Graphic Design Bell Work
4/1: A job printed with four colors of ink on one side of the sheet, and one color of ink on the other.
4/4: A job printed with four colors of ink on both sides of the sheet.
Monday
absolute path: The location of a file or Web page that contains all of the information needed to find the page. The alternative would be relative path, which gives just enough information to get to the page. On the website we use relative path when possible.
accessibility: The ability for a disabled user to use a Web site.
acromatic: Having no color, there being completely black, white, or some shade of gray.
Tuesday
Acrobat: A program owned by Adobe that allows conversion of documents to a PDF format. Used by web masters.
Actions: In Flash, commands associated with frames, objects, or movie clips that provide control over the behavior of those objects.
Wednesday
Additive Color Process: The process of mixing red, green, and blue light to achieve a wide range of colors, as on a color TV screen.
Adjacent Color: An adjoining color. This is important because the eye responds to a strong color that is nearby. It causes a color to look different with adjacent colors than it does if it is by itself.
Thursday
Alignment: Positioning content to the left, right, center, top, or bottom.
Alpha Channel: An additional channel in an image that defines what parts of the image are transparent or semitransparent.
Friday
Alt Text: Alternate text. In web page design, it is text that is displayed if the image cannot be shown.
Analog: A signal that fluctuates in exactly the same manner as the original, both in audio and video.
Animated GIF: A type of sequential file format where multiple bitmap images are displayed one after another.
Animation: The technique of simulating movement by creating slight changes to an object or objects over time.
ANSI: American National Standards Institute. ANSI code is used by some Windows computers for addressing text.
Anti-Aliasing: A graphics software feature that eliminates or softens the jaggedness of low-resolution curved edges.
Apple QuickTime: A format for providing digital audio, video, and presentations.
Archiving: The process of storing data in a secure and safe manner.
ARPANET: Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. A computer network developed by the military, it would evolve into the Internet.
Artifact: Unsightly pixels in a digital image.
Ascender: The parts of a lowercase letter that are taller than the letter "x." Examples are b, d, f, h, k, l, and t.
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Text with no formatting, can be read by most computer systems.
Aspect Ratio: The width-to-height proportions of an image.
Asset: An image, sound, video, or other file that may be used in a web page.
Assistive Device: Hardware enabling a disabled viewer to use a web site.
ATM: Adobe Type Manager, which is a program that causes fonts to appear smooth on any screen at any point size. It also manages font libraries.
Audio: The electronic reproduction of audible sound.
AVI: Audio-Visual Exchange. A Windows-based video format. The file extension is usually .avi.
Background: An object or color that lies behind all of the other objects.
Background eraser: A tool that erases areas that it is dragged over. It usually results in the area being changed to transparent.
Backing up: Making a copy of your file in case you ruin it while working on it.
Backslant: A name for characters that slant the opposite way of italic characters.
Banding: A visible stair-stepping of shades in a gradient.
Bandwidth: A measurement of how fast data is transferred over a network.
Baseline: The implied reference line that the bottom of capital letters sit on.
Beta Test: A part of the software testing process before the completed software is released.
Bezier Curves: Curves that can be scaled without the "jaggies" that usually exist in bitmapped images.
Binary: Any downloadable file that does not contain ASCII text. Pictures, sounds, and movies fall into this category.
Binding: Securing the pages of a book. Examples are saddle-stitching (using staples) and perfect-bound (sets of folded pages sewn or glued together).
Bit: Short for binary digit, it is the smallest unit of information.
Bitmap image: A picture that is made up of dots or pixels.
Bleed: Page data that goes beyond the trim marks on a page. Mr. Moats calls a picture that touches the edge of a page a "bleeding picture."
BMP: A Windows bitmap image format that is low-quality but a large file size.
Body Copy: The text part of the copy on a page. This is different from the headlines on that page.
Boldface: A heavier, blacker version of a typeface.
Bookmark: HTML feature that allows you to save a link to a Web page. Microsoft Internet Explorer calls it Favorites.
Bounding Box: An area that defines the outer border of an object in your composition. In Photoshop we have to check the "Show Transform Controls" box to turn this feature on.
BPS: Bits Per Second. A measurement of how fast data is moved from one place to another.
Brightness: The overall percentage of lightness in an image.
Black: The absence of color in an image.
Browser Compatibility: A term that compares the way a Web page functions on different browsers. Our school webmaster deals with this every day.
Burn: In Photoshop, to make a selected part of an image darker. There is a "burn" button on the toolbox. The opposite of burn is dodge.
Button: An element a user can click to cause some sort of effect.
Button State: How a button looks depending on where the mouse is. When a button is clicked, it is in Down state, when not being used, it is in Up state. When the mouse is hovered over it, it is in Over state. (-20 if you skip this one)
Byte: The standard unit of measure of a file size.
Cable modem: Device that is connected to a computer that lets it connect to the Internet over the cable TV line.
Cache: A copy of the files that your browser has already seen and can use without downloading them again. Cache causes pages to load faster. Your teacher has rigged the school website so pages don't load into cache.
Calibration: To check or correct the gradation of color on a color monitor.
Calibration bars: a strip of color tones used to check printing quality.
Camera ready: In the commercial printing industry, it means that a document is ready to go to press.
Cap Line: The theoritical line to which the tops of capital letters are aligned.
Caps: An abbreviation for capital letters.
Caps and Small Caps: Typesetting in which the lower case letters are capitalized but smaller than the upper case letters. It does not contain any lower-case letters.
Cel: A transparent sheet of film material that can be drawn on and used in the production of cartoons.
Clip: A small piece of video or audio footage.
Clip Art: Collections of predrawn and digitized graphics.
Clipboard: Computer memory that contains data that has been copied. In this class, it usually contains a picture that has been copied.
Cloning: Copying the pixels from one part of a picture to another. Cloning can be done from one picture to another or inside the same picture.
CMYK: The process colors used in four-color printing.
Code: Text that gives instructions to a computer or an application.
Collate: To put pages together in proper order so they can be bound.
Color Balance: The combination of yellow, magenta, and cyan needed to produce a natural gray.
Color Cast: Changing a hue by adding a trace of another hue, such as yellowish green or pinkish blue.
Color Chart: A printed chart of combinations of CMYK colors that can be used when designing a project.
Color Control Strip: A printed strip of reference colors that are used as a visual aid by the person printing the project.
Color Conversion: Changing the color mode of an image. In our class it is mostly changing an image from Indexed Color to RGB.
Color Correction: Removing unwanted tints of an image in an effort to improve the appearance.
Color Depth: Maximum number of colors available for an image. Also known as bit depth.
Color Gamut: The entire range of colors available on a particular device such as a monitor or printer.
Color Model: A system for describing color, such as RGB, HLS, CIELAB, or CMYK.
Color Picker: A function that assists in selected or setting a color.
Color Proof: Full-color test print that shows exactly how the colors will look in actual (final) printing. This is important because you want to get the colors right before you print out hundreds (or thousands) of copies of something. (Minus 15 for skipping this one.)
Color Separation: The processes of separating the primary color components for printing.
Color Sequence: Order in which inks are printed. Also called laydown sequence and rotation.
Color Space: A system for describing color numerically. Also known as a "color model."
Colorimeter: A measuring instrument that measures and quantifies color. Used to match digital values to cloth and other physical samples.
Comment: A line in programming code that is meant to be read but not executed. Your teacher uses comments that are hidden inside web pages.
Commercial Printing: Printing on high-quality, high-resolution printing presses.
Comp: Comprehensive artwork used to present the general color and layout of a page.
Composite Proof: A version of a page in which the process colors appear together to represent full color.
Compression: A technique used to reduce the file size by analyzing occurrences of similar data. It sometimes results in a loss of image quality and/or resolution.
Condensed Type: A typeface in which the width of the letters is narrower than the standard letters of the font.
Configuration: The total combination of hardware components that make up a computer system.
Continuous Tone: An image that has continuous shades of color all the way through it. Camera-film photographs are continuous tone images but digital photographs are not.
Contrast: The degree of difference between the dark and light areas of a picture. Your teacher often refers to it as 'the blacks are black and the whites are white.'
Controller: The stop, start, play, and rewind buttons that may be added to audio or video that is on a web page.
Cookie: Information a web server writes to your computer while you are browsing a website. Data may include login information and your user preferences.
Coordinates: Two values used in a graph to specify position. In graphic design, this is sometimes used to specify a certain position on a picture.
Copyright: Ownership of a work. It permits the owner to keep others from using it without permission or payment.
CPU: Central Processing Unit. The main part of the computer that routes all of the system information.
Crop marks: Printed lines that are used as guides for the final trimming of pages within a press sheet.
Cropping: The elimination of parts of a picture that are not needed.
Crossover: An element of a book that appears on both pages of the reader's spread, crossing over the gutter (middle). Can be done with text or pictures.
Dedicated Line: A direct network line between two computers.
Default: What a computer will do if the user does not make a choice. For example, the default font and size in Microsoft Word is Calibri size 11.
Demographics: Audience research factors concerned with such items as age, gender, marital status, and income.
Densitometer: An electronic instrument that measures the ability of a material to absorb light.
Density: The ability of a material to absorb light. In film it refers to the opacity of an image. Opacity means the ability to see through something.
Descender: The part of a letter that extends below the line. The letters y, p, g, and j contain descenders.
Dial-up: Temporary connection to the Internet using a phone line.
Die Line: Lines that indicate where the finished product will be cut into its final shape.
Diffused Light: Light that illuminates a relatively large area and creates soft shadows with the use of a key light.
Digital: Describes electronic technology that generates, stores, and processes data. The non-digital way of doing something is often called analog.
Dingbat: A font character that displays a picture instead of a letter.
Directional Light: Light that illuminates a relatively small area with a strong light beam. Creates harsh, well-defined light areas.
Direct-to-Plate: The process for creating printing plates direct from digital files. This reduces cost and increases speed by eliminating the need for expensive film.
Disconnected Rollover: When you hold your mouse over one part of an image, a different part of the image changes.
Discretionary Hyphen: A hyphen that will occur only if the word appears at the end of a line, not if the word appears in the middle of a line.
Dithering: The display or print (an image) without sharp edges so that there appear to be more colors in it than are really available.
DNS: Short for Domain Name Server. It maps IP numbers to a more easily remembered name.
Domain Name: A unique name that is used to identify a website.
Dot Gain: The growth of a dot that occurs whenever ink soaks into paper.
Dot Pitch: On a computer monitor, the distance between dots of a display.
Double-Page Spread: A design that spans the two pages that are visible to a reader when they open a book, page, or newspaper.
Down State: Is when the mouse pointer is over the button and the mouse button is down.
Download: Transfer of data from a server to your computer's hard drive.
Downloadable Fonts: Typefaces that can be stored on a disk and then downloaded to your printer.
DPI: Dots Per Inch. The measurement of resolution of printers, typesetting machines, and computer monitors.
Driver: Software that tells your computer how to use an added device such as a printer or scanner.
Drop Shadow: A duplicate of a graphic element placed slightly behind and offset from it, giving the effect of a shadow.
Drum Scanner: A color scanner in which the original document is wrapped around a rotary scanning drum. It is more expensive and more complex than the common flatbed scanner.
DSL: Digital Subscriber Line. High-speed Internet access using the phone line and a specialized phone connection.
Duotone: The separation of a photograph into black and one other color.
Electrostatic: The method in which toner is transferred to paper in our laser printers.
Element: The smallest unit of a graphic. It also could be a component of a page layout or a design. It could be an object, text block, or graphic.
Em Dash: A dash (the long dash, not a hyphen) that indicates the separation of elements of a sentence or a clause.
Em Space: A space that is of equal width in points to the point size. An em space in 10 point type is 10 points wide.
Embedding: Including a complete copy of a text file or image within a document, with or without a link.
Emulsion: The coating of light-sensitive material (silver halide) on a piece of film or photographic paper.
En Dash: A dash (the hyphen) that is half the width of an em dash.
En Space: A space that is equal to half the width of an em space.
End User: The people who will be viewing and using your designs.
EPS: Encapsulated PostScript. It is an image file sometimes used in desktop publishing.
Ethernet: The standard method of connecting computers to a network and that's how we do it at this school.
Event: Something that happens in a video clip; for example, a user clicking a button or when the clip reaches a specific frame.
Event Sounds: Sounds that are triggered by specific events.
Expanded Type: A typeface that is actually wider than the standard letters of a font.
Export: To save a file in a format that can be read by some other application. In this class, we use Fireworks for that.
FAQ: Frequently asked questions. Usually on a website, this is a page that answers common questions.
File Compression: The process of making a file smaller. In this class we compress pictures, but compression is often done with many different types of files.
File Extension: The suffix used to identify file types. For example, the file extension for many of the pictures we do in here is .jpg
Fill: To add a tone or color to the area inside a closed object. In this class we often use the Paint dump tool for this.
Filter: A small program that creates a special effect or performs some other function inside an image.
Firewall: A program designed to protect unauthorized outsiders from tampering with a computer.
Flatbed Scanner: A scanner on which the document is laid down on a flat glass and then scanned.
Flop: A mirror image of a picture or clip art.
Focus: The state of being active. On websites, the last object clicked usually has focus.
Font: A complete collection of all characters of a given typeface. Some fonts are free, some are copyrighted and cannot be legally copied.
Font Substitution: A process where the computer inserts a different font other than the one originally used. This happens when we use a font on a document, but then open the document on another computer that doesn't have that font. Your teacher deals with this every day.
Force Justify: A command that causes the space between the letters and words to expand so that the text fits perfectly on a line.
Frame Rate: The number of images in a row that are displayed in one second, usually called fps (frames per second).
Frame-by-Frame Animation: Animation that uses a series of frames that looks like a flipbook type of animation.
FTP: File transfer protocol. It is usually used to transfer your files from a computer to the Internet.
Gigabyte: Approximately 1 billion bytes.
GIF: Graphics Exchange Format, it is used for clip art and drawn graphics. It is prounced 'jif.'
Glyph: Any character of a font.
Gradient: A gradual transition from one color to the other. In Photoshop the Gradient tool is behind (or in front of) the Paint Bucket tool.
Graininess: The sand-like or granular appearance of a picture. Graininess becomes more obvious with faster film and how much the photo is enlarged.
Grayscale: A picture that is made up of various shades of gray ranging from black to white.
Greeking: Nonsense text used to define a layout before the copy is available.
Grid: Using horizontal and vertical guides to decide where the text and graphics will be placed.
GUI: Graphical User Interface. It is the basis of Macintosh and Windows operating systems.
Gutter: Extra space between pages of a layout. In a book, it is the middle section where binding occurs.
H and J: Hyphenation and Justification. The rules used by a page-layout program that determines how a line of text should be hyphenated and how the spacing of the letters is done.
Hard Disk: A hard drive. This is the storage drive that is inside your computer.
Hardware: The parts of the computer that you can touch.
Hex Values: Numbers in the hexidecimal system, commonly used for naming colors. For example, #000000 is black, #ffffff is white.
Image Map: A graphic containing hotspots. In other words, a picture that has a link to a webpage inside it.
Imposition: Arranging pages on a sheet that, after the sheet is printed, folded, and cut, the pages will be in the correct order.
Indexed Color Image: A picture that has a limited number of colors. A GIF is an example of this.
Initial Caps: Text in which the first letter of each word is capitalized.
Inline Graphic: A graphic that is placed in a body of text. These graphics will move with the text in which they are placed.
Intensity: The degree of color saturation.
Intranet: A small network that allows users to share resources without confidential information being shared across the Internet.
Jaggies: Visible steps in the curved edged of a graphic that is seen when the image is enlarged.
JavaScript: A scripting language that can be embedded into web pages.
JPEG: A type of image that is lossy and is commonly used on web pages.
KB: Kilobyte. Approximately 1,000 bytes.
Kerning: Moving letters closer together or farther apart to achieve a better appearance.
Keyframe: One frame in a sequence of an animation. The other frames originate from it.
Keywords: Words that identify a web page and is used by search engines to find it. They are embedded into the coding of the web page.
LAN: Local Area Network. This is a computer network that is limited to one location, usually an office.
Landscape: Printing a page with the paper rotated. The print goes across the wider side of the page.
Laser Printer: A printer that uses a laser beam to imprint toner onto a piece of paper using a combination of heat and pressure.
Lasso tool: A selection tool in graphics applications.
Layer: In Photoshop, a function where elements of a picture can be kept separate from each other.
Layout: The arrangement of text and graphics on a page.
Leading: Space added between lines of type.
Leased line: A phone line that provides a full-time connection from your location to another location and is always connected.
Letter spacing: The insertion or addition of white space between letters of words.
Library item: A re-usable item that can be placed in multiple instances in multiple locations.
Ligature: Letters that are joined together as a single unit of type.
Line Art: Any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue.
Lossy: A data compression method characterized by the loss of some data. In this class, we use the jpg format which is lossy.
Magic eraser: A tool used to convert solid colors to transparency with a single click.
Margins: The non-printing areas of a page, or the line at which text starts or stops.
Marquee: The blinking lines indicating the area selected with the selection tool. Sometimes called "marching ants."
Masking: A technique used to display certain areas of a picture.
MB: Megabyte. A measure of data, it's approximately 1 million bytes.
Megahertz: It is used to signify computer speed.
Meta Tag: An optional HTML tag that specifies information about a web page. Search engines use meta tags to record information about the page.
Metallic ink: Printing inks that produce gold, silver, bronze, or metallic colors.
Metaphor: In graphics, it's the visual representation of a concept or idea.
Monochrome: An image in black and white, or with a range of grays.
Morphing: Short for metamorphosis. It is using a computer to animate the gradual transformation of one object into another.
Mottle: Uneven color or tone.
Mouseover: An event that is triggered by the mouse moving over an area on a web page.
Named Colors: A set of colors designated by name and not hex numbers. There are only a few named colors and many hex colors.
Nesting: Placing a graphic file within other graphic files, usually resulting in errors in printing.
Netiquette: Guidelines for how to act online.
Neutral: Any color that is absent of hue such as white, gray, or black.
Noise: Unwanted signals or data that can reduce the quality of output.
Non-Breaking Space: A extra space added to an html page using a special code.
Non-Reproducible Colors: Colors in a photo that are impossible to reproduce using process inks.
Object-Oriented Art: Vector-based artwork or line art.
Oblique: A slanted character, a term often used to refer to italic typefaces.
Offset Lithography: A printing method where the image goes from a metal plate to a rubber-coated cylinder, then to the paper.
Omni-Directional: On microphones, it is when a device can pick up sounds equally well from all directions.
Onion Skin Tools: Tools that enable you to edit one keyframe while viewing (dimly) the other frames.
Opacity: The degree to how much you can see through an object. In Photoshop this is expressed as a percentage.
OpenType: A font format developed by Adobe and Microsoft.
Options Bar: Automatically displays in the menu bar area of your Photoshop window and shows what options are available for use.
Orphan: A single or partial word or line of a paragraph that is displayed at the bottom of a page.
Over State: A button state that occurs when the user passes the mouse over a button.
Overprint Color: A color made by overprinting any two or more of the primary yellow, magenta, and cyan process colors.
Overprinting: Allowing an element to print over the top of underlying elements instead of knocking them out. Often used with black type.
Palette: A collection of selectable colors.
Palette Well: In Photoshop, an area on the Menu bar to which often-used palettes can be stored for easy access.
Panel: The name given to palettes of tools and options.
Parent: The master element to which secondary elements are related.
PCX: A bitmap image format produced by paint programs.
PDF: Portable Document Format, the usual way of transferring documents across the Internet.
Perspective: The effect of distance in an image.
Pi Fonts: A collection of special characters such as timetable symbols and mathematical signs. Example: Zapf Dingbats.
Pica: Approximately 1/6 of an inch, sometimes used in desktop publishing. Your teacher used this measurement when he was a yearbook advisor.
Pixel: Short for picture element, it is one of the tiny dots generated by a computer to make up an image. More pixels per inch results in higher resolution.
Platform: Type of computer or operating system. Examples are Windows, Macintosh, or Unix.
Playback: The process of running or viewing a digital movie.
Playhead: The cursor at the top of the Timeline that travels during playback to indicate the currently active frame.
Plug-in: Software that adds new features to other software and allows the user to do more. Flash is an example.
PNG: Portable Network Graphics. A new graphics format similar to GIF but with more colors.