Digital Graphics File Formats

James Ellis

Raster Graphics

• Give a definition of Raster GraphicsRaster Graphics are made up of Bitmaps. Bitmaps are images or graphics that are made up of pixels. Bitmaps lose quality when they are resized as they don’t gain more pixels if you make the image bigger.

Vector Graphics

• Give a definition of Vector GraphicsVector Graphics are made up of vectors. Vectors have a start and an end point with curves, points and angles between them. Vectors can be made bigger and smaller without losing definition.

Raster Graphics

JPEGStands For Joint Photographic Experts Group

Used For/Example Photographs and Web formats. An example is they are the picture format used on Facebook.

Advantage Have a smaller file size compared to TIFF as they can be easily compressed to save memory.

Disadvantage Loses quality with each resize due to compression and recompression.

TIFFStands For Tagged Image File Format

Used For/Example Used for desktop publishing by graphic designers.

Advantage TIFFS can save multipage documents to a single TIFF file. Has the option of lossless compression, doesn’t lose any quality from compression and recompression.

Disadvantage File sizes can get very big very quickly, will take a long time to upload or download.

GIFStands For Graphics Interchange Format

Used For/Example Short digital animations, often used on the internet.

Advantage Loads much faster than an MP4 counterpart and takes up much less memory.

Disadvantage Has much lower quality than an MP4 file as a GIF is a series of images played in a loop so the file will run at much lower frames per second.

BMPStands For Bitmap image file

Used For/Example Mostly used for image storing.

Advantage It has no loss in compression.

Disadvantage It has a large file size due to lossless compression.

Vector Graphics

PSDStands For Photoshop Document

Used For/Example Mostly for image editing and manipulation.

Advantage Very useful for editing images and editing images into one image due to layers.

Disadvantage File sizes can get very big very quickly.

AIStands For Adobe Illustrator Art

Used For/Example Used for logo creation.

Advantage No loss in definition when rescaling.

Disadvantage File can only be edited on this program. Big file sizes.

FLAStands For Flash File

Used For/Example Used to make animations and games.

Advantage Can produce high quality files with small sizes.

Disadvantage Won’t work without Adobe Flash Player.

WMFStands For Windows MetaFile

Used For/Example Used for logos.

Advantage Can be scaled big and small without losing definition.

Disadvantage Files are of a low quality as it is clipart.

File Format Capture and Optimising

CompressionDefinition Lossy compression is the way in which file

sizes are reduced by reducing the amount of information that is saved.

Advantage Saves memory by reducing the pixels per inch.

Disadvantage Lowers quality by a lot.

Image CaptureMethod Scanner

How is it used for image capture of graphics

You scan it in and it is put on the connected pc in your chosen file format.

Method CameraHow is it used for image capture of

graphicsYou take the picture then import it onto your pc.

Method Graphics TabletHow is it used for image capture of

graphicsYou draw your image with the graphics tablet.

OptimisingWhy would you optimise? To ensure easy loading and viewing on

the web.

How can you optimise? By reducing the size in photo shop, reducing the bit depth, reducing the resolution or by compressing the image.

Advantage to optimising Makes images load faster.

Disadvantage to optimising Lower quality.

Storage

File SizeWhat could affect a Working Scale (Photoshop) document file size?

Changing the size, changing the resolution, changing the bit depth, or compressing it.

How could you reduce the file size of a Working Scale document without

affecting quality?

By using a vector file type.

What is an advantage of scaling up images before exporting?

The image will have a higher quality.

What is a disadvantage of scaling up images before exporting?

The image will have a larger file size and will take longer to export.