The fundamental properties of light result in images being an important part of peoples' lives. One of the reasons for their importance is that images are information rich; in the digital world this means large file sizes. These same properties of light allow optical disks to store information at high density. The characteristics of optical disk systems are well matched to those of digital images, particularly when high-quality digital images needed to be shared between, or distributed to, a number of individuals. Advances in many areas, from materials to electronics to coding theory, as well as high-volume production, has provided this capability to the average personal computer user.