Image Editing

Programs that specialize in creating or editing pictures are called image editors.

There are many, many image data formats.

[resource: Intro to Graphics Image Formats]

There are two major classes of image editor: Bitmap (or raster) and Vector

[resource: Bitmapped vs. Vector Images]

[resource: A beginners guide to bitmaps]

Bitmap uses pixels. Each image is "painted" in colored dots. Bitmapped graphics can be transformed in many ways, but always as a collection of pixels. The image has no intrinsic, or "built in" structure.

Common bitmap type data types at the file level are:

• BMP
• TIFF
• GIF
• JPEG

Examples of popular bitmap type image editors are:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Macromedia FireWorks
• PaintShop Pro by JASC Software
  • PaintShop Pro Basics

Vector graphics use mathematics to model objects. From the user perspective, this means is that you can edit the object as an object with internal structure. e.g. You could drag on a square to make it a rectangle.

[resource: What?Is Defintion of Vector Graphics]