Robert Eastwood

File Formats and Applications

Raster
Data compression is when techniques are reduced in file size of images so it allows it to be
stored. The quality of the image is reduced so some information lost and this makes the file
much smaller. This is called Lossy compression. It will break down and decay the image
depending on the compression rate in which the image is saved. There is also the lossless
file compression, which is a digital image that is in a digital file, and it is saved under the
format of ZIP unlike the Lossy compression, which is under the format JPEG. The lossless
compression means the image is broken down into individual parts to allow for easier
storage and transmission of the file. After the file is reopened after the lossless
compression, it allows the user to make the original file exactly with no data loss from the
image. Raster images or a bitmap are used in paint programmes such as Photoshop. A raster
image is a type of way to show digital images. Raster graphics can also be read faster than
vector images due to the data storage technique this will mean the program that opens the
raster graphic will load easier without waiting for the entire image to load. Bitmap graphics
are sometimes referred to as digital, raster, or paint graphics. Some popular programs that
allow you to create and edit bitmap/paint graphics are Adobe Photoshop, Jasc Paint Shop
Pro, and Microsoft PictureIt! The advantage of a bitmap over a vector is that it can
represent a much more complex range of colours and shadesphotographic detail. The
images digital cameras and scanners produce are bitmaps, as are most of the graphics you
see on the World Wide Web.

Vector
Vector images are used on different software such as Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw and
Macromedia Freehand. Vector graphics is the use of polygons to represent images in
computer graphics. Vector graphics are based on vectors, which lead through locations
called control points or nodes. Modern vector graphics displays can sometimes be found at
laser light shows, where two fast-moving X-Y mirrors position the beam to rapidly draw
shapes and text as straight and curved strokes on a screen. Vector graphics can also be
resized and stretched while retaining its existing quality. Images that are saved as vectors
displayed on higher resolution will look better on devices such as monitors and printers,
whereas bit-mapped images always appear the same regardless of a devices resolution. A
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disadvantage is that some effects cannot be applied to vector graphics such as blurring.
Adobe's EPS format is perhaps the most common vector image format. It is the standard
interchange format in the print industry. It is widely supported as an export format, but due
to the complexity of the full format specification, not all programs that claim to support EPS
are able to import all variants of it. Vector graphics, also referred to as object-oriented or
draw graphics, are created using geometric objectslines, ovals, rectangles, and curves.
Vectors generally have flat colours and hard edgesbitmaps have continuous tones and a
photographic quality. If you can't spot them outright, check the file name. In Windows you
can tell the file format by the three letters that follow the period in the file name.

Metafiles
Metafile is a term for a file format that can store loads of different types of data. This mostly
includes graphics file formats. These graphics files can contain vector, raster and type data.
A common use for these files is to provide support for an operating systems computer
graphics; for example, Microsoft Windows uses Windows Metafile. Windows Metafile is an
image file format originally designed for Microsoft Windows in the 1990s. Windows
Metafiles are intended to be portable between applications and may contain both vector
graphics and bitmap components. It acts in a similar manner to SVG files. SVG is an XML-
based vector image format for two-dimensional graphics with support for interactivity and
animation. WMF is a file extension for a graphics file used with Microsoft Windows. WMF
stands for Windows Metafile. WMF files can contain both vector and bitmap image
information. The WMF format was designed to be executed by the Windows GDI layer in
order to restore the image, but as the WMF binary files contain the definition of the GDI
graphic primitives that constitute this image, it is possible to design alternative libraries that
render WMF binary files, or convert them into other graphic formats.
Robert Eastwood

Conclusion
I think raster images are the best option as it looks a lot better from closer and a lot of my
work means I have to zoom in. Also raster works the best on Photoshop and I believe I have
more knowledge on Photoshop then I do on software that uses vector images.

Files Extensions
.DRW: is a file extension for file a vector graphics format used by Micrografx and other
vector programs.

.SVG: The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web
Consortium. SVG images and their behaviours are defined in XML text files. This means that
they can be searched, indexed, scripted, and compressed. As XML files, SVG images can be
created and edited with any text editor, as well as with drawing software. SVG has become a
significant format that is completely independent of the resolution of the rendering device,
typically a printer or display monitor. SVG files are essentially printable text that describes
both straight and curved paths, as well as other attributes.

.GIF: This is a file that contains a graphic or picture and is widely used over the internet and
used for advertisement. The .GIF format also can do animation, in which you can create a
looped animation or loop a real life piece of footage that can last up to 25 seconds.
.BMP: This a bitmap file that is used to save raster images. The .BMP format is capable of
storing 2D digital images. You can store the images on Microsoft Windows and OS/2
operating systems.

.PNG: This format was used to replace the .GIF format but they are still popular. The .PNG
format incorporates the use of lossless compression to allow the image to regenerate to the
almost exact same image it was before saving and reopening it. .PNG files are used in the
process of editing where instead of the image being a .JPEG and having to remove the
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background of the picture manually, the .PNG files are in a sense of pre isolation meaning
the graphic that you need is there and waiting with no need to remove the background
because the .PNG has already removed it for you.

.JPEG: This formats is very common and used by amateur photographers. The
photographers would use a Lossy file compression to make the file size smaller making it
capable of storing more images unlike if you used the Lossless file compression as it is much
bigger then the Lossy compression.

.TIFF: This is a format, which is used by graphic artists, the publishing industry and
professional photographers. It is popular with those professions because those three
professions need to be able edit the image (image manipulation). The format is used a lot
with other pictorial editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

.PSD: This format is only used in the program Adobe Photoshop, it is used because during
the time, you are editing or creating on image or graphic there is data that cannot be held
within other image formats such as .JPEG and .BMP.

.EPS: This format is used to produce vector graphics, with graphic formats like .JPEG as they
tend to store their data in a bitmap format whereas with the .EPS format the data of the
vector image is saved in a script form and is viewable as text as well as an image. The .EPS
file can be read at any time during the editorial programs like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe
Illustrator. This format is popular with vector artists because it is able to save vector
graphics with no degrading in the quality of the graphic as it is saved in the script form not a
Lossy bitmap form.
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.AL: This format is directly linked to the program Adobe Illustrator. It is used for the
production of vector graphics and is viewable in Illustrator itself but also many other vector
based editing programs can view it such as Corel Draw and Cinima4D. The format only
supports the save of vector graphics making the code in which the format is made up off to
the vector graphic standard making it better then Lossy again.
.PDP: PDP is a page layout format also used within Adobe Photoshop with features that are
same as a PDF formats which contains information of images, text and other data of the
image file.
.FLA: This format is used for the program Adobe Flash, The format is set up so all the data
within the .FLA file to be fully editable using Flash. The format can contain vector graphics
for animation of vector text, drawings or images but it is best to use another format that can
support vector data on its own as .FLA was made to save the data of flash files with graphics
or text in them not just the vector data on its own.

DXF.: Drawing exchange format which is a CAD format from Autodesk and uses CAD tools.
Some programs have difficulty reading DXF files with splines so the Desktop Edition supports
line spline as well as line only output modes.
Robert Eastwood

Conclusion
I think .GIF is the best option out of all the file extensions I have mentioned because a lot of
people use them and social medias like Facebook have an entire search part just for .GIFS
which you can send to people via messenger.

Vector-based Applications
Vector images, which are made of thin lines and curves known as paths, are rooted in
mathematical theory. Vector graphics must be created in computer software that is
designed to create this intricate wireframe-type image and each line includes defined node
positions, node locations, line lengths and curves. Any of the lines and curves in the image
can be assigned a colour value. Because of this defined, formulaic approach to drawing,
each image can be sized and scaled repeatedly and limitlessly without losing resolution or
beginning to look cloudy or pixelated. An advantage to using vector images is file-size
efficiency. Because the files are only identified by mathematical descriptions and not
individual pixels, files are often much smaller than those of the raster counterparts. Vector
images, are often easy to transmit from one computer to another and over the Internet.
Vector images are best used for logos and illustrations. Many companies create logos and
insignia as vector images. These files are saved and high resolution, high- quality clip art is
often developed and sold as vector images. Adobe Illustrator software is used mainly for
vector-based images that enables users to create vector images, which cannot be made
through Photoshop as it is designed to create raster graphics. The best advantage of using
Illustrator is that it does not just only gives you a smooth outline with clean-cut crisp edges.
Vector graphics are images that are comprised of solid blocks of colour, like a cartoon, a
company logo, or a block of text. Graphic designers, visual artists, apparel companies, and
technical illustrators are the people who are using vector images and Illustrator. Vector-
based file formats include AI, SVG, and Flash's FLA and SWF.

Raster-based Applications
Raster graphics are an image that is comprised of tiny blocks of colour called pixels. Zoom in
close enough on a raster image and it begins to pixelate, like a mosaic. Raster graphics are
what we call "resolution dependent" images. Essentially, what that means is that quality is
always a concern. Examples of raster-based images include photographs, scans, digital
paintings, website components like buttons and header graphics. Photoshop is a raster
image editor. This is where we will be doing all our colour correction on our photographs,
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touching things up, or creating special effects. Higher DPI (dots per inch) and PPI (pixels per
inch) settings contribute to larger files because software must keep track of and be able to
render each pixel. File size can become a concern if storage or server space is limited or if
files have to be transmitted electronically. Raster images are the standard in digital
photography and are commonly used for all graphics once they are published digitally.
Raster images are typically acceptable for digital publication but may not work well in
printed projects. Often these files are saved as low resolutions and are not suitable for print
reproduction. In printed mediums such as books, magazines and newspapers, raster images
are often used to reproduce photographs. Adobe Photoshop is where you would edit raster
graphics and good for making posters and magazine and make these products look
professional. Thematic and continuous rasters may be displayed as data layers along with
other geographic data on your map but are often used as the source data for spatial
analysis. Conceptual artists, digital painters, web designers and comic book artists also turn
to Photoshop for a lot of their work. Web Designers se Photoshop to help mock up layouts,
create web interfaces, and develop a lot of graphical components for sites I'm working on
because Photoshop is very flexible.

Use in different media forms

Print
Print media includes newspapers, newsletters and magazines. Reporters are the newspaper
writers who investigate newsworthy events and interesting stories. Editors assign stories to
reporters, edit story content, and decide which stories to print. Making it a PDF would be
the best option if I had to choose. Certain forms of print media allow for a high level of
target marketing. Magazines, for example, tend to be highly specialized, so ads can be
developed to appeal to a specific readership. 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.
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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. 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. The best thing about print based media is the tangibility among
other reasons including people prefer the feel of paper in their hands.

Moving Image
A moving image would be a GIF, which is a bitmap image format and used by many people
due to its portability. Many GIF files have a single image that fills the entire logical screen.
Others divide the logical screen into separate sub-images. The images may also function as
animation frames in an animated GIF file, but again these need not fill the entire logical
screen. A GIF image can contain 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 or 256 colours, which are stored in a
colour palette or colour lookup table within the image file. Each colour in the GIF colour
table is described in RGB values, with each value having a range of 0 to 255. CMYK colours
are not possible in GIF. I will not use any moving images in my work so I will not have to use
a GIF. Animated GIFs are generally easier to create than comparable images with Java or
Flash and usually smaller in size and thus faster to display. An animated GIF can loop
endlessly or it can present one or a few sequences and then stop the animation. Animated
GIFs are frequently used in Web ad banners. Each frame can designate one index as a
"transparent background colour": any pixel assigned this index takes on the colour of the
pixel in the same position from the background, which may have been determined by a
previous frame of animation. Many techniques, collectively called dithering, have been
developed to approximate a wider range of colours with a small colour palette by using
pixels of two or more colours to approximate in-between colours. These techniques sacrifice
spatial resolution to approximate deeper colour resolution. While not part of the GIF
specification, dithering can of course be used in images subsequently encoded as GIF
images. This is often not an ideal solution for GIF images, both because the loss of spatial
resolution typically makes an image look fuzzy on the screen, and because the dithering
patterns often interfere with the compressibility of the image data, working against GIF's
main purpose. GIFs are the most common format for animated banners and buttons.
Animated GIFs are relatively easy to work with and widely supported by Web browsers,
although they lack some of the functionality offered by rich media.
Robert Eastwood

Another moving image is a video. Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying,
playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video systems vary greatly in
the resolution of the display and refresh rate. Video can be carried on a variety of media,
including radio broadcast, tapes and computer files. Video technology was developed first
for mechanical TV systems which were quickly replaced by CRT TV systems. The use of
digital techniques in video created digital video, which allowed higher quality and,
eventually, much lower cost than earlier analog technology. After the invention of the DVD
in 1997 and Blu-ray Disc in 2006, sales of videotape and recording equipment plummeted.
Advances in computer technology allowed even inexpensive personal computers to capture,
store, edit and transmit digital video, further reducing the cost of video production, allowing
program-makers and broadcasters to move to tapeless production. The advent of digital
broadcasting and the subsequent digital television transition is in the process of relegating
analog video to the status of a legacy technology in most parts of the world. The frame rate
for the videos ranges from six or right frames per second for the older mechanical cameras
to 120 or more frames per second for the new more professional cameras. There are
different formats to choose from for video transmission and storage; for the transmission
there is a physical connector and signal protocol. A given physical link can carry certain
display standards that specify a particular refresh rate, display resolution, and colour space.
Any analog and digital recording formats are in use, and digital video clips can also be stored
on a computer file system as files, which have their own formats. In addition to the physical
format used by the data storage device or transmission medium, the stream of ones and
zeros that is sent must be in a particular digital video compression format, of which a
number are available.
Robert Eastwood

Interactive
Multimedia data and information must be stored in a disk file using formats similar to image
file formats. Multimedia formats, however, are much more complex than most other file
formats because of the wide variety of data they must store. Such data includes text, image
data, audio and video data, computer animations, and other forms of binary data, such as
Musical Instrument Digital Interface, control information and graphical fonts. I will not have
anything be interactive in my work I just want people to look at The Pixels work and be
intrigued. A good example of something being interactive is websites because you have put
buttons on to it, which is making the audience do things to get to the rest of your product.
However, as I am just making a poster and a CD cover the most the audience have to do is
read and turn over the CD cover to look at the back. An electronic format permits a degree
of interactivity never possible in printed documents, including hyperlinks, automated
actions, and the use of audio and video objects. You can create interactive document just as
you would make print document but now you can add buttons and other interactive things.
The fancy page-transition effects, for example, appear only in Flash and full-screen-view PDF
files, whereas support for audio and video formats varies widely across the supported
multimedia formats. So, its more likely you will have one or two formats in mind as you
create a document, and youll use just the capabilities available in them. Buttons are more
powerful than simple hyperlinks. Buttons contain the code that can send you to
destinations, flip pages, open Web pages, play movies, show and hide other buttons, and
other tricks. Companies may create websites which are interactive and have an interactive
advert which lets a user physically interact with the advert in order to gather attention.
Doing this gives the user an interactive experience and hopefully it will improve sales for the
company.

Conclusion
Overall I think Raster is the best option because of how much I use Photoshop
and also how much clearer it look when zoomed in. I also like the through of
using the interactive part of a website and having people click buttons and
have Gif and videos on the website as well. There are so many advantages to
raster as well such as:
The geographic location of each cell is implied by its position in the cell
matrix. Accordingly, other than an origin point, e.g. bottom left corner,
no geographic coordinates are stored.
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Due to the nature of the data storage technique data analysis is usually
easy to program and quick to perform.
The inherent nature of raster maps, e.g. one-attribute maps, is ideally
suited for mathematical modelling and quantitative analysis.
Discrete data, e.g. forestry stands, is accommodated equally well as
continuous data, e.g. elevation data, and facilitates the integrating of the
two data types.
Grid-cell systems are very compatible with raster-based output devices,
e.g. electrostatic plotters, graphic terminals.