Many of us have been awed by the amazing technologies portrayed in the Hollywood productions, in both television shows and movies, which allow the good guys to catch the bad guys. Although entertaining, it's amazing how many people assume these capabilities are real without any hesitation. I personally find it fun to explore these capabilities a little deeper to ascertain if the necessary technology is real, fantasy, or somewhere in between. Of particular interest to me are the incredible imaging systems and image processing methods we see in the Hollywood productions. A great example is the incredible ability of investigators to "zoom and enhance" images to obtain finer and finer details until they have the critical piece of evidence necessary to put the bad guy away.

Questioning the amazing results we see from the zoom and enhance process portrayed in the Hollywood productions gives us a great opportunity to delve into a tutorial on the image resolution that a digital camera and image processing can really provide. The specific example that we will explore is the depicted capability of crime scene investigators to zoom and enhance on the reflection of an eye in an image to reveal the identity of an assailant (Fig. 1).