A

Adjustment Layers
Adjustment layers can be used for making many types of adjustments to your work, without actually doing anything to the original layer. It is akin to laying a sheet of clear colored plastic overlay over your work. Your picture will look coloured, but then when you take off the plastic overlay, your picture is unchanged.

Annotating a file
Photoshop 6 has incorporated annotation tools for embedding written design notes or recorded voice comments in your files. Annotated Photoshop PSD or TIFF files an be sent to anyone with Photoshop 6 or saved as a PDF with annotations and layers preserved, which can then be viewed in Adobe Acrobat.

Anti Alias(ing)
In digital signal processing, anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution. Anti-aliasing is used in digital photography, computer graphics, digital audio, and many other applications. More >>

<< Back to top

B

Bicubic Interpolation
In mathematics, bicubic interpolation is an extension of cubic interpolation for interpolating data points on a two dimensional regular grid. The interpolated surface is smoother than corresponding surfaces obtained by bilinear interpolation or nearest-neighbor interpolation. Bicubic interpolation can be accomplished using either Lagrange polynomials, cubic splines or cubic convolution algorithm. More >>

Bilinear Interpolation
In mathematics, bilinear interpolation is an extension of linear interpolation for interpolating functions of two variables on a regular grid. The key idea is to perform linear interpolation first in one direction, and then in the other direction.

Bitmap/Pixmap
In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to the similar concept of a spatially mapped array of pixels. Raster images in general may be referred to as bitmaps or pixmaps, whether synthetic or photographic, in files or in memory. More >>

Burn Tool
The burn tool will darken the pixels dragged over according to the percentage chosen in the tool’s options bar. You can choose to darken highlights, midtones, or shadows. Each must be worked on separately; the tool does not work on all three at once.

<< Back to top

C

CMYK
(short for cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black), and often referred to as process color or four color) is a subtractive color model, used in color printing, also used to describe the printing process itself. Though it varies by print house, press operator, press manufacturer and press run, ink is typically applied in the order of the abbreviation. The CMYK model works by partially or entirely masking certain colors on the typically white background (that is, absorbing particular wavelengths of light). Such a model is called subtractive because inks “subtract” brightness from white. More >>

Color Depth (8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit)
Color depth is a computer graphics term describing the number of bits used to represent the color of a single pixel in a bitmapped image or video frame buffer. This concept is also known as bits per pixel (bpp), particularly when specified along with the number of bits used. Higher color depth gives a broader range of distinct colors. More >>

Curves Tool
The Photoshop curves tool is perhaps the most powerful and flexible image transformation, yet it may also be one of the most intimidating. Since photographers effectively paint with light, curves is central to their practice because it affects light's two primary influences: tones and contrast. Tonal curves are also what give different film types their unique character, so understanding how they work allows one to mimic any film-- without ever having to retake the photograph.

Custom Shapes
When you use your shapes tool you can choose from default shapes or choose custom shapes. You can create and load custom shapes. When you have a good set of custom shapes (vectors) you can create really cool designs such as flyer's, logo's, etc.

<< Back to top

D

Dodge Tool
The dodge tool will lighten the pixels dragged over according to the percentage chosen in the tool’s options bar [see below]. You can choose to lighten highlights, midtones, or shadows. Each must be worked on separately; the tool does not work on all three at once.

DPI (Dots Per Inch)
Dots per inch (DPI) is a measure of spatial printing or video resolution, in particular the number of individual dots or pixels within the span of one linear inch (2.54 cm.)

<< Back to top

E

Coming soon

<< Back to top

F

Coming soon

<< Back to top

G

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is an 8-bit-per-pixel bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability. More >>

<< Back to top

H

Coming soon

<< Back to top

I

Coming soon

<< Back to top

J

JPEG
In computing, JPEG (pronounced JAY-peg;) is a commonly used method of compression for photographic images. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10 to 1 compression with little perceivable loss in image quality. More >>

<< Back to top

K

Coming soon

<< Back to top

L

Lab Colour
A Lab color space is a color-opponent space with dimension L for lightness and a and b for the color-opponent dimensions, based on nonlinearly-compressed CIE XYZ color space coordinates. The coordinates of the Hunter 1948 L, a, b color space are L, a, and b. However, Lab is now more often used as an informal abbreviation for the CIE 1976 (L*, a*, b*) color space (also called CIELAB, whose coordinates are actually L*, a*, and b*). Thus the initials Lab by themselves are somewhat ambiguous. The color spaces are related in purpose, but differ in implementation. More >>

<< Back to top

M

Coming soon

<< Back to top

N

Nearest-Neighbor Interpolation
Nearest-neighbor interpolation (also known as proximal interpolation or point sampling in some contexts) is a simple method of multivariate interpolation in 1 or more dimensions. Interpolation is the problem of approximating the value for a non-given point in some space, when given some values of points around that point. The nearest neighbor algorithm simply selects the value of the nearest point, and does not consider the values of other neighboring points at all, yielding a piecewise-constant interpolant. The algorithm is very simple to implement, and is commonly used (usually along with mipmapping) in real-time 3D rendering to select color values for a textured surface.

<< Back to top

O

Options Bar
The Option Bar is the area beneath File Edit Image etc that changes to display options specific to the Tool selected in the Tool Bar.

<< Back to top

P

Pixel Aspect Ratio
The term pixel aspect ratio is used in the context of computer graphics to describe the layout of pixels in a digitized image. Most digital imaging systems use a square grid of pixels—that is, they sample an image at the same resolution horizontally and vertically. But there are some devices that do not (most notably some common standard-definition formats in digital television and DVD-Video) so a digital image scanned at a vertical resolution twice that of its horizontal resolution (i.e. the pixels are twice as close together vertically as horizontally) might be described as being sampled at a 2:1 pixel aspect ratio, regardless of the size or shape of the image as a whole. More >>

<< Back to top

Q

Coming soon

<< Back to top

R

RGB Colour Model
The RGB color model is an additive color model in which red, green, and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue. More >>

<< Back to top

S

Coming soon

<< Back to top

T

Coming soon

<< Back to top

U

Coming soon

<< Back to top

V

Vector Shape Tool
In Photoshop, you can use the Vector Shape tools to create an object for placement on your image. Vector Shapes are created based on mathematical calculations rather than a specific number and pattern of pixels; this allows them to be resized without causing the image to become jagged, or pixelated. Every time a vector shape is changed in any way, Photoshop redraws the image, filling in pixels as necessary; therefore, no quality is lost. The Vector Shape tools include the Rectangle tool, the Rounded Rectangle tool, the Ellipse tool, the Polygon tool, the Line tool, and the Custom Shape tool. The Custom Shape tool lets you select a shape from a library of available shapes, such as arrows, check marks, footprints, and stars.

<< Back to top

W

Coming soon

<< Back to top

X

Coming soon

<< Back to top

Y

Coming soon

<< Back to top

Z

Zoom Tool
Photoshop's "zoom" facility is very versatile and allows you to zoom in and out of an image in many different ways. You can even have different views of the same document open at once, with different zoom levels!

<< Back to top