Roses are Red?

Which would you rather do: watch TV in color or in black and white?
Which usually looks better: a picture of your pet in black and white or in color?

Unless you have a Dalmatian, most of us would choose color, wouldn't we?


That's because we can see differences among objects in color much better than we can see those same details in black and white. In remote sensing, as in photography (or TV), when we say black and white we're really talking about shades of gray, aren't we? Typically, the human eye can discern only about 16 shades of gray, but about a million different colors. No wonder we enjoy TV, movies, and photographs more when they're in color! They're not only more pleasing to the eye, but we also see more detail.

Even so, in this age of hi-tech, space-borne, multispectral remote sensors, black and white photographs are still the most widely used and readily available remote sensing product. But color images, especially digital ones, are superior for many applications, especially if they are "false-color." Strange term, eh? Let's explore this idea further.

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