Conner Murray

A raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, able to view by a monitor, paper, or any other source possible. Raster images are stored in image files with varying formats. If you enlarge or zoom into a raster image you lose detail and the picture pixelates.

You can use image compression which is minimizing the size in bytes of a graphics file without degrading the quality of the image to an unacceptable level. The reduction in file size allows more images to be stored in a given amount of disk or memory space. It also reduces the time required for images to be sent over the Internet or downloaded from Web pages.

Vector graphics is the use of an equation containing a mathematical sum. This sum keeps the points, lines, curves, and shapes all smooth and not pixelated because it’s a different type of software use e.g. adobe illustrator.

Using vectors is better when creating a magazine cover of advertisement because you can change the size to however big needed and it won’t lose quality life in the example.

Lossy compression is a ‘data’ method that compresses data by discarding losing some of it. Over all it means the image has been compress it loses pixels and detail is lost.

Lossless refers to data compression in which no data is lost. For most types of data, lossless compression can reduce the space needed by only about 50%.

Conner Murray

The number of distinct colours that can be represented by a piece of hardware or software, colour depth is sometimes referred to as bit depth because it is directly related to the number of bits used for each pixel. A 24-bit video adapter, for example, has a colour depth of 2 to the 24th power (about 16.7 million) colours.

File extensions:

BMP: a bmp document, also known as a bitmap is a type of image file format that is used for computer and digital graphics. It’s an image of lots of tiny bits and pieces that fit together to make one image.

PNG: a PNG document, also known as a portable network graphic is a bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression. A PNG supports palette based images and RGB(A).

PNG was also designed for transferring images from the internet.

GIF: a gif document, also known as a graphics interchange format is a bitmapped image, introduced CompuServe that was spread and now is used on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability.

TIFF: a tiff document, originally known as tagged image file format is a file format for storing images of mainly graphic images, publishing industry, and both amateur and professional photographers.

JPG: a jpg document is for photo images in very small files such as images for a website or an email. The jpg document is mainly used in digital camera memory cards

PSD: a PSD document is Photoshop’s file format. PSD supports all the available image modes such as bitmap, RGB, grey scale, duotone and others. Photoshop can convert PSD files into other formats such as bmp, PNG, jpg and tiff.

Graphic file extensions and which ones would for end use