a system that provides a mechanism for processing , by a digital camera , of an originally captured image , prior to the image being saved in a format that has a reduced amount of information relative to the original image . the system allows a user to select a number of preferred image characteristics and interactively edit photographic images before the images are compressed and downloaded from the camera . more specifically , the system allows a user to select one or more preferred image characteristic settings , capture an image , preview the captured image after it has been processed in accordance with the selected settings , re - select one or more different image quality settings to ‘ edit ’ the image , and re - preview until the processed image is satisfactory .