The impact of evolving output media on the design and creation of graphic images

The overall impact of evolving output media on the design and creation of graphic images can only be a good thing. The new technologies involved in creating and viewing graphic images mean that images today are much more clear and life-like. The introduction of "next-gen" gaming meant output media needed to stay one step ahead, monitors have always had the capabilities to play whatever you can throw at them, but the last few generations of monitor have concentrated on size and price, meaning the next-gen gamers werent getting the quality of images console gamers got on TVs. In the last few years however, monitors have been made with picture quality first, this has kept them one step ahead of TVs, not just in price, but quality.
Printers have always been expensive if you wanted to get the kind of picture your happy with. The prices would jump massivly for a short increase in quality, so if people wanted real quality the only option was to get them printed elsewhere, usually their local library. Printer quality has always been there, but the last generation has seen printers evolve into a scanner, colour copier and a fax machine all in one. This is great if you happen to need all of those features, if not then you will find yourself paying the same amount for just the printer of the same quality. With all these new features comes a new, much more advanced way of using it. The options to you are endless, but only if you can get it working atall. All this means The design and creation of graphic images is left to the side, and it seems the only issue is price.

File size and image quality changes

Vector Images (.DXF) are made using mathematics, angles, percentages etc. instead of pixels. This means the file size of a vector image is much less than the file size of a jpeg image. This also means because the mathematics dont change with larger images the image keeps its quality when resized.

Vector Image:

Although this image is saved a a Gif you can still see how mathematics are used to create the image, meaning it can be resized without the loss of quality.

Jpeg images:

As you can see when left at the correct size Jpeg images are much more detailed than vector images, but when resized most of the quality is lost.

Compression techniques such as WinZip will compress the file to make it as small as possible. When unzipped the image will be the same file size as it was originally and still have its original charactoristics.
Image resolution is the overall detail level in the image, because .DXF is a vector image the overall image detail is not as high as it would be if it was a jpeg. The colour depth of an image is the bits per pixel, the more bits in a pixel the more colours are available to make the image more lefe-like. Vector images dont use pixels so this doesnt come into effect untill the image is pinted, and then its down to the printer defaults.

Define and document a client and user need for three related graphic images

The last images i have been asked to make is 2 different images of a bush using the same template picture but make them both look different, one is a summer picture, the second one is an autumn picture, these are the results i got:


Image in summer:






Image in autumn:





The last image i was asked to edit was a peice from a magazine that was graffitied, i was asked to put the things that were wrong correct again, only the face and arm were graffitied so editing it didnt take too long.



Before editing:


After editing:

Potential legal implications

Copyright
Pretty much the only legal implication when using/editing graphic images is copyright, which generally means "the right to copy". Alot of images are either copied from someone elses design or directly copied then edited, this is not neccessary against any copyright laws because the image is not the same as the original. Although aslong as the credit is given to the original creator it is possible to actually copy and use the image. In order to actually copy and resuse someone elses images you need to ask the permission of the owner.

Identifying ownership
If the image has a logo or stamp on or near the image it signals the ownership of the image and who has the rights to that image, if a logo isn't on or near the image then the rights of the image might be owned by the owner of th website, so to use the image in anyway contacting the website owner may be the best option.

Copyright Free
Any image that is copyright free can freely be used, edit and distributed to anyone you desire, these images are usually images that are free with graphic packages or websites that clearly identifies their images as copyright free.

Define and document the client and user needs

Firstly my ncompany will need a new banner to advertise our new game, it will need to be a standard A3 sized poster with as little actual information as possible because it is only going to be used as a teaser poster, it will only need an image of one of the game characters, with the game creators, age certificate(18) and the games title: "Death By Turtle".

I will also need a game case front page to go with the poster, again it must have the games name on it and the quote "How will you survive?". It must also have an image of the main character on itas the focal point, it must also be a a variation of both dark and bright colours, to emphisise both aspects of the game, turtles and death.

The final thing i will need is a new small poster to be passed put by hand, a4 sized. The images again must also be very secretive and cannot give too much away, the iamges required for the poster will be included so you know what you can use. The colour scheme must also be very dark but with highlights of colour.

Two advanced techniques

The image on top is the original image, on below is my edited version of the image. I have made it slighty brighter to lighten the overall effect and make it a much nicer image to look at, to do this i created a few new layers, blured them and changed the blending optins untill i was satisfied with the result. I then added the sun in the distance to give the image a more holiday-like look. To create the sun i made a new layer then added a filter: lens flare, then i went through the blending options untill i found the option to best suit the image.

The top image is the original image and the bottom image is the one i have edited. There are multiple layers making up the look of the image, firstly i copied the layer and put the filter accented edges on to get a white outline around the main features of the image, i then made several new layers to create the colour inside the white lines, different filters and effects are being used on each layer, some layers have gaussion blur, some have filters with different blending options, such as; color dodge, soft light and hue as well as a few others.

Vizual impact report

Image One EnCert

EnCert is a new company who have asked for a logo to be designed for their website.They provide certificates to home buyers to show how 'green' the house is. This is legal requirement for homes sold in the UK with 4 or more bedrooms.

My rough design:

Techniques used

To create the image i firstly used a simple font to create the "En" and then made a new text layer and typed "Cert". I then cut and added new peices to get the effect of the writing touching eachother, for the windmill effect at the side of the logo i added an image of a windmill from google and colourized the windmill to match the colour of the writing.

Evaluation
The images modern look is done by the use of current graphic design/logos because it is a simplistic yet effective design.
The whole graphic is green to represent the "green" nature of the company. The windmill on the image is also a "green" statement because of the "green-ness" of windmills.

Justification
This image was designed and created using Adobe Photoshop. This software is the industry standard for creating images of this type, however for logos a vector image may be more appropriate but as i decided to go for quality above anything else i decided to use Adobe Photoshop, this is also due to the vast amonut of tools available to make the image perfect. The file formats used for this image are .PSD and .jpg. The reason for saving the image as a PSD file type is so that in the future i can easily edit the image in Photoshop as it saves all the layers, effects etc i used when creating the image. The reson behind using jpeg was because it is a standar file extention that keeps file size down but keeps image quality high.

Image Two is the Microsoft poster
Microsoft has approached me to produce some displays for its stand at a show to be held in the Birmingham NEC publicising its newest operating system. They require a graphic that could be printed onto a large piece of card to be used on the Microsoft stand.

My rough design:

Techniques used
Firstly i got the background image from an old vista background and positioned it in an appropriate place for what i will do next, which was the text, to create the text i firstly made various text effects to create a chrome effect on the text, i then went through the selection of PhotoShop standard fonts to find the one that i believed best fit the image. i then made the windows logo a chrome-like design; to do this i took the original windows logs and blured it so it would look asif the new logo i created would have a glow of the original windows logo colours.

Evaluation

The image shows exactly what is needed and nothing more, as its a poster its only designed to be looked at and not read, making alot of text unnessesary. The colour scheme matches the chrome theme of the new OS which is an important feature from a design point of view. the text isn't as clear as it could be but the vizual effect of the image more than makes up for this.

Justification

This image, aswell as the EnCert Logo was designed and created using Adobe Photoshop. This software is the industry standard for creating images of this type, this is due to the vast amonut of tools available to make the image perfect, these tools can help when changing the resolution and colour depth. The colour depth in Photoshop is 72 bit the same as most pinters standard, so no editing is neccessary when printing.. The file formats used for this image are .PSD and .jpg. The reason for saving the image as a PSD file type is so that in the future i can easily edit the image in Photoshop as it saves all the layers, effects etc i used when creating the image. The reson behind using jpeg was because it is a standar file extention that keeps file size down but keeps image quality high.

Image Three is the organic foods mobile fast-food service roadside sign.

An organics foods mobile fast-food service has requested a roadside sign. It will be used on a stand so when its van is parked in a lay-by offering quality burgers and all-day breakfasts, passing motoists will notice it. This sign is to be in full colour and must be eye-catching

My rough design:

Techniques used

Firstly i got the image of an organic burger and added the relevent text, as its a roadside sign not alot needs to be on it as you'll be driving past and wont have time to read alot of writing or look at fancy images. It's because of this i chose to only put what was neccessary on the sign.

Evaluation
The image only has exactly what is needed as stated above, this is because it will only be read when going along the road at speed and having lots of writing on is just as waste of time as they wont have time to read it, fancy images are also a waste of time which is why i chose i simple but perfect image, an organic burger.

Justification

This image was designed and created using Adobe Photoshop. This software is the industry standard for creating images of this type, however for this type of simple yet effective roadside sign any graphics programme is useable with a goo outcome, but as i decided to go for quality and useability above anything else i decided to use Adobe Photoshop, this is due to the vast amonut of tools available to make the printing proccess very simple, as Photoshop colour depth is 72 bit as standard, the same as most printers. The file formats used for this image are .PSD and .jpg. The reason for saving the image as a PSD file type is so that in the future i can easily edit the image in Photoshop as it saves all the layers, effects etc i used when creating the image. The reson behind using jpeg was because it is a standar file extention that keeps file size down but keeps image quality high.

output media Evaluation

Monitors
The average monitor today is a very high standard, 17" flat screen monitors are what most people have and is a high enough quality and resoulution to make very detailed graphic images which are plentty good enough for what it needed. widescreen monitors are a different resoulution than the standard monitor so arent always the best to use when making graphics, the fact that they are much more expensive and not the standard resoultion means using them to create graphics is not advised.

Printers
printers nowdays are only usually used in either extreme of what they will be used for, either to print off black and white word documents or at the other end of the scale is printing posters. if you want the printer to be good enough to print good poster print outs you'l need to spend around £200-£300 depending on the manufacturer, this may seem expensive considering you can get one for around £50, but if you want to make a living from making and printing graphics it has to be of a very high quality.

Comparing Software packages

The two software packages i'll be comparing are Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, i have used both myself so know what each can do, i started with Paint Shop Pro and advanced to Photoshop which kind of shows what the difference is between them. Photoshop is a much more advanced programme, it is harder to use but has alot more features, although each feature has its own area where it can be used for maximum effieciency, features such as multiple filters to edit the appearence of each layer, magic want tool which only selects specific parts of the image, both useful features that arent in Paint Shop Pro.
Paint Shop Pro is a relativly easy to use and a cheaper alternative than Photoshop, it doesnt have alot of features but it has enough for simple and certain areas of advanced photo editing. Both packages have their downfalls, the biggest by far downfall of Photoshop is its pricetag, costing around £700 where Paint Shop Pro costs around £40, a much cheaper choice. The biggest downfall in Paint Shop Pro is its limited features, but when it comes to doing this as a proffesion nothing other than Photoshop will do, its not always necessary to get the latest version but at least you'll need Photoshop CS.

Software used for digital graphics

Vector graphics software such as Visio are used in situation where the user has an image that needs to keep its quality even after it has been resized, bitmap images are noo good for this as they are created pixel by pixel.
Bitmap software, such as Paint is only really used for simple things, like print screening images then saving them, or other very simple editing, such as putting text on images, it has no layers so is very limited in what can be done.
Photo manipulation software, such as Photoshop are used to do advanced photo editing, the layer system in Photoshop allowes easy editing of each layer indevidually. Photoshop is also used to create website layouts and templates which are then cut up and used in different software to create the website.
Graphic facilities embedded within other application packages, such as Word are only really used because it is quick and easy, they are also usually vector images so they can be streched but will keep there quality.

Graphic-related hardware problems in this system

System specification
Intel Pentium D 'Dual Core X2' CPU (5.3 Ghz)
VIA Chipset 1066 Mhz Motherboard - slots available: AGP8x (1), PCI (3), RAM (2); ports available: LAN (1), USB (6)
512 MB RAM
80 GB HDD (SATA300)
18X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer & Dual Format
onboard UniChrome PRO 3D Graphics with 64 MB shared memory
mouse and keyboard
15" flat screen
cheap inkjet printer

Monitor
15" monitors aren't good enough for graphics nowadays as they usually have a very low standard screen resolution (800x600 pixels) and to effectivly create graphics you need a much higher resolution screen, the more pixels you can see at one time the more detail you can put in images. 19" is a recommended size but 17" is just about enough for what its needed.

My recommendation for this product is a LG W1952TQ 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor. Its Description is below:
£109.99ex VAT
£129.24 inc VAT
Viewable Area: 19” Widescreen (1440x900 Resolution)
- Interface: Analog / Digital
- Response Time: 2ms
- 16.7M Colours
- Contrast Ratio: 10,000:1
- Viewing Angle (H/V): 170°/ 170° (TN Panel)
- Brightness: 300cd/m2
- Supplied with DVI Cable
- ez Zooming, Adjust resolution by one level with a touch of a button.
- 4:3 in Wide (Aspect Ratio Control), Enjoy original 4:3 images with LG Wide Monitor!, With 4:3 in Wide(ARC) Function, No more distored image!
- Wide Color Gamut(WCG 100%)
- 3 Years On-Site Warranty with LG, contact them on 0870 872 7888 or email at ukmonitor@lge.com
These features are perfect to create and edit images effectivley for a low price. although there are better machines available for much more money, i believe this LG monior has the right blend of features and value for money.

Graphics Card
The onboard graphics aren't close to whats needed to create good, high quality graphics, theres no need to go over the top as its not for playing games, just creating graphics, although you do need it good enough to view very high definition pictures and needs to support a good monitor

My recommendation for this product is a Asus GeForce EN8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 Graphics card. Its Description is below:
£89.99ex VAT
£105.74 inc VAT
- GeForce 8800 GT core running at 600MHz
- Shader Clock Speed of 1500MHz
- 512MB GDDR3 Memory running at 1800MHz
- Glacier uprated cooling solution (Quieter and Superior to reference cooler)
- 256-Bit Memory Interface
- 112 Stream Processors
- Shader Model 4.0
- Memory Bandwidth: 57.6GB/s
- Designed For Extreme HD Gaming
- Nvidia Pure Video Technology
- Dedicated Video processors free the GPU Shaders to run 3D applications
- Dual dual-link DVI supports two 2560 x 1600 resolution displays
- HDCP Enabled!!
- SLI ready – Upto 2x the performance of a single GPU (Available on with future driver release)
- True High Dynamic Range Rendering Support – Based on Open EXR technology
- World's first unified architecture supporting Microsoft® DirectX® 10
- Built for Microsoft® Windows® Vista™

These features are more than enough to cope with anything you can throw at it graphically, its more than capable of running everything you'll need but its not too expensive that its not financially viable to buy it.

Both of the proposed system upgrades can be found on www.overclockers.co.uk

Describe how the following hardware components affect the performance of a computer system used to manipulate digital graphics

Hard drive
The only difference the hard drive will make is if it runs out of space, it has no real affect directly on graphics but without the hard drive making them is impossible.


Graphics card
The graphics card is used to display the images on the screen so the better the quality of the graphics card the more detail can be put in the image.

Processor(s)
The processor is what is used to run the programme your making the image on, the faster the processor the faster the effects are done in the programme, with some programmes like paint, this isnt an issue but for PhotoShop loading time is important.

RAM
Random Access Memory, everything on the screen is done through RAM, the more RAM you have, the more you can do at the same time.

Hardware and software required to work with graphic images

What each of the following items does in a computer system used to manipulate digital graphics

Mouse - Screen - Graphics tablet - Digital camera - Scanner - Flash cards - USB storage devices

Mouse

A mouse allows you to interact with the image, apart from the keyboard its one of the only methods to interact with the actual image. The mouse is used to move, create things on the image. Without a mouse things will take much longer so it is the key method of graphic interface.

Screen
The only effect a screen has is if the image wont be as easy to see and therefore manipulate if the screen size isn’t a high resolution. In order to get the most from any graphics programme a high def monitor is required.

Graphics tablet

Graphic tablets are for more artistic purposes, sometimes graphic designers need computers to be as good as they are, where as artists can use a graphics tablet in the same way as they’d write on paper, this will be faster for people familiar with graphics tablets but wont be as precise as using a mouse.

Digital camera

Digital cameras are purely used to get the image onto the computer ready to be manipulated. The camera its self is never used to edit graphics, although some cameras do have the ability to edit images but are often terrible.

Scanner

A scanner is similar to a digital camera in the fact that it is only used to get the image onto the computer, they are usually used to scan a picture that is taken on a digital camera.

USB storage devices

All USB storage devices are used for is to hold and transfer data, in this case images.

Graphic Differences

The differences between bitmap editing paint and photoshop are what options you have to edit the image, and the fact that photoshop has layers. Photoshop is a photo manipulating programme, meaning you can do alot of things to enhance the image rather than just making minor chanes to it which is what paint is for. Bitmap images are bigger file sizes because every pixel has to be indevidually saved.

Vector images aren't made up of seperate pixels making their file sizes much smaller. Vector programmes such as Visio are used when the image may need to be resized without losing any quality, this cant be done with paint or photoshop.