The concentration-intensity proportionality is valid at least in two very important cases that distinguish two corresponding classes of DDM methods:
# scattering-based DDM: where the image is the result of the superposition of the strong transmitted beam with the weakly scattered light from the particles. Typical cases where this condition can be obtained are bright field, phase contrast, polarized microscopes.
# fluorescence-based DDM: where the image is the result of the incoherent addition of the intensity emitted by the particles (fluorescence, confocal) microscopes
In both cases the convolution with the PSF in the real space corresponds to a simple product in the Fourier space, which guarantees that studying a given Fourier mode of the image intensity provides information about the corresponding Fourier mode of the concentration field. In contrast with particle tracking, there is no need of resolving the individual particles, which allows DDM to characterize the dynamics of particles or other moving entities whose size is much smaller than the wavelength of light. Still, the images are acquired in the real space, which provides several advantages with respect to traditional (far field) scattering methods.