Digital Vocabulary Sheet 1:

Pixel: (PICture Element) The smallest element of a digitized image. One small dot of light among the many dots that make up an image on a computer screen.

Megapixel: A unit equal to one million pixels. The higher the resolution, the more pixels in an image and therefore the greater the image quality. An image file that is 1 megapixel (MP) can make a photo realistic print of 5x7 inches; a 2MP file can make an 8x10 print; a 3MP file can make an 11x14 print.

Resolution: The number of pixels in an image. A higher number correlates to a higher quality image.

DPI: Dots Per Inch. Number of dots a printer or device (like a monitor) can display per linear inch. For example, most laser printers have a resolution of 300 dpi, most monitors 72 dpi. A higher ppi means more image detail and correlates to higher image quality.

Kilobyte: An amount of computer memory, disk space, or document size consisting of approximately one thousand bytes (1,024 bytes). Abbreviated to KB

Megabyte: 1,000,000 bytes -- MB

Gigabyte: 1,000 Megabytes – GB

RAM: Random Access Memory

JPEG: (Joint Photographic Experts Group) This file format is compressed, which means that the pictures information is squeezed to a smaller size before it’s stored on the memory card. Though this compression does not alter the photo’s resolution, it does come at the expense of a slight loss of detail and clarity in the photo. Typically, a camera will offer several JPEG setting, each offering progressively more compression (which translates into being able to store more photos on the memory card), with a commensurate drop in image quality. This is the most common graphic file format used on the web. File extension is .jpg.

TIFF: (Tagged Image File Format) Used widely in printing and publication. This file format is uncompressed. Choosing TIFF means that you’re always assured of getting all the image quality captured and processed by the camera. But TIFF files can be quite large, which means that only a few will fit onto a memory card. A pretty universal format, almost any program can read .tif files.

GIF: (Graphic Interchange Format) Also very common on the Web, used for backgrounds, buttons, small pictures and line drawings. Moderate compression. Clean lines, good for drawings. Limited color depth (256 colors). File extension is .gif

Photoshop: Photoshop’s file format is abbreviated .psd. The .PSD (Photoshop Document) format stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, transparency, text, alpha channels and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .EPS or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality. Photoshop's popularity means that the .PSD format is widely used, and it is supported to some extent by most competing software.