7. Gathering Images from the Internet:
Changing Formats
Graphics
Photos
Video Clips
Gathering Images
There are many ways to acquire various varieties of graphics. Camera film can be commercially developed and pictures returned on a floppy disk in digital format. Many scanners are available for around $100. Digital cameras are becoming popular and their prices are falling. Another popular method used to gather graphic images is from the Internet. The Internet is worldwide shared resources. Individuals and companies place information on the Internet for sharing. One of the restrictions is that you should always give credit to the source whenever possible. The main restriction is that you should never use another's work for personal gain without their permission.
Changing Formats
We briefly discussed formats in lesson three. Recalling that a computer is merely a recorder / player; that all instructions are stored in collections called files; in order to use the computer as a tool instructions must be available to code and decode information. With this in mind today's personal computers have available to them many software packages (stored instruction) for viewing and processing (altering) graphic images of all types. You must have software to perform a task. The software allows you to communicate with the computer's processor using menus and dialog boxes. These selections you make allow you to alter graphics. You have seen so far in this course many of the changes you can make.
The Format of a graphic relates to the application used to code the information. Lower level formats can be used to convert images to different higher level or more specific formats. Nearly all applications can view and save bit-mapped images (.bmp). Bit mapped files are large and usually are not used for storage purposes. They are very convenient for changing from one application's format to another's. This process of changing formats occurs in all computing processes and applications. You should be familiar with this conversion process. The actual conversion takes place usually when a file is being "saved as". The "save as" dialog box asks you for the file type, this is where the conversion takes place. Today we want to explore some of these and note file sizes. Remember the signs we created in lesson one. Some of their various formats and associated file sizes are shown below.
For additional information on formats see Class 4
Graphics
Today's computers treat all visually displayed information as graphics. Character sets called fonts have stored instructions allowing the computer to display text of many styles. These instructions are in a graphical format which your application, viewer, and printer can interpret. Lower level graphics with few colors are used for signs, posters, and simple art work. As the information content in a graphic increases the file size increases. The number of colors increase with the number of bits in a binary word or byte. Today's computers are very capable of photographic quality.
Photos
As we have experienced in previous lessons a lot of fun and memories can be had with photographs. Photographers of yesteryear covered their heads with a black cloth, inserted a photograph plate in a simple box containing an optical lens. Pictures were magic. People are always looking to find new ways to express themselves. A picture (graphic) is worth a thousand words. Please take the time to explore all of the many aspects of computer graphics. Your enjoyment will increase with your capabilities.
Video Clips
Digital TV is here. Computers have made digital imaging practical. Digital images are very clear. Computer technology has spawned the whole telecommunications field. Video capture cards are readily available for personal computers. Software for use in editing video clips is also on the market. As this technology expands there will no doubt be a whole course dedicated to animation with personal computers. Today the affordability of the technology has limited it in most instances to commercial activities. The entertainment field, aerospace and medical industries are using it in virtual reality. "Virtual Reality", the classic oxymoron.
Task
7. Student Exercise.
Visit the Graphics Gallery