File Formats Article

File Formats Article

Introduction

-In this article I am going to teach you how to use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to further expand your knowledge on Mac use and how graphics and design works.

Lets begin with the definition of file types.

JPG: JPG is pretty much a JPEG. JPEG stands for ‘joint Photographic Experts Group’. JPEGS can be opened and altered on almost any form of editing software which ranges from ‘MS Paint’ all the way to the two most used adobe programs ‘Photoshop’ and ‘Illustrator’

TIFF: TIFF stands for ‘Tag Image File Format’. This file type is used to exchange bitmap images between other programs. TIFF can have various uses such as for 3-D application, faxing, desktop publishing, ETC. They come in various classes such as grey scale, colour and RGB colour.

PNG: PNG stands for ‘portable network graphics’. It is thought that one day PNG will take over GIF ‘Graphics Interchangeable Format’ which is currently used in todays computing world. PNG is in many ways superior than the general GIF format.

BMP: This means ‘bitmap’. Bitmap is a special format that is used mainly for saving image files. It used to only be available on windows computers but it can now be accessible by Macs and various PCs. JPEG and GIF are also forms of bitmaps. BMP is mostly used for printable images.

PSD: PSD stands for ‘Photoshop Document’ and is the original saving name for the Photoshop program. In Photoshop you can save your work as the previously mentioned file types: JPG, GIF and TIFF. Though, when a PSD file is flattened it cannot be undone, which means it can no longer be edited.

AI: AI ‘Adobe Illustrator’ is used mainly for vector graphics design. It is an easy to used drawing and editing program.

WMF: WMF stands for ‘Windows Metafile’ this file type features both vector and bitmap. A WMF file can be opened in programs such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Publisher.

Photoshop – CD Design

-Photoshop is used for the alteration or editing of an image in order to make it better. As an example I am going to explain how to use Photoshop on some of my own work.

I began with three images; music notes image, a CD with piano keys on it, and a Trombone image. These were the images I was allowed to use in order to make my CD cover.

With the three images, I could alter it however I chose to, so for a start I took the image of the piano key CD and used a small tool on the bottom right of my Photoshop window called ‘layers’ and if I right click on that layer it will show a little smaller window that will give you the choice to click ‘duplicate’, which will make as many copies of the layers as you desire; there is also a way to chance the name of the layer by double clicking on the selected one you wish to change. The next step of the process is to alter the colour of the image by clicking ‘ image’ on the top left of the screen and going to a sub window called ‘adjustments’ this will give you the choice to change the hue, brightness, gradient and much more. The size of the image can also be changed by returning to the top left of the screen and clicking ‘edit’, another sub window will open and you can either click ‘free transform’ or ‘transform’, if ‘transform’ gets selected, yet another sub window will open and you can ‘scale’; which means that you can change the size, or you could click ‘rotate’ to change how the image turns: flip, distort and skew are also good tools to use.

The next image; the trombone, was to be edited. I used the ‘scale’ tool again to the size the image up so that it took most of the background up, the contrast and hue was also changed so that the trombone was the actual colour a trombone should be, the image was originally of a green trombone. Rotation was also used to give the trombone a different look. The last image was the music notes page. I decided to use this for my background. I used a rainbow filter on the image to give it a psychedelic look to it. Photoshop can also be used to correct mistakes such as spots and scars on a photograph. Tools such as 'spot healing brush' are used mainly for the removal of spots, blemishes and any other unwanted marks from a persons face. The 'brush' tool is used to paint over the image, using a mode called 'overlay' so that you can edit the colour of almost anything you want.

The 'mixer brush' tool is used to blend shades together in order to either smoothen the skin and remove blemishes, or to blend the two colours together.the 'smudge' tools are also used similarly.

The final step of this project was to make sure all the layers were either locked together or merged. Either could be done, locking the layers together keeps the layers stuck together but can also give you the choice to continue editing; whereas merging the layers compacts them into one layer all together. Although this means that you are no longer able to edit the images again, which can be a pain.

The finished product for this Photoshop practice looked good and came out very detailed, this form of work would be saved as a ‘PSD’, and in this case it would be called “CD cover practice’s.PSD”

Adobe Illustrator-Photograph-to-avatar creation

Adobe illustrator is a program commonly used for the creation of illustrations. It is usually used to create beautiful pictures and is fondly used in the manga community. I will describe how by using my own work, Illustrator can be used a teaching mechanism.

Firstly, a picture had to be taken of myself, which was easily achieved in the macs 'photo booth' app. Then we load up Illustrator and make a new document with the photograph as the background layer. Then we used the 'pen' tool to trace around the photograph, tracing each line of the face, to do curved lines you must click and then drag in the direction you want for a curved line.once the basic outlining is done you need to do sections that you wish to change the skin tone of. If you wish to give it more of a sketchy look it is best to use the 'blob brush' tool, which is basically like a free roam pencil tool but as you go it constantly refines each line into the perfect curve. The 'bucket' tool is used to fill the entire outline in colour. The last tool is the eyedropper tool, this tool is used to get your skin tones and basic colours for when you use the bucket tool, it gives the colour choice more accuracy.

In my opinion the finished product was very detailed and showed my portrait in a cartoonish style. When saving the picture, it is usually saved as an ’AI’ file, for example this work was saved as “graphics photo-to-avatar.AI”