Now, with the advent of increasingly powerful personal computers, high-resolution graphics adapters and lower cost digitizing hardware, desktop image processing is rapidly becoming a thriving industry. In support of the revolution in imaging technology, this text brings to readers all the hardware and software guidelines for building low-cost image processing systems around their PCs. Practical design and implementation techniques for collecting, manipulating, storing, printing, and exporting data is also included. Example C and Assembly code which can be used in professional applications are provided and a gallery of sample images are contained. The author explains how colouration, resolution and special effects were achieved.