I think that, when working with digital image processing, it is helpful to have a variety of pictures (photographs of different things (some of which are pictur

I think that, when working with digital image processing, it is helpful to have a variety of pictures (photographs of different things (some of which are pictures of people, and some of which aren't), both landscape and portrait orientation (some algorithms might work better one way or other), art, line drawings, pictures drawn by computer, colours, monochrome, etc) to test with. Wikipedia says about the Lena picture: "David C. Munson, editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, stated that it was a good test image because of its detail, flat regions, shading, and texture." Wikipedia also mentions: "In today’s age of high-resolution digital image technology, it seems difficult to argue that a 512 × 512 image produced with a 1970s-era analog scanner is the best we have to offer as an image quality test standard." So, there are valid arguments both ways, relating to the use of the picture.