Photoshop Vocabulary
GIF file format
"Graphics Interchange Format" images use compression formulas originally developed by CompuServe and are based on indexed colors, which is a palette of at most 256 colors. ____________ files are great for small icons and animated images, but they lack the color range to be used for high-quality photos.
PDF file format
"Portable Document Format" is the file format for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system used to create those documents. A ______ file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device-independent and resolution independent format. These documents can be one page or thousands of pages, very simple or extremely complex with a rich use of fonts, graphics, color and image.
TIFF file format
"Tagged Image File Format" A graphics file format created in the 1980's to be the standard image format across multiple computer platforms. The ___ format can handle color depths ranging from 1 bit to 24 bit. However, not much compression occurs with this format so file sizes tend to stay large. This format supports layers, alpha channels, and file compression.
Tracking
A feature that enables you to adjust the relative space between characters for selected text.
Bitmap/Raster
A method used for storing a computer graphic file that contains dot-by-dot representations of the original graphic image. Often created with paint, camera or scanner. The color "space" or document type which is defined with either on (white) or off (black) pixels. There are no shades of gray. This has one "channel" or level of color information.
Fill
A pattern, color or tint applied to the inside of a closed object.
Sans Serif
A typeface that is straight edged; e.g. Arial.
Serif
A typeface with lines on curves extending from the ends of the letters.
Skew
An option that lets you distort objects such as text blocks, drawn or imported graphics, or groups for a special effect.
Font
Categories of text such as Arial, Garamond, Script and Franklin.
Contrast
Different degrees of lightness and darkness on the page. Also, used as an organizational aid so that the reader can distinctly identify the organization of the publication.
Directional Flow
Established by organizing a positioning element in such a way that the reader's eyes are drawn through the text to particular words or images that the designer wishes to emphasize.
JPG file format
Joint Photographic Experts Group, is the name of the committee that developed the format. __________ is a file saving format that can compress large colorful files by eliminating a small amount of information. However, if the image is compressed too much, the graphics become noticeably "blocky" and some of the detail is lost, or "lossy".
Scratch disk
The Photoshop ____________ is your hard drive. Photoshop uses your hard drive as a temporary "swap" space, or virtual memory, when your system does not have enough RAM to perform an operation.
History
The __________ palette displays a list of the most recent states (or changes) that were applied to an image, with the bottommost state being the most recent. Clicking on a prior state restores the image to that stage of the editing process.
Focal Point
The center of interest on a page or set of facing pages, created by using color, contrast and proportion.
Repetition
The duplication of elements or details on one or more pages.
White space/Negative space
The non-printed space of margins or gutters.
Alignment
The placement of text or graphics relative to the margins.
Layers (Layering)
The practice of placing text and image on top of each other in a design. The positioning of a stack of images relative to other stacks of images. _________ are like clear acetate sheets; opaque where there is imagery and transparent where there is no imagery.
Kerning
The process of "fine-tuning" spacing by adjusting the space between characters.
Crop
To trim a graphic image.
Selection
When a _________ is active on an image, only that area is editable - the rest of the image is protected. The _____ tools are used to edit areas or to cut, copy, and paste images to different layers of the file.
Reverse type
White or light-colored text that appears against a darker background.
Gradient
a ______, or graduated fill, is a color fill that gradually blends from one color to another. A ___________ can contain more than two colors, all fading smoothly from one to another. __________ are very useful for creating shading for three dimensional and metallic effects.
Paths or Bezier curves
a _______________ is a curved line or path defined by mathematical equations. Most graphics software includes a pen tool for drawing paths with ________ curves. The most basic _________ is made up of two end points, called "anchor points", and control handles attached at each node.
Filter
a built in tool or plug-in that produces a special effect. The type of effects you can get with plug-in __________ can range from something as simple as a blurred or softened image to wild, psychedelic patterns, distortions, and artistic effects.
Raster image
a grid of individual pixels (rasters or bits) in rows and columns (called a bitmap).
Color Wheel
a visual arrangement of colors in a circle that is similar to the spectrum of light.
Mask
a way of protecting specific areas of your image, just as you would use masking tape when painting your house. A _________ consists of a grayscale channel, called an alpha channel and is often displayed as a ruby overlay so the underlying image can be seen through the _____. The darkest areas of a _____ are the areas most protected and the white areas are unprotected. Shades of gray represent areas of partial protection that corresponds with the level of gray.
Blending mode
allows you to adjust how one layer or color mixes with the colors in the layers below. ______ are most often used with layers in your graphics software, but they can also come into play with painting tools where the blending mode of the painting tool affects how the colors mix with the existing colors on the same layer where you are painting.
Line art
an image made up entirely of 100% solid areas. Usually black and white only.
Handles
are controls, on an anchor point, that determine the shape of the vector line segment. With the _________, you can make a line arched or perfectly straight.
Vector graphic
artwork that is composed of mathematical descriptions of a series of lines and geometric shapes.
Shadowing
at an offset angle shadow is added to text or graphics.
Complimentary Colors
colors that appear directly across from each other on a color wheel.
Resampling
in graphics software, the ________________command is used to increase or decrease the size and/or resolution of a bitmap-based image. An image is _______________ to increase the resolution by adding new pixels. An image is down ___________ to decrease the resolution by throwing out pixels. _______________ an image usually results in a loss of image quality.
Resizing
increasing or decreasing the horizontal and vertical while maintaining aspect ratio.
Page guides
invisible lines that can be dragged from the edge of the rulers (horizontal or vertical) to use for alignment or margins. You can also convert lines in Illustrator to become guides.
Anchor point
is a point that marks the end of a vector line segment. These points can be moved around freely without disturbing any shape or text below it. The "pen tool" makes ______ within your artwork.
Alpha channel
is a special type of channel used in graphics software for saving selections. Most bitmap editing software allows you to save multiple ___________ channels with an image when it is saved in the program's native file format. Any of the ___________ channels can be reloaded as a selection or mask at any time, even after closing and reopening the image.
Anti-aliasing
is a technique of blending bitmap based images and text to reduce the stair-stepping or jagged appearance. In areas of transition, the edge pixels are blended to give a smoother appearance.
Smart object
is an object that is imported into your working file and retains the connection to the original file. For example, if you brought an illustrator file into photoshop, you could double click on the imported file (in Photoshop) and then it would launch illustrator to allow editing. Once it was saved (in illustrator), it would be updated back in photoshop.
Compositing
is the process of combining any two or more objects (images, text, illustrations, etc.) into an overall design.
Lasso tool
is the selection tool that allows you to make organic, "free-form" selections. It works like a pencil following the mouse movements on screen.
Marquee tool
is the tool used to create simple-shape selections. These selection shapes are usually rectangular, elliptical, a single row of pixels, or a single column of pixels. Holding the shift key while dragging a _____________ will make a perfectly constrained selection shape.
Clone
the ________ tool is a tool that is used to take a section of an image and apply it onto another.
Grouping
the ability to combine two or more objects.
Opacity
the ability to see through one object or layer to another below it.
CMYK color mode
the color "space" or document type which is based on the absorption and reflection of light. Usually this process is used mostly in printing such as printing presses or t-shirt printing. Four "process" inks - cyan (close to blue), magenta (close to red), yellow and black (called the "subtractive primaries") are used in varying combinations and percentages to produce a range of printable colors in most commercial printing. A CMYK file has four color "channels" one for each of the subtractive primary. Why is the letter "k" used for black? So that it is not confused with the name "blue", which is not used in this mode. If you mixed all the colors you would get black.
Grayscale
the color "space" or document type which is defined by black and white plus all of the gray tones as well. This has one "channel" or level of color information.
RGB Color Mode
the color "space" or document type which is defined by three channels of red, green, and blue produced by the color monitor. It is created by combining different intensities of each of the three colors. This type of color producing is called "additive primaries" because the light of the monitor display is added together to make the color you need. Most monitors have a "gamut", or range, of 16.7 million colors. If you mix the colors, you'd get white.
Resolution
the degree of sharpness of a computer generated image as measured by the number of dots per linear inch in a hard copy printout or the number of pixels across and down on a display screen.
Channels
the primary component of Photoshop that use a special system to store the color information of an image and the data location of spot colors. ______________are created automatically when a new image is opened. There are 5 types: Color, Mask, Quick Mask, Layer Mask and Alpha ____________________.
Rasterize
the process of converting a vector image into a bitmap image.
Color mode
the separation of colors into channels. Files that stay on the screen should be "RGB" -__________, and files that print should be "CMYK".
Pixel
the smallest element of an image that can be individually processed in a video display system; looks like a square of color. The smallest discrete element of an image or picture (usually a single-colored dot); "the greater the number of pixels per inch the greater the resolution"
PSD file format
this is the native format for Photoshop. It saves all the data in the photoshop file. It can be quite large including all layers, channels, effects and resolution. More and more programs are accepting ___________ as an importable file format.
Analogous Colors
those colors that are near each other on a color wheel.
Feather
to change the edges by making them more transparent. You use _________ with the lasso tool.
