What process takes place when you take a picture of some one from the time it is taken to the time it is displayed on the screen ?

· You aim the camera at the subject and adjust the optical zoom to get closer or farther away.
· You press lightly on the shutter release.
· The camera automatically focuses on the subject and takes a reading of the available light.
· The camera sets the aperture and shutter speed for optimal exposure.
· You press the shutter release all the way.
· The camera resets the CCD and exposes it to the light, building up an electrical charge, until the shutter closes.
· The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) measures the charge and creates a digital signal that represents the values of the charge at each pixel.
· A processor interpolates the data from the different pixels to create natural color. On many cameras, it is possible to see the output on the LCD (liquid crystal display) at this stage.
· A processor may perform a preset level of compression on the data.
· The information is stored in some form of memory device (probably a Flash memory card).
Which looks like this;

Images are stored in one of two formats -- TIFF, which is uncompressed, and JPEG, which is compressed. Most cameras use the JPEG file format for storing pictures, and they sometimes offer quality settings (such as medium or high). The following chart will give you an idea of the file sizes you might expect with different picture sizes.
Image Size TIFF(uncompressed) JPEG(high quality) JPEG(medium quality)
640x480 1.0 MB 300 KB 90 KB
800x600 1.5 MB 500 KB 130 KB
Most digital cameras have an LCD screen, so you can view your picture right away.

When you press the button to take your picture you cause the shutter to open. The light from the subject comes through the lens and strikes a digital sensor array - this is light sensitive chip on which million of tiny sensors are mapped to your camera's memory. These are called pixels. If you look at the maximum size of a photo that can be snapped, you can mulitply the width by the height to get the "megapixel" value of the camera.

These pixel sensors record the colour and intensity of light during the micro second that the lens is open. This information is duly processed and stored in the camera.

I hope this is what you were asking.