ABOUT PHOTOSHOP

What is Adobe Photoshop? Adobe Photoshop is hands down, the most popular program for creating and modifying images for design projects such as poster, brochure, animation and website. This is true not only because Photoshop is available on a wide array of platforms ranging from Mac to Windows to UNIX, but because after four generations of development, Adobe Photoshop has the most intuitive user interface, the most complete set of tools, and the largest number of reference books around. Photoshop is only one tool in a good designer's arsenal. Other popular tools include Paint Shop Pro, DeBabelizer, or LView Pro for Windows and GIF Converter or Graphics Converter for Macintosh. Fractal Design, Aldus and HSC also put out some excellent programs. However, since most programs these days use similar concepts, many of the things we talk about here will be directly relevant to any other graphics program on the market. Photoshop Requirements One thing to keep in mind about using Photoshop however that is since Photoshop is so powerful, it requires a fairly souped-up working environment to make it run more efficiently. Specifically, it would be a good idea to have at least 32MB of RAM. After all, as a designer, you will be tasking your system while developing. Often you will have several internet windows, Photoshop, HTML editor, a word processor, and two or three other software open all at one time. Without enough resources, your computer will not have enough power to keep up with you. What Does Photoshop Do? So what exactly can you do with Photoshop? Well, like any image-editing program, you can use Photoshop to "alter" images like photos, downloaded images, or scanned artwork. Altering an image includes doing such things as changing the colors within an image, modifying the size and scale of an image, or putting one picture "within" another. Here are some versions of an image that has been altered by Photoshop. Alteration also includes technical modifications such as changing the mode of image compression from one type to another, or changing the number of bits used per pixel. But, aside from altering images, Photoshop has a vast array of tools that help you "create" images from scratch. On the web, you will often need to make custom icons, buttons, lines, balls or text art. Photoshop makes all of this excessively easy and fun. When Photoshop draws a line, the line is converted into little dots, called pixels. When small enough, and with blended colors (anti-aliasing), these dots can come to look like lines. ABOUT PHOTOSHOP ABOUT BITMAP/RASTER IMAGES ABOUT VECTOR GRAPHICS OPEN FILES SAVING AND EXPORTING IMAGES