Task 1 - Investigating graphics file formats and applications

In this blog I will describe to young budding film makers how to produce a quad poster for a film to be advertised in the UK and also I will describe how to make DVD cover for a DVD case. These two pieces of artwork will be used to show off your film even more. I will also talk about the different formats and applications used.

The ranges of common formats are programs like Raster, Vector, and Metafiles. I have explained each of the following below:

Raster Graphics - In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a dot matrix data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of colour, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium. Examples of raster based programs are Sodipodi, Tgif, conceptdraw and Adobe Photoshop.

Vector Graphics - Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics.

Metafiles - A piece of graphical information stored in a format that can be exchanged between different systems or software.

File extensions – File extensions are files of which work can be saved for example a common file for a photo is JPEG which when extended is a JIF. JPEG's are common because of the way that they compress images and thats why they are found on clip art on word.

File Extension	Stands for….	Common Usage
.jpeg	Joint Photographic Experts Group	JPEG is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital photography.
.tiff	TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format	A format for various imaging applications, including those that scan and fax.
.png	PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics	It is a format for encoding a picture pixel by pixel for the purpose of sending it over the World Wide Web.
.gif	Graphics Interchange Format, Graphic Image File, Group Interchange Format or Giant Interchange Format.	It is used to display images that may have multiple formats and to store data for games and animations.
.bmp	Also known as bitmap image file or device independent bitmap file.	is a raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device, especially on Microsoft Windows
.RAW		RAW files are not usable until they have been converted to a format such as Jpeg or Tiff in a software program.
.psd	Stands for Adobe Photoshop Document.	This is the file extension used with this program.
.ai	Adobe Illustrator	vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Systems

 

Forms of applications:

Examples of Vector based programs are Sodipodi, Tgif, conceptdraw and Zcubes. These are all with big price tags for example the sodipodi and zcubes will cost £999 and the conceptdraw would cost £300. The price of these applications should be a show of how good they are.

Examples of Raster based programs are Paint, Fatpaint, GIMP, and Adobe Photoshop. 3 of these apps are free with only adobe photoshop costing £60 but adobe is the best program to use and is known for its use in schools, colleges and universities because of its easy nature.