placing an image/photo into a document or on a web site.

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I like the examples and other supporting information, and in some ways it reads better than MikeVaughan's answer. However, I do think it's worth mentioning that a photo (in principle) comes from a camera. – John Y May 4 '11 at 2:43
A bitmap file is a file type, i think you meant a Raster Image, in contrast to a Vector Graphic. as a jpeg and a bitmap are both raster image formats. – Justin808 May 4 '11 at 2:59

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