Zinnia Bell

The graphic card, display card, display adapter, graphics board, video card, video adapter, or graphics adapters job is to take information in the form of binary data and then translate it into an image to be projected to a video display devise such as a monitor or projector. Graphics cards usually have their own processor, GPU or graphical processing unit and a cooling system due to the large amount of power it uses and heat it produces. Without an updated graphics card you would not be able to play any recent games that are graphically detailed, fast action, and a lot going on at one time. GRAPHICS CARD

A hard disk drive is a data storage device, all computers have one but external hard drives can be bought that connect via USB and come in different memory sizes from 1GB to 1TB. They come in many shapes and models, such as USB sticks, and flash drives. It features rotated ridged platters on a motor driven spindle within a protective enclosure. HDD (HARD DISK DRIVE)

Graphics tablets or drawing tablets are Input devices that are generally used for graphic design, they enable the user to hand draw images as if a pencil on paper. Some tablets feature an LED screen so that the user can view what they are drawing on the tablet for precision, although most tablets do not feature this because it is not always necessary as the image is displayed also on the monitor/screen. Some tablets are intended as a general replacement for a mouse as the primary pointing and navigation device for desktop computers and are also used to capture hand-written signatures such as signing for a package. GRAPHICS TABLET

The monitor or display is an essential piece of computing equipment needed for a desktop computer or laptop computer (although already built in to a laptop computer), the monitor is the key way at looking through the information in image form, the images produced by a monitor are made up of millions of pixels, the size and resolution however varies. Some people like to have more than one monitor connected to a computer because it gives them dual control. Some people connect their televisions to their computer/laptop so that they may stream movies on a bigger screen. MONITORS

A printer is a peripheral which makes a representation of an electronic document on physical media i.e paper. This document is sent from a computer to the printer usually by USB, or on a large scale by using a wireless network to more than one computer. Individual printers are designed to support local and network users at the same time. Some printers can print documents stored on memory cards or from digital cameras and scanners. There is also another kind of printing called 3D printing, where objects can be created by laying down following layers of material using three dimensional files and a 3D printer. PRINTERS

In computing, an image scanner (or just referred to as a scanner) is a device that optically scans images, handwriting, objects, or printed text, and converts it to a digital image or can print an exact replica of the document. Scanners are most formally known as office equipment, the most common kind of scanner is the desktop scanner or ‘flatbed’ scanner, there are also hand-held scanners which are moved by hand and 3D scanners which are used for industrial design. A lot of people use scanners so to retrieve images and documents that have not been backed up on a hard drive or online drive. Scanners may be helpful in digital graphics for copying images from magazines/books and photographs that may of only been printed on film, scanners are a quick and easy way to replicate documents and can scan up to 150 pages per minute. SCANNER

A digital camera is a piece of equipment that records and stores pictures onto a memory card instead of film, a memory card can hold many more photos than an ordinary film camera and so is now a more preferred way of recording visual data. Memory cards come in various different sizes of memory and so can hold various amounts of pictures and videos. Videos generally take up more space than photographs because they are done in frames, although not all digital cameras take videos. Generally images from a digital camera are imported onto a computer via USB, although some cameras can upload photos via Bluetooth and Wifi connection. As technology moves forward the amount you can do with a digital camera is ever-changing, memory is now infinite and different kinds of editing software in camera is available. DIGITAL CAMERA

Adobe Photoshop is a profession photo editing software developed by Adobe Systems. Photoshop is a very large programme with a variety of tools to use for photo editing, and so most of the techniques are not suitable for beginners. Although there are different tutorials available for beginners who are looking to improve their skills using the software. ADOBE PHOTOSHOP Adobe Photoshop is released in two editions: Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Photoshop Extended, with the Extended having extra 3D image creation, motion graphics editing, and advanced image analysis features.

Paint is a basic form of image creating software released by Microsoft and has been included with all versions of Microsoft Windows. The program opens and saves files as Windows bitmap (24-bit, 256 color, 16 color, and monochrome, all with the.bmp extension), JPEG, GIF (without animation or transparency.) Paint on Windows 7 is considered the most advanced yet as it includes a wide range of ‘artists’ brushes and tools. Paint is usually used for pixel art as it uses bitmap technology, this means that any image drawn is distinctly made up of pixels (which gives it a square appearance) MICROSOFT PAINT

PaintShop Pro (PSP) was originally created as a raster graphics editor only and became a vector graphics editor later in its series for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. PaintShop Pro is an affordable yet flexible and powerful photo editor and graphic design tool that offers photo enhancement tools for correcting color and tone, red eye, noise, and other common problems. Painshop Pro is for beginners and professional use and includes a mixture of ‘fun’ and serious tools for editing. PAINTSHOP PRO

The main difference between Raster and Vector Images is that Raster images are a dot matrix data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium whereas vector images are made of a thing referred to as ‘paths.’ RASTER S/W AND VECTOR S/W Left: Raster/ Bitmap (.jpg.gif.png) Right: Vector (.svg) Raster files formats are GIF or JPEG, these file formats are made of pixels of different colours, whereas a typical vector file format would be EPS and BMP files, these files are composed of paths and lines that are either straight or curved. Left: Vector Right: Raster

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