Glossary of Graphic Terms for Graphic Designs / Artist / Illustrator CSs

Resource Index | Photoflashgraphics

Graphic Terms

Graphic Terms F-Z

Additive Colour

A colour produced by light falling onto a surface, as compared to subtractive colour. The additive primary colours are red, green and blue.

Anti-alias

The blending of pixel colours on the perimeter of hard-edged shapes, like type, to smooth undesirable edges (jaggies).

Artwork

All original copy, including type, photos and illustrations, intended for printing. Also called art.

Alpha Channel

A special 8-bit grayscale channel that is used for saving a selection.

CIE-Lab

A colour standard based on imaginary primary colours XYZ, which are purely theoretical and independent of device-dependent colour gamuts such as RGB and CMYK. The virtual colours have been selected so that all colours which can be perceived by the human eye lie within their colour space.

CMYK

Acronym for cyan-magenta-yellow-black. A colour model that describes each colour in terms of the quantity of each secondary colour (cyan, magenta, yellow), and "key" (black) it contains. The CMYK system is used for printing.

Colour Balance

Refers to amounts of process colours that simulate the colours of the original scene or photograph.

Colour Cast

Unwanted colour affecting an entire image or portion of an image.

Colour Correct

Adjust the relationship among the process colours to achieve desirable colours.

Colour Gamut

Range of hues possible to reproduce using a specific device, such as a computer screen, or system, such as four-colour process printing.  colours.

Colour Model

Way of categorizing and describing the infinite array of colours found in nature.

Composition

(1) In typography, the assembly of typographic elements, such as words and paragraphs, into pages ready for printing. (2) In graphic design, the arrangement of type, graphics and other elements on the page.

Crop

To cut off part of an image, such as unneeded sections of a graphic or extra white space around the borders.

Crop Marks

Lines near the edges of an image indicating portions to be reproduced. Also called cut marks and tic marks.

DPI (Dots-Per-Inch)

Acronym for dots per inch. A measure of screen and printer resolution that is expressed as the number of dots that a device can print or display per linear inch.

Duotone

A colour mode which adds a single accent colour to a grayscale image.

EPS

Encapsulated Post Script, a known file format usually used to transfer post script information from one program to another.

Encode

To convert a graphics file from one size to another, either larger or smaller, for purposes of printing, editing, or transmitting electronically.

Flattening

A Photoshop CS process in which all visible layers are merged into the background, greatly reducing file size. Flattening an image discards all hidden layers and fills the remaining transparent areas with white.
 

Graphic Terms F-Z

Multimedia | Graphic | Resources Index
Graphics | Animation | Resources
Html Guides Editors | Style | Design
Vector Graphics Tutorials
  CorelDraw | Illustrator CS2 | Freehand 10
Raster Graphics Tutorials
   Photoshop CS2 | Painter 9
Design Elements
Glossary of Graphic Terms