Ict Unit 30 Essay Example for Free

Ict Unit 30 Essay Section B Hardware: Graphics Card Graphics cards processes all your graphics in your computer. All Graphics Cards have memory, these come in 128MB, 256MB and 512MB. The more memory your computer has, the faster it will run and combine it with a good processor. Internal Memory Cache memory is a added memory system that temporarily stores frequently used instructions and data for quicker processing by the central processor of a computer. RAM Random Access Memory is the working memory in a computer. Processor – The chip inside the computer that performs all of the calculations and operations necessary to make your computer run. Software: Vector based – CorelDraw is a vector graphic design software package. Other examples include: Adobe Illustrator, Computer Graphics Metafile and Shockwave Flash. Raster based Photo Raster is an advanced online photo editor software. Bitmap based Paintshop Pro is an image manipulation software, it allows you to work with Vectors and Rasters. Photo Manipulation Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program. Other software Image viewers and photo galleries. File formats: TIFF file A TIFF file stands for Tagged Image File Format. TIFF files are a common format for images, especially those used on graphic design. GIF file – GIF files are a format commonly used for graphics presented on websites. GIFs can contain a maximum of 256 colours, and are therefore best for images that contain simple shapes. JPG file JPG files, also known as JPEG files, are a common file format for digital photos and other digital graphics. When JPG files are saved, they use lossy compression, meaning image quality is lost as file size decreases. M1: A raster graphic or image is made up of pixels. Pixels are small squares of information. Raster graphics are wonderful for rich, full-colour images such as photographs. Raster graphics are rendered images on a pixel-by-pixel basis and they are fantastic when handling shading and gradients. Raster graphics are great when creating rich and detailed images. Every pixel in a  raster image can be a different colour therefore you can create a complex image with any kind of colour changes and variations. Also almost any program can work with a simple raster file. The most recognized application that handles raster graphics is Adobe Photoshop however there are also several other image editing software options out there for you to choose from. However raster images cannot be scaled up in size very well. If you do try to enlarge a raster image, it will look grainy and distorted. This is because raster images are created with a finite number of pixels. When you increase the size of a raster image, the image increases in size however, because there are no longer enough pixels to fill in this larger space, gaps are created between the pixels in the image. The photo editing software that you are using will try to fill these gaps the best they can however, the resulting image is often blurry. Another disadvantage is raster graphics are not great for embroidery. Because raster images are based on square pixels, your embroidery may look like it has jagged edges. If you want to embroider an image with smoother edges, it is best to use vector graphics instead of raster graphics. A vector graphic is made up of a series of small points that combine together to make lines and images. The most recognized applications which handle vector based graphics are Adobe illustrator, Macromedia freehand and Corel draw. Vector graphics are generally used for line art, illustrations and embroidery. Vector files are small because they contain a lot less data than raster files. Also vector graphics are more flexible than raster graphics because they can be easily scaled up and down without any loss to the quality of the image. As well as vector graphics having smoother lines when compared to square, pixel-based raster graphics therefore, they are better with straight lines and sweeping curves than raster graphics. However Vector graphics are generally filled with a solid colour or a gradient. They can’t display the lush colour depth of a raster graphic. Comparisons: A CD-ROM is a CD that can be read by a computer with an optical drive. The ROM part of the term means the data on the disc is read-only, or cannot be altered or erased; they can hold up to 700 MB. A hard drive however is the computers main storage media device that permanently stores all data on the computer. A flash card is a small data storage device that uses a flash  memory chip to store data. Flash cards can be quite small in size, with a capacity of many gigabytes of storage. And a USB storage device is a portable device that holds users data and files. USB storage devices include external hard drives and flash drives. A graphics tablet is an input device which allows you to draw a picture onto a computer screen without having to use a mouse or keyboard. It consists of a flat, touch-sensitive pad and some sort of drawing device, usually either a pen or stylus. However a computer mouse is an input device that is most often used with a personal computer. Moving a mouse along a flat surface can move the on-screen cursor to different items on the screen. A digital camera on the other hand is a camera that stores images digitally rather than recording them on film. Once a picture has been taken, it can be downloaded to a computer system, and then manipulated with a graphics program and then printed. Finally a computer scanner is used to convert a hard copy, that is a document you can hold in your hand, into data that your computer can read. Output media: The output medium involves a printer, monitor, mobile phone, PDA and a plotter. The way in which the development of output medium has had an impact on the design and the creation of the graphic images is by having vector images that look real life so it is clearer and appealing for people to look at. The reason for this is that before there used to be older monitor cases that were not as thin, because it is around 30cm deep and are Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors. Whereas now there are modern monitors that are thinner which means that the case isn’t more than a few centimetres deep and are generally LCD which is also known as the Liquid Crystal Display or thin Film Transistors (TST). The way in which the development of printers has had an impact on the design and the creation of the graphics is, because if people wanted to receive good quality printing then they would have to buy a printer that is more expensive. Whereas now people don’t have to buy an expensive printer to receive good quality graphics. Another way in which the development of the printers has had an impact on the design and the creation of the graphics is, because there are new features available on one machine so the specific needs of the customers are being met as they are able to do everything themselves. Mobile phones have also had an impact on the design and the creation of graphics is, because people are able to take a picture  from their phones and edit it onto the computer. Whereas now people are able to edit it on their phones and Bluetooth it to the computer or printer which is not time-consuming and more efficient. Section C D2: The file format is basically the way in which the layout of the image is known as, in order for it to be stored on the computer. Therefore this shows us that due to there being different types of file formats they can be reduced, so that they are easily recognised and accessed by the file. JPEG/ JPG also known as the Joint Photographic Experts Group and it is used for photos and the continuous tone images. This specific format is mainly for the web applications and it is quite similar to the GIF file, however the only difference is that the JPEG files store all of its colour data and doesn’t need transparency whereas the GIF files don’t store the colour information. In addition the reason as to why I would not use this file format for my images that I have got from Google is, because when I try to print the image or change its size for example increase it e.g. stretch it, then the image can become degraded or pixelated. This means that the image quality is lost, does no t look as efficient and it is not clear to see. There are two different types of compression techniques and these are Lossless compression and Lossy compression. Therefore the compression techniques are used to reduce the disk size of the file. So if the file size is reduced then there is more storage space. However it could also be that the file needs to be moved to a different location. For example a small file size arrives more quickly that a file with more capacity and information. Lossless compression is when the images can be rebuilt from the compressed image. Whereas lossy compression is the opposite so this means that the original image cannot be rebuilt from the compressed image. Image resolution is when the amount of detail the image includes. Therefore it could be for digital images, such as vector or bitmap images, film images and other types of images etc. However if an image has a higher resolution then there is more detail within it and it can be measured in many different ways. This means that the resolution of images just shows how close the lines are to each other and be visibly resolved. In addition the resolution units can be  viewed as the physical sizes, such as the lines per image the inch or to the overall size of a picture for example lines per picture height. The reason why colour depth is important is, because it controls the file size and the overall quality of the image. To conclude looking at the different factors of the images, such as file formats, compression techniques, image resolution and colour depth they each have their own role in maintaining a good quality image and different methods to do so. Section C P6: Copyright is when people create the different types of media which is in a form of information for example images, software and books. Therefore the owners have the right on how they would like the work to be used or copied. However when people want to reuse the image they need to get permission first, because the images could have copyright. This stops someone from copying an idea therefore the business will have enough time to develop and manufacture the idea. This can then be sold at a high price to begin, in order to recover some of the development costs. Copyright free is when the images can be used by anyone so these images can be found on web pages for example Google. This is because they are easily recognised as copyright free which could be included from the graphics software. Whereas there are some images that are not easily identified as copyright free so this means that the person needs to gain permission from the owner in order for it to be used, as it could result in th e image having copyright. Generally when someone asks permission from the owner it could result in paying a sum of money for the image to be reused. As well as when someone takes photos of other people then he or she will need to ask them to sign a model release form which gives the photographer permission to use the image. This is because there are some people who don’t find using someone’s photos appropriate without their permission. Whereas for non-commercial use for example education schools then it is suitable for them to copy the image and use it for their education as they might need it for their project and there is no other purpose for using the information. However if the students require a lot of information then they might need to get permission for using the information and stating the name of the copyright image and the owner of the piece of information.