image processing (vs. computer vision)

Transforming an image into another image, as distinct from computer vision's goal of extracting meaning from one.

Image processing (digital-image-processing's own subject) transforms an image into another image -- denoising, sharpening, compressing -- with no claim about what the image shows. Computer vision takes that same processed image and asks a further question: what is in it, where, or how far away. The two are often pipelined (processing first, vision second) but answer different questions.

Examples

Denoising a photo is image processing; deciding the denoised photo contains a cat is computer vision.