With Photoshop open, click on File heading at the top left of the menu bar and select Open. You will be directed to the most recent location of images or folders last used to open a file. Navigate to the folder location or image you wish to open. If files are arranged in a list format, you can change to thumbnail view to see a mini version of each image. Make your selection and click on the Open button.
As we have already established, resizinging an image in Photoshop is done for specific reasons and can make a big difference to someone you are emailing the image to so they can view it properly.
But as we have also established, most all web images are based
on 72 pixels per inch. So now we must decide the use of the image and how we are going to manage the image's intended view ability.
So, most digital cameras today save their images in JPG (or sometimes known as JPEG) format and most professional photographers also use RAW format as well. For this discussion, we'll stay with JPG's and talk about some of the other more typical file formats.
JPG's are a compressed format image. This is convenient since a lot of images are moved around the internet, used in web pages, and most of all, need to be stored on hard drives and other storage media. If the image can be compressed, it takes up less space when it is stored.
But there are other image formats that are also compressed. One is GIF format and another is BMP or bitmap. Both of these formats are also used in web design with some notable differences.
Adobe® Photoshop Class #2
Based on what you have just learned about Photoshop in the previous lesson, we can start to appreciate its power, flexibility, creative potential and daily usefulness. This understanding will also drive our need to learn more and more so we can become proficient. Lastly, we come to understand the desire we all have for a creative outlet.
Let's recap a bit...
Clicking on the Image heading of the menu bar, you will see a list of selections for you to choose from. Clicking on Image Size... will take you to your picture's size specifications in both pixels and inches.
Let's say we are going to make a web image. Since we want to resize the proportions to 72 pixels per inch from 300 pixels per inch, we would intentionally keep Resample Image checked on so that the resolution does not affect the image size when we adjust it.
Note that when you change the resolution, the file size goes from 8.47 mb to less than a meg... you are throwing away image detail for the sake of resolution. If you left the resolution at 300, the image would not fit on your screen. In fact it would be around 8 times too big for web use! Are you getting it now?
When you have successfully changed the resolution, you are now ready to choose your intended file format and save the file.
The Save As menu, left, has these file format options to select from. You find them by clicking on the down arrow next to the current selection. If the file is already a JPG, it will have a check next to it.
Ok, now you can see the GIF and BMP formats, but let's look at some of the others and why you would choose them.
The top item is the native Photoshop format. Your JPG would be saved in this format only if you have a text layer over it. Otherwise, you would also be able to save it as a PhotoShop PDF or Portable Document Format, PhotoShop EPS (Encapsulated) file, or a TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) image. These are non-compressed files for publication.
I spoke of RAW file format which you can see is available but is not an advised one to use. RAW files come from professional digital cameras employee certain valuable color information used by professionals for reproduction.
Finally, there are lesser used formats such as PCX, Scitex CT, Targa or PICT formats, all of which have very little reference in today's world of advertising or web graphics and imaging.
I hope this information has helped shed some light on questions you might have had on file formats. A good rule of thumb is use JPG unless otherwise instructed. See you in the next lesson....
Although the BMP format is similar to JPG, it is generally considered to be a graphic file format and not well suited for images any longer. It is also a larger file size when saved than the compressed format of the JPG.
GIF formats are even smaller file sizes than JPG with one important aspect; they also have a diminished or confined color ga mat range... in simpler terms; not as good. It is suited for small, quick loading web graphics and tiny images, often thumbnail size pictures.
There's more about formats coming but let's get back to the order of our task at hand...
