Alex Walls unit 30: Digital Graphics

File types P2

-Bitmap – A bitmap file is also known as a bmp file, it is an uncompressed raster file. They can store a large amount of colour levers per pixel which means they are usually found in paint; most computer programmes can use and open BMP files however they lose quality when they are made larger and scaled in size.

-Raster - A raster graphic, which is as a gif or jpeg, is lots of pixels of various colours, which make an image. Also Raster graphics become blocky, because each pixel increases in size as the image is made bigger itself.

-Vector - A vector graphic, is made of lines that are straight or curved. The file for a vector image has the points where the paths start and end, how much the paths curve, and the colours that fill the paths. Because vector graphics are not made of pixels, they can be made to be a very large size without losing quality. Logos are often made with Vector graphic because they cannot loose quality, for example if used on a business card they'd have the same quality if they were put onto a billboard.

-RAW – Raw files haven't been processed so you have to compress them before they can be used; printed, or edited. They are what most photos start off as and are very large so most programmes are not compatible with these files.

-JPEG – A JPEG file stands for Joint Photographic Expert Group, it is also usually a small file therefore many of them can be stored onto a small hard drive or memory stick, also it doesn't lose any quality when it is compressed so it’s very useful for many types of files. JPEG files are often used for storing digital photos or another type of photos that can be downloaded from the internet. Most programmes can open JPEG images, Photoshop is a good example because people can edit all there images with ease and then save them as a JPEG.

Alex Walls unit 30: Digital Graphics

-Gif – A GIF file is usually used to create web graphics such as; banners and small animated pictures. They can hold 256 index colours as a file type and can be opened in programmes such as; Microsoft, adobe and gimp, the quality of this file can differ, on large photos the picture quality is good however the colour quality is bad.

-PNG – Otherwise known as a Portable Network Graphic, the PNG image is for designers that needed a low resolution image that can be loaded quickly. PNG do not loose quality while being edited unlike JPEGS also they are a lot larger because they contain more information.

Sources I used:

http://www.scantips.com/basics09.html

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/graphicformats/f/summary.htm