Copyright is a legal term that describes the rights given to people who create certain categories of work. It applies to all sorts of written and recorded materials:
software
drawings
photographs
music
original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works
sound recordings,
films
broadcasts, cable programmes
the typographical arrangement of published editions
On the internet, a 'notify and take down' approach is often used: if material that infringes someone's copyright is being carried on a service (eg by an ISP), and the rights owners tell the service providers about this, then service providers may be obliged to remove that material as soon as possible.
In many countries, rights holders are getting court orders to require internet service providers to stop people from accessing websites which let copyright material be downloaded without the owner's permission.
Rights Managed Images
In photography and the stock photo industry, Rights Managed, or RM is a copyright license that allows one time use of a photo as specified by the license- eg in return for a certain fee, and in a certain way.
If someone wants to use a RM photo for something else (ie not covered by the original license) an additional license needs to be purchased.
RM licences can be non-exclusive or exclusive basis.
The four common licenses or business models in the stock photography industry are:
This is an 8 bit format, so maximum number of colours supported by it is 256.
Uses the LZW compression algorithm.
Developed in 1987 by CompuServe to provide a colour image format for their file downloading areas.
Enhanced in 1989 to support for animation delays and transparent background colours.
The format favours flat areas of uniform colour with well defined edges - so it is well suited for logos and other sharp-edged line art with a limited number of colours and simple animations.
PNG
pronounced Ping
A bitmap graphic format which uses lossless compression.
Developed to surpass the limitations of GIF format.
Patent-free,
It has better compression than GIF, although the difference in compression rate for small images is no more than 5%
It allows up to 24 bit in colour, so supports millions of colours and provides greater depth of colour,
Doesn't support animation.
BMP
An uncompressed proprietary bitmap format which was invented by Microsoft: today, there is no reason to use it.
TIFF
Tagged Image File Format: a format released in 1992 by Aldus (Adobe Systems)
In principle, it is a very flexible image format that can be lossless or lossy, because the details of the image storage algorithm are stored in the file.
In practice, most graphics programs which use TIFF do not do any compression, so it is used almost always as a lossless uncompressed image storage format. Because of this, TIFF file sizes are quite big.
Some programs use LZW )a lossless compression algorithm) with TIFF files, but it's not universally supported.
PSD, PSP,
These are proprietary formats used by graphics programs.
Photoshop files are .PSD,
Paint Shop Pro files are .PSP.
These are the preferred working formats as you edit images using these tools, because only the proprietary format for the program gives you access to all the editing features.
For example, these packages use layers to build complex images, and layer information is lost in non-proprietary formats like TIFF and JPG.
That said, it is good practise to always save the end result as a standard TIFF or JPG file (as well as the PSD or PSP) to maintain forward compatibility if the applications have major changes in future.
Some other proprietary formats:
AI – Adobe Illustrator File
CDR – Corel Draw File
Proprietary simply means that the file format is not open source, ie it is the property of the company who invented it or whoever they have since sold the right to.
Compression algorithms
Compression algorithms are ways of saving data in a computer file, so that the amount of disc-space used by the data is less than the standard format.
Lossless and lossy are words terms that describe whether all original data can be recovered when a compressed file is uncompressed.
Lossless: every single bit of data that was originally in the file remains after the file is uncompressed.
Lossy: some data is missing.
One good source: https://www.pixelsurplus.com/ (watch for free for personal and commercial use). Some of my favourites
Adrenaline - a playful, modern, script font. Good for logos, prints, quotes, magazine headers and clothing
Briberra hand lettering script font with stylistic alternates & swashes, good for designs and branding, Includes multi lingual characters, supports PUA available in OTF and TTF formats. To add an underline to any word just type underscore + number (from 1 to 5). eg Brib_3erra in the main preview.
Build - solid geometry and medium bold weight, inspired by German editorial design and their solid fonts. From https://www.pixelsurplus.com/freebies/build-free-sans-serif-typeface
Empire
Fifita - geometric (ie rounded) sans-serif font family with strong features and clean line structure. Has 150+ ligature glyphs. Good for body text and titles.
Forward, handcrafted typeface with a vintage feel and Regular, Rough & Rounded styles and italics for each version! Inlcudes some alternate characters. Good for vintage branding, apparel, labels, badges & lockups. Maveryk - a chunky font with some roughness and uneven edges (feels hand drawn). Good for headlines, labels branding - anything needing a strong vintage or industrial look. Free version is uppercase only.
Cidehouse C9EHCK NAME) - free is uppercase only, quite narrow
Reman Script - monoline script, smooth hand-drawn signature style, large loopy capitals. Use with simple sans serif fonts, or brands or logos.
Restless - has natural flowing characters made with brush texture in a signature style and a loose baseline. Good for casual looks, quotes, signature logos, greeting cards,
Savage - aggressive and choppy, hand drawn feel. Use for creepy, spooky, horror, , rock 'n roll, etc.
Stay Classy - simple handwritten script. Contemporary style. Looks good with all-caps serif fonts.
WT Bradford - inspired by display, sign-writing and packaging from the early 1900's, Useful for displays, signs, label designs, badges, logos, prints, apparel - with an old time / Americana feel. Free version https://www.pixelsurplus.com/freebies/wt-bradford-free-font
Colour model or colour mode is a way to define colour: it describes how colour will appear on the computer screen or when printed.
Some colour models are:
RGB
HSB
CYMK
Greyscale
The RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colour model
This colour model is used for colours that will show on TV screens or computer monitors.
A value between 0 and 255 is assigned to each of the colours – Red, Green and Blue - and the resulting colour is made up of the combination of them.
For a purely blue colour: Red is 0, Green is 0 and Blue is 255 (pure blue).
For Black: Red, Green and Blue are 0
For White, Red, Green and Blue are all 255 (white light is made up of all colours on the spectrum, black the absence of them all).
The HSB-Hue, Saturation, Brightness colour model
Hue
The the "basic colour" of something, measured as an angular value on the colour wheel.
Saturation
This measures the purity of the colour, also called chromaticity, especially in TV and video work.
A yellow that can't get any yellower is fully saturated.
To desaturate a color add grey. Or think of it as subtracting colour and leaving grey behind (use which-ever description is more intuitive).
Brightness
This is determined by how much black is mixed with the colour.
Colors aren't all perceived as being the same brightness, even when they are at full saturation, so the term can be misleading. This on it as the z-axis of a colour cylinder.
CMYK-Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black
This colour model is used for print work. It describes colours according to percentages of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.
Commercial printers uses these four colours to reproduce full colour artwork in magazines, books and brochures. By combining them on paper in varying percentages, the illusion of lots of colours is created.
Grayscale
In Grayscale mode an image is made up from different shades of gray in an image. Every pixel has a brightness value ranging from 0 (black) to 255 (white) - so in an 8‑bit greyscale image, there can be up to 256 shades of gray.
In 16-and 32‑bit images, the number of shades in an image is much greater than in 8‑bit images.
Grayscale values can also be measured as percentages of black ink coverage (0% is equal to white, 100% to black).
See this video for a view on how the colour models are different in what they can represent:
Colour depth
This is the number of bits which are allocated to store the value of a colour which is displayed. The more bits per pixel, the more colours that potentially can be displayed Each bit has a value of 0 or 1, so one bit can represent two colours. N bits can represent 2^N colours so:
1 bit = 2 colours
4 bit = 16 colours (= 2x2x2x2)
8 bit = 256 colours
24 bit = 16,777,216 colours
Printing equipment today cna usually handle up to 8 bit colour - display screens can go far higher.
Colour Balance
This characteristic of a multi-colour image has a high value when the relative density (luminance - should this be luminescence) of all colours in the image is about the same and no one colour dominates.
Contrast, Brightness and Gamma
Brightness
Traditional brightness brightens the entire image from the shadows to the highlights equally.
Gamma is an alternative, non-linear, method of adjusting brightness. It works by changing the mid-tones of the image only, not the highlights. Increasing Gamma can make an image look brighter, but it does so by increasing the brightness of the shadows and mid-tones, not the highlights.
Contrast
Contrast is the separation between the darkest and brightest areas of a image.
Increasing contrast increases this separation, so shadows are darker and highlights are brighter.
Decreasing contrast brings the shadows up and takes the highlights down, so they become closer to one another.
Adding contrast usually adds "pop" and makes an image look more vibrant while decreasing contrast can make an image look duller.
Transparency
In Photoshop, all layers, except Background layers, are transparent, ie have transparency capabilities.
Even if a layer is filled with pixels, eg with a full size image, or a fill colour, the layer itself has a transparency value, and if this is set to a high value, or if pixels on the top layer are erased or masked, it allows other layers below to show through.
You can give any layer a degree of transparency by adjusting its opacity: high opacity = low transparency, ie they are the inverse of each other.
If necessary, the background layer can be converted to a regular transparent layer.
An image made of lots (hundreds, thousands or millions) of tiny pieces of colour information. The pieces may be either pixels (colour blocks on an electronic screen) or dots ("blobs" of ink on a printed item).
Some raster file types:
jpg (jpeg)
psd - Photoshop File
png
tiff (tagged image file format)
bmp
gif
Also - TO BE CONFIRMED
PSP – Paint Shop Pro File
XCF – Gimp File
CPT – Corel Photo Paint
Vector
An image drawn using points, lines and mathematical curves.
A 1” x 1” square raster image a at 300 dpi has 300 individuals pieces of information
A similar vector image only has four points (one for each corner) and the instruction that they form a square; software that processes vector images uses maths to connect the dots correctly.
Usually used in logos (which may need to be printed in very different sizes) and where a sharper finish is required.
Some vector file types:
AI – Adobe Illustrator File
EPS – Encapsulated Post Script
PDF – Portable Document Format
PSD – Photoshop File (yes, Photoshop can work with both raster and vector formats)
