The relative effectiveness of digital versus photographic images was examined with 96 college students as subjects. A 2x2 balanced factorial design was employed to test eight hypotheses. The four groups were (1) digitized black and white; (2) digitized pseudocolor; (3) photographic black and white; and (4) photographic realistic color. Findings suggest that the use of the digitized black and white images in computerized instruction and information transmission of pictorial information provides the same pictorial information as use of the photographic black and white pictures. Adding pseudocolor to the digitized black and white photographs did not increase the distinctiveness and recognition of these pictures in the task. While there was no significant difference between the photographic black and white and photographic realistic color, photographic realistic color was preferable to digitized pseudocolor in learning from realistic scenes. Findings partially support the contention of realism theories, but the cue-summation theory was not supported by any of the findings. (LMM)