Range Of Image Types Available Technology Essay

When it comes to picking an image type there are lots to choose from, these image types can be broken down into categories, from raster graphics, vector graphics and stereo graphics. In each category there are a range of formats, raster graphics has the most formats followed by vector.

Raster Graphics are usually referred to as bitmap, reason for this according to (Gumster 2010) "Each pixel in the image has its own colour and that colour is mapped to a grid that forms the full size of the image." Raster graphics are best used for highly detailed images, like pictures of people or landscapes when you need the picture to look realistic, there is a cost for good quality images as you increase the pixels you have in a bitmap are stored as one or more bits in your computer's memory. So if your image has lots of colours and pixels it will take up much more memory than an image that low in colours and pixels.

The most popular and common raster file formats used are tagged image file formats (TIFF), Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and Bitmap Image File (BMP). Below are detailed descriptions of the popular formats and brief descriptions of the less popular formats:

TIFF - The reason for this format being popular is due to it being the most widely supported format on all operating systems. Tiff is good for displaying colour, grayscale and black and white images.TIFF was release in 1986 and is held by Adobe and prior to that was Aldus Corporation, according to (Savage 2008) "TIFF was originally designed for use with scanners. It is the format multimedia developers usually use both for scanned images and for files to be used in authoring applications".

JPEG - Is one of the main image formats that is support on the world wide web. JPEG is commonly used for compressing data by getting rid of some data from the image; it is hard to notice the change in image quality if the compression is small as 15% but if you were to compress the image to say 85% there would be noticeable degrading of the image, 60% compression is good for getting an optimum balance between quality and size. Below is an example of image compression for 15% and 85%

JPEG compression example

JPEG 2000 - This format was created to replace the old format of JPEG with the newer version JPEG 2000, this newer version was created in 2000 and that's how it got its name. Like JPEG it was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. The file extensions used for JPEG 2000 are .jp2 and .j2k.

BMP - Bitmap Image File is used for windows operating systems as it was created by Microsoft. BMP files are often very large compered to JPEG's, this is down to them not using lossy compression. A "bitmap file is a raster- (or pixel-) based format that only supports the RGB colour space and bit depths of 1, 4, 8, or 24 bits per channel" (from an article by The Sheridan Group, 2001)

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format was developed by CompuServe in 1987 and is the most popular file format on the internet and this is due to its small size, as its only 8- bit and is used for icons. GIF files can use animations like banners or short funny clips. GIF uses loss-less, so it can reduce the file size without affecting the quality of the file.

Exif - Exchangeable Image File that is used by digital cameras, scanners and smart phones like the android.

RAW - Raw image file is a file that is not fully processed and that's how it got its name. It is similar to a negative in photography, as it's an image that is not fully processed.

PNG - Portable Network Graphics file format was created as there were a few big limitations with another format that was the GIF format, so it was created to try and improve upon GIF and to provide a format without the need for a patent license, and intern replace the GIF format.

WEBP - This is a new image format that was created by Google to try and reduce the load time on webpages by having a file format that was small in size; this would allow the webpages to open quicker. So WEBP is smaller images that look good and improve your web surfing.

Vector Graphics

Vector graphics are different to raster graphics, as vector graphics use instructions to re-create an image, not like raster graphics that are created by dividing the image into a grid of pixels. Storage advantages for vector graphics according to (June Parsons 2008)"Each instruction requires storage space, so the more lines, shapes and fill patterns in the graphic, the more storage space it requires. Even so, vector graphics usually require less storage space then a bitmap graphics and resize better than a bitmap graphics".

The most popular vector file formats used are Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM), Portable Document Format (PDF) and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Below are detailed descriptions of the popular formats and brief descriptions of some of the less popular formats:

CGM - Computer Graphics Metafile is a very important as it was designed to support graphics applications and is used alto in computer aided design (CAD). CGM is one of a small handful of graphic formats that is an International Standard (ISO) and is not a de facto standard.

SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics was and is still being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), W3C does not receive any royalties for SVG as it's a royalty free vendor. According to (W3C 2004)" SVG is a platform for two-dimensional graphics. It has two parts: an XML-based file format and a programming API for graphical applications. Key features include shapes, text and embedded raster graphics, with many different painting styles".

PDF - Portable Document Format was created by adobe and is very popular file format that is used for displaying items like tax documents, menu's, booklets, instructions and any other documents you need to display online. The great thing with PDF files is how they look in the original paper form, is exactly how they will look online. The PDF file format can contain things such as images, forms, outlines and other data, to view these files you can use adobe free software, adobe reader.

Below is an example of a PDF file viewed using the free adobe reader plug-in.

CDR - Corel DRAW is a vector file format that that was created by Corel and used in Corel Draw graphics suite, it was designed to only be able to open and access this file using a Corel program.

ODG - Open Document Graphics are used and created with open office products that are free to use, .ODG is simply a graphically document for things like logo's.

Image Enhancements Part Two

Image one

The first image was a landscape picture of an area on Preston campus. I noticed that there were a number of things that could have been done to enhance the original picture that included cleaning the image, fixing scenery, removing unnecessary parts of the scenery and recreating the image to a quality far better than its original. I also added in laser effects to look like there was a rainbow coming out of the street lamp.

When creating the image I tried to not over fill layers, instead use more layers and as a result I could explain what I had done on each layer more efficiently.

Layer Steps:-

Layer one. This was my original image of the landscape before any alterations had taken place.

Layer two. I removed any litter and gum that was present on the path around the post box and cleaned up the image to make the path and road area look much cleaner.

Layer Three. This layer I restored the post box and bollards to a far superior condition, as in the original image the post box was heavily marked and one of the bollards had a very large dent. The path area was again cleaned up using the healing brush and I replaced the old looking tarmac on the path to look new.

Layer Four. The road marking on this layer where recreated and repaired as most had faded, the road was also fully restored and any debris that was present on the road where removed. I decided to remove a person and a lamppost from the image as they seemed out of place as the image was taking shape and recreated the area where they once stood. Lastly I repainted and removed a window from the white building as it looked dirty and didn't fit my vision of the image.

Layer Five. I used this layer to alter the curves of the image by changing the RGB input/output and as a result it gave the image a warm and full look.

Layer Six to Thirteen. Across seven layers I made a rainbow effect come out of the lamppost present on the image to give the impression of happy and sunny picture. The reason for using seven layer was simple, there are seven colours in the rainbow, so by using one layer for each meant I could tweak shadows, glows, opacity and other effects from the blend option on each individual layer.

Layer Fourteen. The last layer I just adjusted the overall brightness and contract of the image to give it the final touches and now it is complete.

Image Justification

The justification for creating this image was simple; I wanted to make an area around the university look clean and fresh. The best way I believed I could achieve my goal for the image was to enhance, clean up, replace, restore and fix the image to what it would look like if with the building had just been built and the road just tarmacked etc.

Now that the image is created I believe that I have achieved my goal for the image to make it look enhanced, clean and fresh. I certainly believe it to be a vast improvement on the original image.

Image Two

The second image was still life of a mobile phone. I cut the phone out of the image I had taken and placed it onto a different background that I created, as I was trying to make an image that would work well as a screen saver and incorporated a hand held device that is in essence a mini portable computer.

The effects I used in making the image was smoke backgrounds, string lasers, blur, hue changes, custom wind designed text and the phone image also added to the main image. Seven layers in total where used to create the finished image, and below is an explanation of what I did to each layer step by step.

Layer Steps:-

Layer One. I made sure that layer one would be the background and the colour I made the background was all black

Layer Two. Now I added four large faded red circles, to do this I used a large brush size with a hardness setting at 65% and opacity and flow both at 100%, the circles was applied to sit on top of the back background.

Layer Three. The next step was to add a cloud effect on top of the previous layers. By adding the cloud effect it made the image look like a neon red clouds.

Layer Four. Now the phone picture was added to the image as this would be the focal point of the picture. The phone image now was now modified by adding drop shadows, inner shadows, outer glow and inner glow. The reason for modifying the phone image was to make sure It had a neon glow look and stood out on the background that was created in the previous layers.

Layer Five. The neon line was now created using the pen tool and some creativity to make it look like the phone was wrapped up in a neon line. An outer glow was effect was also added to the neon line and the colour changed.

Layer Six. At this point I added the text to the image, to make the text look cool and fit the look of image so far. I added a wind effect to a custom text font so it looked like wind had swept past the text from all sides. The inner colour was red to match the current theme and the shadow effect around the text was a sharp white.

Layer Seven. The last layer was created just to adjust the brightness of the image and make the sharp colours really visible.

Image Justification

The reason for creating a still life screen saver picture was to show a varying range of skills that are semi related to computing simple and also to show an item that everyone can relate to. The best way to make a good screen saver image was to make it shiny, full of colour and look unique. To achieve my goal for the screen saver image the phone picture needed to be enhanced and create a background from scratch that fitted with my vision for how it should look.

Now that the image has been created, I confident that I have achieved my goal to create a new background from scratch, with a modified phone image and custom made graphic and text.

Image Three

The Third image was an individual picture of me. I started by deleting the background content of the original image and just keeping the picture of myself present on a black background. Next I colour burned a second image onto the image of me, as I was trying to make an image that looked dark and creepy and was very different to my first two images I created.

The effects I used while making the image was colour burn, burn tool, black and white, blur and blend. I also removed some of the facial hair and removed any facial blemishes of the image. I made the eye colour change from brown to red so it would stand out on a black and white image. I used only four layers for this image as I tried to be much more efficient with the use of layers when creating the finished image, and below is an explanation of what I did to each layer step by step.

Layer One. I turned the first layer to black and white; then removed some facial hair, blemishes and I also added more head hair to make the hair look much thicker. Now I used the burn tool and shadow tool to make the image look old and burned.

Layer Two. In this layer I changed the eye colour of the image to red so that it would stand out on the black and white image. I added some red glow to the background of the image at the bottom left and top right of the image.

Layer Three. I needed to take my image of cracks and colour burn it to the main image, also I needed to remove any unnecessary cracks from the image as I only wanted cracks on the face and neck.

Layer Four. In the last layer blood was added to the image under the eye and on the mouth with using the paint tool on low hardness. The blend mode was then set to colour burn with the opacity at 100%, as I tried to make the blood look as real as possible.

Image Justification

The third and last image was created to show I could alter, adjust and use creativity to make a dark and chilling image, by using some different tools than in the previous pictures. I achieve my goal I had to make sure I only used three colours red, black and white as any other colours would not have suited the look and feel of the image.

I think that this image had originality and looked dark and chilling, so i am positive that I used my skills to the best of knowledge to create the picture of an individual but with a dark twist.

Evaluation of Adobe Photoshop CS5 Part Three

To create my images I used Adobe Photoshop CS5, this is the latest Photoshop available and it has a whole host of new features available that are quite simple to use and make Photoshop better than the previous version. I will evaluate some of the new features Photoshop has to offer and also briefly discuss three alternatives to Photoshop. I hope after I have evaluated Photoshop it will help you make a decision on purchasing Photoshop.

Some of the new features include content aware that let's you copy an area around the objected that you are deleting, you can also create a background fill on the area where there was none. This feature can be very easy to learn and simple to use, not all images will respond well to using content aware, but the picture type that can produce outstanding results are abstract images as they have a clear and definite form. How content aware tool works is by using information around the object you have selected and fill in the missing data you have removed. I used the content aware tool on all three of my images at some point and I would have to say it was excellent and worked surprisingly well, apart from once when I tried to remove an item that had lots of people, trees and other scenery around it.

Edge detection is another new tool for Photoshop CS5 that allows you to deal with problem area such as hair when cutting an object like a person from one image to another and this option is found in the refine edge dialog box. I think this tool is very good and saves lots of time having to make small edits to objects, I know this as I found out the hard way with one of the images I made, as It took me around twenty minutes to edit hair on an image when I could have used edge detection and done it in about two minutes. The edge detection is certainly a major plus point to Photoshop CS5 and makes the image you have taken and placed on a new background look like it had always belonged to that background. Like every tool available it won't work well with every image but the feature is certainly a pro not a con.

The last new big tool for Photoshop CS5 is the puppet wrap command that allows you to take an image like smoke and generate pivot points around the image and you may select any of them to manipulate. To get the best results using the puppet wrap tool you should try keep any edits you make simple, as over complicated edits depending on the object might look very unrealistic and spoil the whole image.

The biggest downside I could see to getting Adobe Photoshop CS5 has to be the price as it costs £657.60 according to Adobe website for the standard edition and I feel this might put a lot of would be casual users off the product at that price. If you was going to be using Photoshop for work I would say then it would be worth the money as the product is well established as its been around for a long time and continues to put out excellent Photoshop software.

Alternatives to Photoshop

GIMP- The first of the three alternatives is GIMP. The first thing that makes GIMP stand out is that its free unlike Photoshop and this makes it popular with armatures users and professionals, is open source and has a lot of the functions Photoshop has. One big thing that makes GIMP different to Photoshop is the interface and this is an area that divides users, according to (Joao Cardoso 2010)"You have the toolbars outside the main window. Some like this interface better, while some don't like it so much". GIMP can also be used on all the major operating systems and GIMP has become used in many Linux distributions as the default image program; however Ubuntu dropped GIMP as they considered the software to be too powerful for a standard desktop user.

Krista- The second software alternative is Krita that is used in the Koffice suite that is also free like GIMP. Krita has mainly become popular with people who want to creative sketches, cartoons, and concept art paintings. Krita is also very user friendly as its simple to use. One thing Krita does not have is most of the main features of the more popular software packages like Photoshop. However this won't stop you from creating and editing exciting images, also you will find some features that Krita has and other free software does not like pluggable brush engines.

Paint Shop Pro Photo X2- Lastly and the main competitor to Photoshop is Corel's Paint Shop Pro, Corel has also been around for a long time and so you know that the product you will get will be developed to a high standard. One thing that Paint shop Pro beats Photoshop on is the price as you can pick this up for around £45 and that's good value for software packed with tools and features. A unique tool to Paint shop Pro is photo ageing that allows the user to use tools to apply an aging filter on your image; this will make them look like they belong in a film form the early days of cinema. There is also a feature that gives you the chance to pick from different periods from the past to add to the look of your image, this is called "Time Machine".

Conclusion

I have investigated a whole range of different image types from raster to vector and discussed some of the main file formats that are associated with them. The things I covered relating to the file formats where things like size, quality, uses and any other information that was important and relevant to the image format.

The images I created and the steps I had taken to create them were explained. I also give a brief justification for each image to why I had created the images and what tools and methods where used in creating them. The reason for this was to show I was capable of editing and creating images using a whole range of Photoshop tools that would give the best results to my finished three images.

I evaluated the software I used to create my three images and explain some of the new main features; the software that was evaluated was Adobe's latest release Photoshop CS5. The biggest down side to the Adobe Photoshop CS5 software was the cost and this was coved as I tried to give a full and honest look into Photoshop Cs5 and not just look focus on the positives of the product. I also looked at three other image editing software alternatives to Photoshop, and explained there features and any tools that might have made them unique, as I hoped this would help before making a decision on what someone might purchase, so they would then know what was right for them.