Images may be two- dimensional , such as a photograph or screen display, or three-dimensional, such as a statue or hologram . They may be captured by optical devices – such as cameras , mirrors , lenses , telescopes , microscopes , etc. and natural objects and phenomena, such as the human eye or water. The word 'image' is also used in the broader sense of any two-dimensional figure such as a map , a graph , a pie chart , or a painting . In this wider sense, images can also be rendered manually, such as by drawing , the art of painting , carving , rendered automatically by printing or computer graphics technology, or developed by a combination of methods, especially in a pseudo-photograph . A volatile image is one that exists only for a short period of time. This may be a reflection of an object by a mirr...