1. Unit 30 Digital Graphics – Course overview Anne Sewell

2. Introduction
Digital graphics are found in many places, including promotional materials, documents and websites.
This unit will give you an awareness of the software currently available to create and manipulate images.
It will show you techniques that you can practice to enhance your graphical skills, as well as the hardware required to capture, edit and print digital images.

3. On completion
When you have completed this unit you will have improved your technical skills using both vector and bitmap software packages. You will learn the importance of choosing an appropriate file format for saved graphics, with an appreciation of the issues around resizing images and pixellation distortion.
You will need to understand how to use formal checking to ensure that a final product meets the requirements and that artwork keeps within the laws of copyright.

4. On completion continued:
After completing this unit, you should be able to achieve these outcomes:
Know the hardware and software required to work with graphic images
Understand type of graphic image and graphical file format
Be able to use editing tools to edit and manipulate technically complex images
Be able to create and modify graphic images to meet user requirements

5. P1 criteria
To achieve a pass grade the evidence must show that the learner is able to:
P1: Describe hardware and software used to create and edit graphics
For the moment we shall be looking at software……

6. Software:
Software is the term used to describe the programs that run on a computer. Application software is used to help people produce work.
There are many types of application that can be used to manipulate and view digital graphics.

7. Dedicated vector graphics software:
Vector graphics are different from bitmap graphics. The main features of vector graphics are:
Small size when saved to disk
No loss of print qualify when enlarged or reduced in size
Vector pictures are made from objects such as circles and rectangles
Each object has an outline and/or fill
Objects may be grouped together

8. Dedicated vector graphics software:
Vector graphics are very good for diagrams.
Examples of vector drawing packages include:
CorelDRAW, Autodesk AutoCAD and Microsoft Visio (see the BTEC National Information Technology Practitioners Book 2, pages 238/9 for examples)
Vector graphics define objects as coordinate points and use mathematics inside the software to calculate how to display the image onto the screen or printer

9. Dedicated bitmap software:
Bitmap graphics are different from vector graphics. The main features of bitmap graphics are:
Large file size when saved to disk
Print quality can become ‘blocky’ when enlarged or reduced in size
Bitmaps can be created when a picture is scanned into a computer system using a scanner or from a digital camera

10. Dedicated bitmap software:
Bitmap graphics are very good for screenshots and web page illustrations.
Examples of bitmap drawing pages include Corel Paint Shop Pro and Microsoft Paint
Bitmap graphics are made from lots of pixels, each with a colour. They are also called raster graphics.

11. Dedicated photo manipulation software:
Photo manipulation software applications are specialist programs that are very good for manipulating photographs.
Examples of bitmap drawing pages include Corel PHOTO-PAINT and Adobe Photoshop

12. Graphics facilities embedded within other application packages:
Many applications have graphical capabilities built into them, eg Word is a word processing application that also has very impressive graphical features allowing the easy inclusion of photographs and other digital graphics in a document

13. Other tools :
Other software tools are available to IT professionals, for example CorelTRACE which converts a bitmap graphic into a vector graphic

14. Activity : Digital graphics software
Identify software used for digital graphics and produce presentation slides to give an impression of how graphical software can be used.
Explain the differences between:
Vector graphics software, such as CorelDRAW
Bitmap software, such as Paint
Photo manipulation software, such as Photoshop
Graphics facilities embedded within other application packages, such as Word