Intraocular light scattering in vision, artistic painting, and photography

Light scattering in the eye is reviewed, and its influence on vision is discussed in some detail. Isotropic scattering and formation of halos around point sources are described with reference to theory and experiments. Artists usually take intraocularly scattered light into account when painting natural scenes. A method to achieve similar effects in photography by the use of diffraction filters in front of the camera lens is demonstrated. A number of photos that illustrate the effects of such filters are shown.