File Formats and Applications

Raster Graphics
Bitmap graphics, or Raster Images, are stored
as a series of tiny dots that are called pixels.
Each pixel is a small square that has its own
colour and they are all arranged in a pattern
to form the whole image. If you zoom in on a
bitmap graphic a lot, the pixels start to
become obvious to the eye. This is known as an image being pixelated.
Bitmap graphics can be edited easily by changing the colours or erasing
the pixels in an image, on a piece of software like Adobe Photoshop.
Bitmap graphics are useful and they are used a lot because their file
formats are compatible with being shown on the web. The two most
popular file formats that can be used on the web are GIF and JPEG, which
are both bitmap graphic file formats. Bitmap graphics are also good for
images that need a wide range of colour gradations, like the majority of
photographs.

Vector Graphics
Vector graphics use polygons to represent images in
computer graphics. Vector graphics are based on
vectors, which lead through different locations which are
called control points, or nodes. These points have
positions on the x and y axis of the work canvas and they
determine the direction of the path.
Points are the starting parts to creating vector images. A
digital artist will trace out the image by using points on
each graphic within the image, which will give an overall
outline of the whole image. The artist will then move on to connecting
each dot together with lines. This will give a view on what the shapes and
image altogether will look like.
Curves are the alternative to lines in vector images. A curve in a vector
image makes a cleaner cut curve for the image that the curve is being
used in. This is one main reason as to why vector images are meant to be
better than raster images. This is because the curves in raster images
uses pixels which make them an uneven curve. However, vector images
use geometric formulas that lets it create curves. This also means that the
quality of the curves doesnt change at all because the line is traced out
with dots which gives the formula a perfect curve to follow.
A polygon is a number of straight lines that create a closed circuit or
chain. Polygons can be and are used quite often in vector logos. This is
because scaling will work perfectly fine because its a vector image so it
will keep its quality. A downside to this is that the file size will be quite big
and may cause problems when putting it on to a website. Polygons are
usually the overall shape within vector images, depending on whether or
not they have curves in them and if the straight lines create a circuit or
chain.
In conclusion, I have researched what these two different types of
graphics are and when they are used. This shows me and will help me for
when it comes to creating my animation. This is because I have
researched what the difference is between both of these types of graphics
so I know which will be the best to use when I create and save my
graphics.
Metafiles
A metafile is a type of file format that can store
multiple different types of data. This most
commonly uses graphics file formats. These
different graphics files contain different types of
data, including raster, vector and type data. The
most common use for these types of files is to
provide support for an operating systems
computer graphics. Two examples are Microsoft
Windows, which uses Microsoft Metafile, and Mac
OS X, which uses PDF. A Windows Metafile contains
a sequence of graphical-device-interface function
calls that results in the showing of the graphic image. Using WMF files
rather than already-built bitmaps saves space when many bitmaps are
used repeatedly by different components of the operating system or of an
application. The WMF file assumes a 16-bit operating system. Microsoft
has an enhanced metafile format for its 32-bit operating systems.
File Extensions
BMP
Bitmap, or BMP, is a file format that is used to save Raster
images for bitmap digital images. It is capable of storing 2D
digital images of random width, height and resolution,
monochrome and colour, in various colour depths and with
lossy or lossless data compression.
PNG
Portable Network Graphics, or PNG, file format was made to replace GIFs,
yet GIFs are still being used today. The PNG file format uses lossless
compression to allow the opening of the image to be close to an exact
copy after saving and re-opening. PNG files are usually used in editing.
Instead of using a JPEG image and needing to manually remove the
background on the image, PNGs are pre isolated. This means that the
graphic needed is there and the background doesnt need to be
removed because it already has been and replaced with a
transparent background.
GIF
Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, is bitmap based and uses
lossless compression to avoid the loss of quality in the image. It
supports up to 8 bit per pixel, allowing the image to have up to
256 different colours in it. It also supports animation which is
what the file format is only used for. Looped animations or real
life footage can be created and can be up to a maximum of 25 seconds
long.
TIFF
Tagged Image File Format, or TIFF, is mainly used by graphic
artists, publishing industry, amateur photographers and
professional photographers because it is a direct file format for
saving images. It is also used by those professions because they
usually need to manipulate images. This makes TIFF suitable
because it is highly associated with editing programs, like
Photoshop.
JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group file format is common
amongst amateur photographers because it uses lossy
compression. This makes the file smaller so it makes it easier to
store more files on a storage device. If JPEG used lossless
compression, the storage device in a camera wouldnt be able
to hold many photographs because the file size of them would
be larger than files that used lossy compression.
PSD
Photoshop Design, or PSD, is only used in Adobe Photoshop,
this is because it only tends to be used in the two main uses
of Photoshop, which is editing images or creating an image
from scratch. It is used because there is data in the creation
process that cant be held on other types of file format, so its
to save data from being lost. PSD was created to store things
such as layers within a persons work. A file that has been
saved under PSD can only be opened with Photoshop.
ZIP
ZIP is an archive file format that supports lossless data
compression. A .ZIP file may contain one or more files or
directories that may have been compressed. The .ZIP file format
permits a number of compression algorithms, though DEFLATE
is the most common.
EXE
.exe is a common filename extension denoting an executable
file (the main execution point of a computer program) for DOS,
OpenVMS, Microsoft Windows, Symbian or OS/2. Besides the
executable program, many .exe files contain other components
called resources, such as bitmap graphics and icons which the
executable program may use for its graphical user interface.
PDF
The Portable Document Format (commonly referred to as PDF) is a
file format used to present documents in a manner independent
of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Each
PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat
document, including the text, fonts, graphics, and other
information needed to display it.
AVI
Audio Video Interleaved (also Audio Video Interleave), known by
its initials AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by
Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows
software. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file
container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback.
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or more commonly known as
WAV due to its filename extension) is a Microsoft and IBM audio
file format standard for storing an audio bit stream on PCs. It is
an application of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) bit
stream format method for storing data in "chunks", and thus is
also close to the 8SVX and the AIFF format used on Amiga and Macintosh
computers, respectively.
Vector-based Applications
A few different vector-based graphics applications include Adobe
Illustrator, CorelDRAW and Adobe Freehand.
Adobe Illustrator is the industry leader in vector drawing
applications. This was one of the original software applications
produced by Adobe. Originally used for creating vector designs for
print, it is now also used for creating web and screen based
graphics. Until 1989, Illustrator was only supported on the MAC
operating system.
CorelDRAW is another popular vector drawing application. It has
many similar features to Illustrator. One of the differences
between the two packages is that CorelDRAW allows for multi-
page editing, whereas illustrator only allows for single page
editing. CorelDRAW is part of a suite of applications known as
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, which consists of five applications,
including a bitmap editor, Corel Photo-Paint. The main
disadvantage of CorelDRAW and possibly one of the reasons that
Illustrator is more widely used is that it is only supported on the Windows
operating system.
Adobe Freehand is used for creating vector graphics for
desktop publishing and web platforms. It has a lot of similar
features to Adobe Illustrator, so much so that Adobe have no
plans to upgrade Freehand at present. Instead they are
suggesting that customers move over to Illustrator.
Raster-based Applications
Adobe Photoshop is the main application that is for
creating raster graphics. It was developed and published
by Adobe Systems to be used on Mac OS and Windows. It
can edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and
it supports masks, alpha compositing and several colour
models including RGB, CMYK, CIELAB, spot colour and
duotone. Photoshop has vast support for graphic file
formats but also uses its own PSD and PSB file formats,
which support all the said features. In addition to raster
graphics, it has limited abilities to edit or render text, vector graphics, 3D
graphics and video. Advanced raster editors, like GIMP and Adobe
Photoshop, use vector methods (mathematics) for general layout and
elements such as text, but are equipped to deal with raster images down
to the pixel and often have special capabilities in doing so, such as
brightness/contrast, and even adding "lighting" to a raster image or
photograph.
Print
Print media advertising is a form of advertising that uses physically
printed media, such as magazines and newspapers, to reach consumers,
business customers and prospects. Advertisers also use digital media,
such as banner ads, mobile advertising, and
advertising in social media, to reach the same
target audiences.
Advertisers can choose from a wide range of
different types of newspapers, including local,
regional or national titles published in daily,
evening, weekly or Sunday editions. Newspapers
target different readerships with a mix of content,
often including sports, entertainment, business,
fashion and politics in addition to local, national or world news. Advertisers
can buy different sizes of advertising space, from small classified ads with
text only, to display ads featuring text, photographs, illustrations and
graphics in sizes up to a full page or even a double-page spread.
Magazines offer advertisers extensive choices of readership and
frequency. Consumer magazines cover a wide range of interests, including
sport, hobbies, fashion, health, current affairs and local topics. Many
business and trade magazines provide coverage of specific industries,
such as finance or electronics. Others cover cross-industry topics, such as
communications or human resources, while still others focus on job-
specific areas, such as publications for executives, marketing
professionals or engineers. Publishing frequency is typically weekly,
monthly or quarterly. As with newspapers, advertisers can take advertising
spaces from classified ads to full-page ads in black and white or colour.
Advertising on billboards and posters gives advertisers the opportunity to
reach consumers on the move. Putting posters in retail malls, for example,
helps advertisers reach consumers close to the point of purchase. Posters
or billboards in train stations, airports or busy town centres have the
potential to reach large groups of consumers. Advertisers can change the
messages on billboards and posters at a frequency of their choice.
Moving Image
With my graphics that I will create, especially the logo, I could use it and
make it into a moving image on websites to advertise the band. The way
that I could create the logo into a moving image is by making it a GIF,
which is an image that is animated and is played on an infinite loop, for as
long as it can be seen or is open. This will work well on a website that
could be created for the band, so that it gives the website more to it and
makes the visitors more entertained. I could also create the logo into a
moving image in another way to a GIF. This could be something like
animating it, to put it at the start of a video or for when a website is
loaded up, it could be used as a short opening screen. This will also just
make the website more entertaining and give it more to it, rather than it
being boring for the visitors to look at.
Interactive
Interactive media normally refers to products and
services on digital computer-based systems, which
respond to the users actions by presenting content
such as text, moving image, animation, video, audio,
and video games. Interactive media is a method of
communication in which the output from the media
comes from the input of the users. Interactive media
works with the user's participation. The media still
has the same purpose but the user's input adds interaction and brings
interesting features to the system for better enjoyment. The media, which
allows several remote users to interact synchronously with the media
application/system, is known as Distributed Interactive Media. Some
common examples of this type of Media include Online Gaming,
Distributed Virtual Environment, Whiteboards that are used for interactive
conferences and many more.